'Moon of the Wolf' is okay, but not spectacular

Moon of the Wolf (1972)
Starring: David Janssen, Barbara Rush, Bradford Dillman, and Geoffrey Lewis
Director: Daniel Petrie
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A small Louisanna town is terrorized by a string of brutal, savage murders. Sheriff Whitaker (Janssen) gradually comes to the realization that the murderer isn't quite human, and the trail leads to the front door of the town's leading citizens, Louise and Andrew Rodanthe (Rush and Dillman). But can such a thing as a werewolf really exist?

"Moon of the Wolf" is a pretty straight-forward werewolf movie, complete with the skeptic initially saying "there isn't such a thing as werewolves", the fortune teller who sees doom for the next victims, the wealthy family with a history of strange illnesses, and a list of possible candidates for who the werewolf might be, thus lending a "who-dunnit" aspect to the film until the creature is revealed.

Given that this is a made-for-TV movie that dates from the 1970s, it perhaps goes without saying that the werewolf (when is finally revealed) is in a less than impressive costume--but at least the director seemed to have realized this, and he tries to dwell on it as little of as he can, and he doesn't foolishly attempt any on-screen transformations that his budget doesn't allow for. So, the somewhat underwhelming werewolf doesn't harm the movie any.

Where this film does stand out, however, is that it doesn't take the usual movie route and portray the smalltown Southerners as a bunch of moronic bigots, nor are the wealthy people shown as exploitive racists. Instead, it shows a community where everyone works together... and interracial relationships happen and are accepted. In other words, the film gives a truer portrayal of a small town in the late 20th century than most movies bother to give us. And that keeps the movie in the "Fresh" category. The film also offers an interesting little tidbit: In the world of this movie, lycanthropy can be controlled with the right sort of medication, if taken in the right, timely doses. This is a small (but crucial) part of the plot, and it's the one semi-original thing that the movie brought to the table.

"Moon of the Wolf" has a solid cast that give good performances, and a decent script that brings a couple of minor variations to what we're used to from this sort of movie. I believe lovers or werewolf films will probably enjoy it, but it's not a "must-see.

The Complete Night Stalker, Part Two

With episodes Five through Eight, the "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" televisions series looked like it's finally hit its stride. After a wobbly start--with episodes that ranged from good to downright awful, the series presented a string of decent episodes. I know continue the trip through the 1974 television series, as I review every episode in anticipation of Halloween.

Kolchak: The Night Stalker
(The Complete Television Series Reviewed, Part Two)

Episode Five: The Werewolf
Director: Allen Barron
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When Kolchak is sent on assignment to cover a swingin' singles cruise, he becomes the Reporter Who Cried Werewolf when a murderous beast starts tearing its way through crew and passengers when the full moon rises. Will Kolchak find a priest onboard the ship of sin, so he can get some silver bullets blessed before everyone becomes werewolf chow?

With this episode, the supporting cast at the INS office becomes a major part of the series, and I think the episodes benefit from it--even if Kolchak looks like a total heel with the way he's constantly manipulating and using them. These additional characters coming to the fore heightens the humor of the series, and it gives McGavin recurring actors to play off.

As for this specific story, it's a tense, funny, and fast-paced episode, although the Seventies fashions and "hip" swinger stereotypes can be quite painful to watch. (The couple whose marriage got stronger because they got divorced was pretty funny, though.) The only negative is some of the tall tales Kolchak tells the ship's crew. It's a bit out of character for him to tell such flimsy lies when he knows there's no escape once they're found out.


Episode Six: Firefall
Director: Don Weis
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

When the friends and associates of a celebrated symphony conductor start dying in mysterious fires, Kolchak smells not only the odor of burning flesh, but also a story. However, what he hadn't counted on was that he would become the target of a restless spirit with a love of fires.

This is another excellent episode that balances drama and humor quite nicely. The threat to Kolchak is once again clear and immediate--if he falls asleep, he's likely to spontaneously combust--and he has to put real thought and legwork into saving himself and the main target of the monster in this episode.

"Firefall" would rate Eight Stars if several early scenes weren't marred by reall bad, really cheap special effects. The episode would have been far better served if the crew had gone with even cheaper effects--simply jump cuts of an actor to it seem as though he was appearing and dissapearing.


Episode Seven: The Devil's Platform
Director: Allen Baron
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Kolchak is assigned to cover an Illinois State Sentate race where one of the candidates is receiving more than just finiancial contributions from infernal powers. When Kolchak gets too close to the truth, he is faced with a choice between becoming a servant or sacrifice of Satan.

This is one of the episodes I saw a long time ago, and it's every bit as good as I remember it. The strange dog stalking Kolchak after he accidentically takes possession of the evil politician's (played excellently by Tom Skerritt) amulet that is the focus of his demonic power is a particularly effective part of this episode. Another highpoint is the larger part played by the supporting characters in the newsroom. The ending is a bit too easy and pat, though.


Episode Eight: Bad Medicine
Director: Alex Grasshoff
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

While investigating a series of violent gem heists, Kolchak finds himself on the trail of a shapeshifting, dreamwalking Native American sorcerer who has been cursed with immortality and a never-ending quest for precious stones. Will Kolchak find a way to kill someone who can't be killed... or will he end up in that great newsroom in the sky?

This is another episode that balances comedy and suspense nicely, although I'm sure Richard Keil's Indian sorcerer character looks goofier to modern viewers than he did to those watching in the mid-70s. (And his appearance wasn't supposed to be one of the funny bits, I am certain.)

Kolchak has to use his brains to defeat the threat in this one, and that always makes for a more interesting episode than him just blundering around and getting lucky. The ending  is also pretty strong. All in all, one of the better installments in the series.

Kate Jackson provides chills in'Satan's School for Girls'

Satan's School for Girls (1973)
Starring: Pamela Franklin, Kate Jackson, Jamie Smith-Jackson, Lloyd Bochner, Cheryl Ladd, Jo Van Fleet, and Roy Thinnes
Director: David Lowell Rich
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

While searching for the truth about her sister's suicide, Elizabeth (Franklin) enrolls as a student at the all-girl boarding school she attended. The faculty and girls all seem friendly enough--especially insta-best-friend-on-campus Roberta (Jackson)--but with a title like "Satan's School for Girls", you gotta know there's witchcraft, evil rites, and guest lectures by the Horned One himself going on.


"Satan's School for Girls" is a better-than-average made-for-TV movie from the mid-1970s. Although uneven in its pacing (partly due to the constricting nature of broadcast TV and the habitual, barely veiled recapping of what's happened to catch up those who tuned in late), there is a nice aura of unease that hangs over the whole film, and it even manages to envoke a real sense of dread at several points. (The best of these is when Elizabeth heads into the main building's cavernous basement in search of clues.)

This could possibly have been a 7-Star film if not for the fact that it starts to fall apart in the third act. Up to that point, the filmmakers play a nice game of "maybe it is, maybe it isn't"... as in, maybe Satan WON'T be making an appearance in this film, despite the title. But then there's a really lame murder scene (where the victim could easily have simply reached up and grabbed at the girls who were poking at him with sticks, and thus made his escape), lots of over-the-top melodramatic acting, and an ending that is flat and unsatisfactory, because it's exactly what we expect it to be all along.

Despite its flaws, I think this film is enjoyable for those who like suspense and horror movies that are driven more by atmosphere than sex and gore. Fans of Kate Jackson (like yours truly) will also enjoy it, because she gives a fine performance.

How awful that Allan is haunted or insane

How Awful About Allan (1970s)
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Julie Harris, and Joan Hackett
Director: Curtis Harrington
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Allan (Perkins), who has been suffering from hysterical blindness since the burning death of his father, is released from an asylum and into the care of his sister (Harris). But mysterious events start occuring around Allan, events that fill his blurry world with terror. Is he being haunted by the ghost of his dead father, is his sister trying to drive him insane, or is it all in his mind?


"How Awful About Allan" is a well-staged and perfectly paced modern-day gothic thriller. With a great cast--among which we see Anthony Perkins giving what might have been the best performance of his career--who were working with an intelligent and well-written script, and a director who knows how to deploy his entire arsenal of set design, cinematography, lighting, sound effects, and music to envoke a sense of mystery and dread.

Despite its humble (and sometimes obvious) television origins, this is a film worth seeking out by anyone who is a fan of gothic tales. ("How Awful About Allan" stands as one of the great achievements of the late Aaron Spelling.)

'Death at Love House' is a flawed TV movie

Death at Love House (aka "The Shrine of Lorna Love") (1975)
Starring: Kate Jackson, Robert Wagner, and Sylvia Sidney
Director: E.W. Swackhamer
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Donna and Joel Gregory (Jackson and Wagner) are researching a book about highly-revered and long-dead Hollywood film goddess Lorna Love. They decide to stay visit Lorna's estate, which is still being tended by her long-time housekeeper (Sidney). Things take a turn for the worse when Joel, whose father had had a passionate affair with Lorna, becomes obsessed with the deceased movie star and starts to have waking dreams of a life spent with her. Is Donna losing her husband to the ghost of Lorna Love?!


I enjoy watching Kate Jackson--she's my favorite "Charlie's Angel" and she made "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" the fun show it was. Her quirky voice, cute looks, and superior acting ability brighten everything she's in, and it's only her presence in "Death at Love House" that pulls it up to a rating of Four (and only barely).

This is a film that's well-acted by a literally stellar cast (in addition to the stars, it features cameo appearances by a whole slew of old-time actors and actresses, including horror great John Carradine), and that takes full advantage of the location--which was actually the home of real-life silent film star Harold Lloyd--but which is killed by a atrocious script and some really bad production design/direction at key moments. The film is overburdened by too many elements that don't pay off in any meaningful way (whatever happened to Lorna's "spiritual advisor" who keeps cropping up?), shoddy details when it comes to historical looks (at one point Joel watches one of Lorna's old silent movies,but instead of looking like a leading lady from 1923, she looks just walked off a porn movie set in 1973), and an already reliance on characters behaving stupidly in order to make the plot work (someone tries to kill Donna, there are three people in the house, and no one calls the cops or checks up on the housekeeper?!).

"Death at Love House" is a weak melodrama that tries to be a suspense/horror movie, and it fails. It's too bad to see such a good cast wasted on such a weak movie, especially the wonderful Kate Jackson.

Carl Kolchak and things that stalk the night

Here are two fine made-for-TV-movies that are nearly 40 years old and still scarier than many big-screen horror movies that are released today. Their stories and the main character are timeless, meaning they are also as fresh today as they were back in the early 1970s.

The Night Stalker (1971)
Starring: Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland and Carol Lynley
Director: John Llewellyn Moxey
Steve's Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When a bizarre series of murders hit Las Vegas, down-and-out crimebeat report Carl Kolchak (McGavin) thinks he might have found his ticket back to the Big Time newspaper business. As he pursues leads, however, he becomes increasingly convinced that the murderer is a vampire. Met with disbelief and scoffing from his editors and a desire to cover up the murders from Las Vegas police officials, Carl goes from crusading reporter to crusading vampire hunter.


"The Night Stalker" is an excellent movie, easily equal to many big-budget theatrical releases despite its humble television origins. The dialogue is snappy, the script and characters are all believable and well-crafted, and the mix of humor and suspense is perfectly balanced throughout.

McGavin gives a fabulous performance as Kolchak, going from a wise-cracking beat reporter (coming across almost as having been transported from the 1930s to the 1970s, yet never seeming out of place) with no goal other than to rehabilite his career, to a man who is willing to risk everything to stop a monster that no one but he seems willing to take on. The supporting cast is also universally excellent, as is the camera work. The only complaint I have is the score. It is downright annoying in its innapropriateness at times.



The Night Strangler
Starring: Darren McGavin, Jo Ann Pflug, Simon Oakland and John Carradine
Director: Dan Curtis
Steve's Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

This is another excellent adventure in humor and supernatural suspense, so well-crafted that you'd never imagine that it was originally a TV movie.

Darren McGavin gives another excellent preformance as Kolchak, who, after losing everything but his life as a result of the events in "The Night Stalker", has drifted westward to Seattle. He gets himself hired on with the city's top paper after promising to not make waves... but when he starts covering another series of violent crimes, a disturbing pattern emerges: Every 21 years since the mid-1800s, there have been a series of identical strangulation murders and what few eye witnesses there were have described the same killer. Kolchak again finds himself in the awful position of uncovering a truth that no-one wants to face or deal with. Once again, he is the only one able and willing to take action and stop the deaths.


"The Night Strangler" is one of those rare sequels that is actually better than the original. The dialogue and wit is sharper, McGavin's performace of Kolchac is even better than before, and the suspense in the story gives way to downright scary on several occasions.

(Trivia: Dan Curtis and Richard Matheson had planned a third "Night Stalker" film, in which Kolchak discovers the vampire he faced in "The Night Stalker" wasn't dead. The film never happened, but in its place was the "Night Stalker" televison series, one episode of which incorporated the story idea that would have been the movie.)