Track of the Moon Beast

1976 HorrorScience Fiction 81 minutes Directed by Richard Ashe

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About Track of the Moon Beast

Mineralogist Paul Carlson is in Albuquerque with Kathy Nolan and Professor Johnny Longbow Salina. A meteor fragment lodges in Paul's skull. On moonlit nights he becomes a reptile and kills. Salina finds Native American paintings of the same change centuries earlier. Kathy tries to keep him.

Cast & crew

More about Track of the Moon Beast

Richard Ashe directed. Bill Finger and Charles Sinclair wrote it. The company shot it in July 1972 in Albuquerque, using local extras, and kept the production quiet. It was planned for theaters in 1973 and instead played on television in 1976. Chase Cordell, Leigh Drake, and Gregorio Sala lead the billed cast.

Themes

  • A meteorite in the skull
  • A man who turns reptile by moonlight
  • Paintings of an older case
  • Paul Carlson
  • meteor
  • moon
  • reptile
  • Albuquerque
  • Johnny Longbow

Preservation

Prints survive, including the television version.

Notes

  • The change is tied to the moon, not to every night.
  • The paintings are the proof that it has happened before.
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000 used it in a tenth-season episode in 1999.
  • Finger, who wrote Batman for years, shares the script credit with Sinclair.

Scenes

  • The fragment hits Paul during the meteor storm.
  • Salina matches the attacks to the old paintings.