Saturday, September 23, 2023

70's American Horror Part Fifty-Eight

SCREAM OF THE WOLF
(1974)
Dir - Dan Curtis
Overall: MEH

One of Dan Curtis' more humdrum made-for-television offerings in his busiest year behind the lens, Scream of the Wolf is a misleading werewolf film for anyone expecting as much considering that there is in fact no werewolf in it.  Richard Matheson adapts David Case's short story "The Hunter" with loads of homoerotic subtext between Peter Graves and Clint Walker, two former hunting buddies with clashing opinions about stopping a chain of local, animalistic killings that are leaving the police authorities perplexed while understandably terrifying the townsfolk.  Unfortunately, Walker's character just comes off like an illogically creepy asshole instead of an interesting, menacing presence, refusing to help track the beast down while smirking and toying with Graves in a petty, childish attempt to make his old friend once again revel in the thrill of manly companionship via animal murder.  The story does not work as a mystery since Walker is painted as the sole culprit the entire time and the only surprise that the final reveal offers is in how difficult it is to buy into.  Matheson's plotting was usually more intricate, leaving Curtis with little to do besides fill up the run time with repetitive talking bits that give it a lethargic pace.
 
THE ASTROLOGER
(1975)
Dir - James Glickenhaus
Overall: WOOF
 
The debut from filmmaker James Glickenhaus, (who would go on to do a number of D-level action movies throughout the following two decades), is the rambling and staggeringly boring kind-of horror film The Astrologer, (Suicide Cult).  Not to be confused with Craig Denney's equally daft vanity project of the same name which was released the next year, this one was allegedly shot for $20,000 after Glickenhaus inherited some money, but it only had a limited theatrical run before being re-released later as Suicide Cult to tie it in with the Jonestown Massacre; a real life event from which the actual movie here bares virtually zero similarities with.  Not that one can easily follow such a comatose-inducing story in the fist place.  It is amazing that something made up of ninety percent dialog could turn out borderline incomprehensible.  A scientific political organization uses astrology to predict catastrophic events, one guy's wife goes missing for a few minutes, there are racially insensitive tribal ceremony scenes, and then it ends.  While it has the look and feel of a competently made movie, (more so than the usual independent regional offering at least), and also has more than enough goofy elements on paper, it is presented in such a lackluster manner as to be irredeemable and insulting.
 
THE EVICTORS
(1979)
Dir - Charles B. Pierce
Overall: MEH

Comparatively more polished, (and less unwatchably awful), than his first two regional horror films, Charles B. Pierce's The Evictors still suffers from comatose pacing and an overall lack of fiendish style towards its subject matter.  A period piece set in 1942 Louisiana where Jessica Harper and Michael Parks recently move into a cursed farm house where various other tenants have met an unfortunate, violent end, the story unfolds both clumsily and sluggishly with a moronic twist ending on top of another twist ending, both of which are unintentionally funny.  Harper's hillbilly accent routinely slips, but at least you can understand her slippery dialect, which is less than can be said about some of the other cast members who lay on the drawl rather thick.  For whatever reason, Vic Morrow received top billing even though he only appears in brief, bookending scenes and Pierce still cannot resist the urge to play off his lousy cinematic exploits as being factual in their influence, giving this one an opening "based on true events" tag and a narrated ending the spells more doom.  Professionally shot with the added advantage of real actors being used instead of just Pierce's local pals, the man's chops as both a director and screenwriter, (assisted here by Paul Fisk and Garry Rusoff), have only mildly improved since the onset of his lousy cinematic career.

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