(1971)
Dir - Daniel Petrie
Overall: MEH
A low-stakes melodrama that aired in November of 1971 on NBC, A Howling in the Woods may be of interest for boomer generation TV fans as it reunites I Dream of Jeannie's Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman as an estranged married couple who get caught up in a small town murder mystery. Director Daniel Petrie had and would continue to have a prolific career on the small screen and he proves to be as competent of a guy as any to adapt Velda Johnston's novel, balancing the exclusively talky material at a quick enough pace even if little of interest happens. The title would allude to something sinister talking place outside, but a couple of gusts of wind and a howling K9 prove to be entirely inconsequential, merely providing some brief atmosphere while Eden follows a trail of suspicion as to what her stepmother and newly discovered stepbrother are up to, why her childhood friend is off-putting towards here, and why everyone in town wants to brush over the recent murder of a young girl. It is a formulaic tale of gaslighting and sweeping inconvenient incidents under the rug, but the performances are fine and the finale finally delivers some much needed suspense, for what little it is worth.
(1972)
Dir - Alan Rudolph
Overall: MEH
The debut Premonition, (Head, The Impure), from filmmaker Alan Rudolph is helplessly meandering against its non-existent budget, but it is also oddly stylized for such a minimalist affair. Narrator Carl Crow is as unphotogenic of a hippy protagonist as there has ever been, playing a lazy, free-wheelin' musician who sees some kind of man/ape/demon/whatever silhouette making a sign with its hands, which signifies something that is never explained. Speaking of never explained, there are also flowers that grow on dead bodies. The plotting is horrendously vapid as the crude production affords nothing as far as interesting set pieces or action. Instead, we get frequent musical interludes and pointless conversations between people who are being aloof, seeing visions, or who knows what. As much as there is no story anywhere to be found, Rudolph occasionally manages to create an eerie mood, with slow motion shots, spaced-out actors gazing around, and an ambient musical score that interrupts the otherwise folky guitar ditties. Rudolph's ambitions exceed his grasp as is often the case with someone's first feature, but at least there seems to be a grasp as opposed to this just being another obnoxious exploitation movie that is unintentionally hilarious at best.
(1978)
Dir - Lee Madden
Overall: WOOF
A top-billed Donald Pleasence does battle with a ferocious feline in Night Creature; a dull adventure romp minus all of the adventure. The penultimate film to be directed by Lee Madden, it was shot on location in the jungles of Thailand and because the safety of both actors and animal alike where hardly a concern for independent no-budget B-movies of the day, they simply shoot a real live black leopard interacting with people out in the wild. This is not to say that the results resemble anything of the Roar variety, (thankfully), since said leopard is mostly shown just gallivanting around by itself in what may as well be stock footage, interjected with one or two mental breakdowns from Pleasence who stares wide-eyed into the screen. Other than that, being able to follow or pay attention to what the small handful of insultingly boring characters are saying or doing is a fool's errand. Both Nancy Kwan and Ross Hagen join the party, but they serve no other purpose than to bump up the running time to feature-length levels since there is hardly enough here to work with for a "man vs. beast" spectacle. Also, Madden's direction is appalling as he lets the pacing meander and stages everything in the most bland manner imaginable, (despite some slow motion cat shots that are ultimately worth nothing), plus whoever was in charge of the music decided to have it blare over various amounts of dialog.
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