Since the dawn of mankind, astronomical catastrophes have always influenced us in profound ways. Small things can lead to the largest consequences. In today's episode of The Outer Limits...Um, sorry, I was getting distracted there.
A large asteroid hits the Moon leading to parts of the lunar surface raining down upon Earth as meteor showers. While talking terrible nonsense with his soon to be reporter-girlfriend Kathy Nolan (Donna Leigh Drake), the geologist Paul Carson (Chase Cordell) is hit by one of these heavenly messengers from the planet of Latex. What at first looks like a small injury turns out to have quite profound effects on the young man, who starts to turn into a gigantic (at least that's what the script says) lizard - which will soon be compared to a tyrannosaurus, even though it looks nothing like it (or any other dinosaur for that matter) -when the moon begins to shine.
Dino-Paul is a very grumpy were-dinosaur-lizard-thing, too. He kills everyone he meets, usually with the deliberate pace of a very tired snail. Still, it's obvious why his victims don't simply run away. Confronted with a creature looking like a man in a more or less nondescript Halloween fishman costume, making pathetic growling noises like a dog with a sore throat and flailing about like a drunk nobody could do more than stare.
The sheriff (Patrick Wright) is puzzled by the motiveless murders (Dino-Paul doesn't seem to be hungry, just bored) and even more so by the oversized bloody hand- and footprints found at the murder sites.
Fortunately he is one of the more reasonable monster movie sheriffs and so does what anyone in his situation should do: Call his (and as it happens, Paul's) friend the native American anthropology professor John Salinas (Gregorio Sala) who turns out to be our designated hero. After some research, the professor arrives at the truth about Paul's little problem and even finds a doctor who accepts his conclusions without so much as batting an eyelash. But there are bad news for the patient. His condition is incurable and he will soon reach a point of "atomic instability" and literally explode.
All this is exactly like something from an old legend of the professor's tribe, by the way.
Paul isn't at all happy with this prognosis (I can't imagine why. Who doesn't want to die as an exploding were-dinosaur?), and does not want to spend his final days in a hospital. Kathy, whose character is as stupid as her performance is bad, helps him escape into the desert.
My, might he go on a rampage again? Fortunately our tireless anthropologist does not wear the nick name "Johnny Longbow" (I'm not kidding here) for nothing.
As you might have gleaned from the plot, Track of the Moon Beast is a very bad movie with no positive qualities to recommend it. Of course, I urge you to watch it anyway. Its negative qualities don't quite have the charm or mind-boggling wrongness of Eegaah! and the like, but the monster scenes and some wonderful failures when Cordell and Drake are trying to emote should be enough to tide everyone over.
The absolute pointlessness of the story and the even more stupid than usual science are further endearing qualities of the movie. Nothing is more pleasant than an exploding (and watch out for that very special effect!) man in a latex costume.
And absolutely nothing can prepare you for the awesomeness that is Johnny Longbow.
Useless Trivia of the Day: The film was co-written by Bill Finger, the man who wrote the early years of the Batman comic.
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