If you’ve ever wondered, “What would happen if a meteorite hit a guy in the head, and instead of gaining superpowers or cosmic wisdom, he just turned into a reptilian monster who kills people?” well, have we got the movie for you. Track of the Moon Beast is a film that’s like a meteorite impact on cinema: it leaves a huge crater of confusion, a bad smell, and a lot of dead people who probably should’ve stayed inside.
Plot: A Meteorite to the Head, A Lizard to the Soul
Meet Paul Carlson, a mineralogist who, during a meteor shower, is struck by a fragment of a lunar meteorite. You’d think this would make him the next great mind in science or at least give him the ability to talk to aliens, right? Wrong. Instead, he transforms into a giant lizard creature every time the moon comes out. Sure, it’s a classic “night time turns me into a monster” situation, but the movie somehow thinks we’ll be more invested in Paul’s brain fog than the actual monster behavior. He gets dizzy, he gets nauseous—poor guy just wanted to study rocks, but now he’s got the added bonus of being a serial killer every month. Talk about a bad side effect.
And, naturally, everyone around him is super understanding. His girlfriend Kathy is genuinely concerned, and his old buddy Johnny, the anthropologist with a name more suited for a cowboy, keeps spouting off Native American legends. Because if there’s one thing this film needs, it’s more folklore mixed in with its terrible monster design.
The Monster: Lizard or Pizza?
Speaking of the monster, let’s talk about that Moon Beast. Created by none other than makeup legend Joe Blasco, the creature looks like a rejected Halloween costume that accidentally fell into a vat of radioactive waste. Imagine a lizard, but with all the elegance and grace of a drunk uncle at a wedding. It’s a “lizard” with all the ferocity of a garden gnome and none of the charm.
What makes this creature even more laughable is that it’s not really scary—it’s just kind of there. Paul becomes the beast whenever the moon comes out, which sounds like the premise of a cheesy slasher film, but the execution is more akin to watching a dog try to figure out a new trick: it’s awkward, and you’re not sure whether to laugh or cry.
The Plot Twist (Spoiler Alert): Meteorite, Meet Meltdown
The film then throws in a bizarre and entirely unnecessary subplot about Paul’s meteorite fragment disintegrating and causing him to “self-combust.” That’s right—he’s literally about to explode like a human-sized firecracker. But instead of a dramatic ending where he takes out an entire town with a massive, fiery explosion, we’re left with a dude who just runs off on a motorcycle into the desert. How does this end? With Johnny shooting him with a meteorite-tipped arrow that causes the beast to explode. It’s like the film said, “You know what, we’ll just throw everything into a blender and see what happens.”
The Acting: It’s the Thought That Counts (Sort Of)
The cast delivers performances that range from wooden to “I need to quit this movie immediately.” Richard Jaeckel as Paul gives us a character who’s more confused than threatening, and Donna Leigh Drake as Kathy, his girlfriend, doesn’t have much to work with other than looking concerned as the human embodiment of a lizard in mid-transformation. Meanwhile, Gregorio Sala as Johnny “Longbow” Salinas, the anthropologist, spends most of the film talking about Native American curses, which, let’s be honest, could’ve been replaced with a few more lizard attacks for dramatic effect.
The Final Word: A Meteor Hit This Film Harder Than It Hit Paul
If you’re in the mood for a monster movie where the monster is more of a walking, sniffling, confused lizard, Track of the Moon Beast is your jam. It’s got a plot that’s almost impossible to follow, characters that barely matter, and a monster that’s about as threatening as a cat with a bad attitude. But if you’re into bad special effects, terrible acting, and a script that somehow thinks a meteorite to the head could cause an existential crisis for a guy who just wanted to study rocks—well, congratulations, you’ve found your cinematic soulmate.
