Shriek Show / Anamorphic Widescreen (1.66:1) / Color / 1 disc / 84 minutes

Somewhere at the confluence of the slasher, satanism, hippie, and cannibalism genres of weird film, we get the masterpiece that is WARLOCK MOON, a tale where very little happens, but when it does, it rarely makes much sense.

Even so, there is something charming about this ultra-low budget journey into the California backwoods, circa 1973, starring Laurie Walters (TV’s “Eight is Enough” series) and Joe Spano (Best known for his role in TV’s “Hill Street Blues”), even if there are no warlocks anywhere to be found. Instead we get a great couple of psycho redneck axmen and a spry spinster that’s so creepy she’ll make you scared of old people.

We begin the story on an idyllic college campus, where wholesome Jenny MacAllister (Walters) is trying to stave off the bizarre, predatory advances of one John Devers (Spano), who looks like a cross between Kevin Bacon and George Thorogood with a mullet. Armed with a jug of cheap tipple and some bananas, he entices her to go on a picnic date with him. On the drive home, they get lost and end up at a road leading into the woods. Craving adventure, the pair follow the road and discover the sagging campus of the Soda Springs Spa, which we later learn has been abandoned since the 1930s after a bride was cooked and eaten by the guests on her wedding day.

Apparently the spa still has one resident, the cackling Mrs. Agnes Abercrombi, who has a penchant for drugging tea and keeping drawers full of syringes and paralysis-inducing narcotics. Jenny is the victim of Abercrombi’s first tea party, and begins wandering the crumbling spa alone following what appears to be the ghost of the cannibalized bride. Chalking the whole experience up to a hallucination, Jenny and John leave the spa and head back home.

Some time later, John, who claims to work as a feature writer for the local newspaper, encourages Jenny to return to the spa so he can interview Abercrombi for an article. Drugged again and chased around the spa by bushy-haired men with axes, Jenny soon realizes she is to be sacrificed in a cannibalistic ritual commemorating the bride’s death years ago.

Written and directed by the then-and-still unknown Bill Herbert, WARLOCK MOON isn’t a gory film, but it does a decent job of building suspense in the second act. The main problem is pacing. We spend far too much time watching Walters wander around mindlessly (Although she DOES have great stems..) and Spano’s creepy portrayal of John is downright unexplainable, although by the end of the film, it almost works. In the first act he attempts to charm Jenny with a series of spastic imitations. He makes random observations like “Abandoned swimming pools have always intrigued me,” and pretends he’s an actor in a monster movie.

The story is intriguing with its genre-bending weirdness, but the script doesn’t drive the narrative enough. Things happen just to happen, rather than for a reason. For example, why do the antagonists go to such great lengths to drive Jenny insane? If they want to use her for their ritual, why not just kidnap her and do it? Why all the sadism with drugs, hypo needles and axmen running around? Moreover, what is the point of the ritual itself? This is never explained. We know that in 1930 a woman was butchered and eaten, but why? There is nothing to indicate this is the work of Satanists, or any cult otherwise — just one mean old lady with a craving for human flesh.

The movie was rumored to have been produced around the same time as TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, and supposedly even reached cinemas a few months before. Despite some similarities in plot (Essentially they are both “Hansel and Gretel” stories), they are obviously very different films, technically, creatively and otherwise. WARLOCK MOON, with it’s lightweight characters, poor direction, weak title and senseless script, is just forgettable next to Tobe Hooper’s raw masterpiece.

Despite my complaints, there’s a good bit to enjoy in WARLOCK MOON. The location is atmospheric and sufficiently grimy. The film’s attack scenes are visceral (even though barely a drop of blood is ever shown), and there’s a scene in a meat cooler that delivers some chills. The ending, nihilistic and predictable, still made me smile. A little nudity would have spiced things up a bit, but oh well …

Picture quality on this DVD is fairly poor and really falls apart on a larger screen. That’s not as distracting as the hollow and distant-sounding audio. The presentation includes an excellent (and insightful) commentary track and intro by drive-in critic Joe Bob Briggs, a handful of trailers from other Media Blasters projects, the original trailer for WARLOCK MOON, an alternate Spanish language track and an alternate beginning sequence. The menus on the DVD are especially attractive.

Overall, I give this 2.5 stars: “It’s getting rough (in a choice kind of way)!“