Scream of the Wolf (1974)

This made for TV movie is from Dan Curtis...and that should come as no surprise as Curtis made a living making low-budget horror films and TV shows--such as the original "Dark Shadows" as well as excellent made for TV films about Dracula, Kolchak (the reporter that investigates monster sightings), possessed African dolls, Frankenstein and others. Most of his work was very good though I wouldn't place "Scream of the Wolf" among his best films.Some creature has been tearing folks to pieces and John (Peter Graves) is a hunter who's been given the task of killing whatever it is. However, he soon notices that the footprints go from a wolf-like creature to human...but he won't allow himself to believe it's a werewolf. When he tries to get help from a clearly nutty associate, Byron (Clint Walker) has a strange reaction--he's totally disinterested in killing the creature and even seems to be completely ambivalent about all the deaths!! Clearly the viewer is being led to believe that Byron is most likely the wolf-man. And, clearly, Walker's character is about as subtle as a 2x4 upside your head! He's a super freaky weirdo and Walker looks as if he had fun playing this guy. And, although Graves is the leading man in the film, your attention is drawn to Walker whenever he's on the screen. So is Byron the werewolf or is there some other explanation? And, how does this movie end up being very much like the classic film "The Most Deadly Game"?Considering the budget for this film was pretty low and the ABC movies were made quickly, how they handled the whole werewolf aspect of the story was an interesting idea that worked very well. Not the best movie of the week I've seen but very memorable and fun...in a kooky sort of way. Well worth seeing...and a lot better than the surprisingly low overall score of 5.1 (as of this review).

Distributor: DollarDVD Plot: Adventure writer is called in to investigate a series of brutal murders that has investigators confused. The clues are not clear and leave no clear trail. The tracks left at the murder site appear to be of a wolf. The suspense and terror builds as danger lurks in the shadows of the night.Audio/Video: The quality of the DVD was actually better then I thought it would be considering the distributors are called Dollar DVD and the damn thing only cost a buck.Extras: Movie trivia, the only weird thing is that it is trivia from other movies.Final thoughts: ABC movies of the week were all pretty good, some were better then others. This one was an average made for TV movie. If you see it then get it. It is pretty good.

This film would have been much better if it had some balance. There were no strong supporting actors at all, with Graves and Walker providing outstanding roles and the rest just falling flat on their face.Graves worked well as the slowly weakening ex-hunter, while Walker did an amazing job portraying the evil and creepy (and still strong) wolf hunter. However, the rest of the actors (especially Graves' girlfriend and the police chief) did a horrible job with their characters.The fact that the kills really arent portrayed in a gory fashion makes the film feel like less a horror movie and more of a suspense/murder mystery, which bothered me a bit. Additionally, the ending, though a double twist (from not surprising to surprising to not surprising again) was a bit hard to swallow, that and it ends much more abruptly than I would have wished. Overall, not a high recommendation, but still a fairly good representation of low budget 70s fare 5/10.

It's no surprise this movie looks and sounds like "Night Stalker" since it was made by the same director. Non-actors Peter Graves and Clint Walker manage to rise to the occasion as the two male leads but the real hero of the film is the fairly scary "kill" scenes which work through to the end when we find out it was really all a "Hound of the Baskervilles" plot which turns into "Most Dangerous Game" for the finale. Definitely worth a look.