Scream of the Wolf (1974)

[trekgeezer]

Saw this Dan Curtis produced TV movie on the Fox Movie Channel last night.

After a bizarre murder where animal tracks were found  the Sheriff (Philip Carey) calls up the local hip, Corvette driving, ex-big game hunter turned author John Wetherby (Peter Graves) to check out the crime scene. The tracks make no sense. They start out as a four legged dog/wolf and then morph into larger bipedal tracks and then disappear.

The sheriff tries to get Wetherby to recruit his friend and old hunting partner Byron Douglas(Clint Walker) to help out tracking the beast.  Only problem is Byron doesn't want to help, he wants his old pal John to be a man again.

Is the killer a werewolf? That's the big question. We learn that Walker's character was almost killed by a big wolf on a hunt in Canada. So, is it him or his srange man servant?

The movie has somewhat of a twist ending. The best thing about it was Clint Walkers wacked out hunter character. He does some strange philosiphying and looks creepily malevolent throughout the film.

The attacks are all from the creature point of view, so you really never see any monster and very little gore (this was on tv). The really funny thing about this movie is all the homo-erotic subtext, between Graves and Walker.

Jo Ann Pflug stars as Peter Graves girlfriend.  It's not a bad way to spend 80 minutes or so.



Post Edited (10-18-05 14:35)

[lester1/2jr]

I love the title, thugh i've never seen it.  I gotta say Fox movie channel in general is WAY random.  any piece of junk from the eighties starring like kenny rogers or something they'll throw on there. followed by like a full day of musicals.

[Just Plain Horse]

Some movies are just a tease, and this is one of them... The ending is a total crap-out, but Walker deserves an award for the most passive, laid-back psycho ever preserved on film. Get a loud of that funky disco beat!!! (too bad it's hardly appropriate for a horror film...)

[Scott]

SCREAM OF THE WOLF by Dan Curtis is actually a good made for TV movie. Nothing extra ordinary. Just a nice little wolf story. I bought this one on one of those multipacks DVD sets. Turned out OK.

[Just Plain Horse]

Scott wrote:

> SCREAM OF THE WOLF by Dan Curtis is actually a good made for TV
> movie. Nothing extra ordinary. Just a nice little wolf story. I
> bought this one on one of those multipacks DVD sets. Turned out
> OK.

To each their own. I wasn't going to spoil it, but there is no wolf- or werewolf- just a nutcase and his killer mutt. Done with the kind of precision you may have seen in It Lives By Night or The Dark. I never thought I'd say it, but I felt this was a movie even beneath the likes of Peter Graves!

[Shadowphile]

BENEATH Peter Graves?  That's saying a lot.

[Scott]

I remember sitting through the whole thing and enjoying SCREAM OF THE WOLF. It might be the least of the Dan Curtis TV movies, but it's not bad. A little mystery thriller.