Simply Perfect

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

For those who might not know, Dan Curtis created the classic Dark Shadows and Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Basically he "ruled" televised horror films during the 1970s and he influenced a number of directors whose work is popular today.This film, however, was not one of his better works. Joann Pflug (at her most radiantly beautiful) is under-utilized as the love interest. Clint Walker and Peter Graves play a surprising pair of nominally straight hunters who engage in a bromance that is slightly less homoerotic than Brokeback Mountain, Slightly.Everyone else is just along for the ride.Slow (even at 80 minutes, dull and predictable. If you cannot guess who the "killer" is after the first 10 minutes, you need to go back to Hardy Boys novels. When the end finally comes, you'll wish that the film had end 10-15 minutes earlier when your interest in it did.

A rural community is shaken by gruesome killings in the woods by what appears to be a werewolf (the tracks near the bodies shows four paw prints that soon become two, and then disappear); former hunter-turned-writer Peter Graves assists the local sheriff in unraveling the mystery. Not-bad TV-made thriller has interesting subjective camera-work along with the proverbial fog in the woods and snarling sound effects. Graves is solid, as usual, and has a few intense scenes with maniacal 'old friend' Clint Walker, but it's too bad writer Richard Matheson felt the need to cover all his bases plot-wise. The more explanations we get in the finale, the more ridiculous it all begins to seem. Director Dan Curtis also produced, in what appears to be a case for The Night Stalker. Robert Cobert is responsible for the erratic music score.

++Major Spoilers++ Former big game hunter and now deranged lunatic Byron Douglas, Clint Walker, comes up with some far-out ideas about life death and the human condition as well as how to bring a little life and excitement into the lives of the people in town by savagely murdering them and at the same time making it look like some kind of werewolf did it.Even though the movie tries to be suspenseful and keeps you guessing to who the killer is as soon as you see Douglas and how crazed and unstable Douglas is. Just by listening to his off the wall philosophy by talking about how one is most alive just when he's at he moment of death. This makes you almost look over his shoulder to see if you can catch a glimpse of the men in white with stun guns and butterfly nets ready to grab and restrain Douglas in a padded room at the local loony bin. You watch the movie hoping that whats on the screen is not really happening. In that that those making the film are just trying to keep you off the track by making you think that Douglas is the killer when the real killer is really someone else in the cast that you don't suspect. Still you just can't convince yourself that there's anyone more certain to be the killer then Douglas is and you end up being right.Were told that Douglas was attacked by some super wolf some time back in Canada which almost killed him and left him in the condition that he's in now. Trying to explain his mental and emotional state and at the same time throws off suspicion about him being the killer but even that falls apart at the end of the movie.The only way I could follow the story is by realizing that Douglas is crazy, which wasn't hard to do, so whatever he said and did in the movie made sense only to himself not to anyone else. The end of the film ripped off the movie "The Most Dangerous Game" by Douglas pitting friend and former hunting buddy now writer Peter Graves, John Wetherby, against himself in a life and death struggle to see who's fit and strong enough to survive. Even then Douglas cheated by having a vicious wolf as a partner and leaving Wetherby with a rifle with no bullets in it.Wetherby had to run for some distance to find a box in the woods with only two slugs that Douglas left for him. When it came to the hand to hand combat that Douglas craved for Wetherby pulled out a gun that he secretly had on him a blew Douglas away. Since Douglas murdered six people there was no point for all that ridicules game playing with him. A major flaw in the movie was why the police never thought of arresting Douglas even though he was the most evident and conspicuous suspect in town. It was nothing but a waste of time trying to figure out Douglas' weird philosophy and sermonizing during the movie because it was just that, weird.

Only the most die hard werewolf movie fans (or bottom feeders who like to see bad films as a sort of self-inflicted pleasure-pain) will want to endure this. Even they may be disappointed. Silver fox Graves (who drives a hip car and has a hip house while hip music blares) stars as a former hunter turned writer who, after a series of grisly attacks on local residents, decides to hunt down the predator personally. The killings are the standard "hapless victim looks into camera and screams while growls are heard then blackout". This gets tiresome very quickly. One extended attack on Grave's ladyfriend Pflug (in a pedestrian performance) has a certain amount of edge to it. (Hilariously, though, this single woman lives in a house that appears to have more rooms than Monticello!) Pflug suspects Walker, an old buddy of Graves who lives in a mansion up in the woods and does a lot of odd philosophizing about human nature. Walker, still attractive and virile, gives an unusual performance full of dopey expressions and strange vocal inflections. His relationship with Graves has a homoerotic twinge, not unlike the Stephen Boyd/Charlton Heston dynamic in "Ben-Hur". Sheriff Carey rounds out the male trio of tall actors. The film aspires to a level of intellect that it's budget cheapens more than a little. Still, it's not the worst TV horror movie ever made. At least someone tried to write something with a little irony and mystery to it. One scene between Graves, Pflug and Walker takes place in a restaurant that must have a sign on the door, "No one attractive allowed!" Soap opera veteran Storm appears briefly as a victim.