DEATHMOON (1978) **

I have a soft spot in my heart for ‘70s Made for TV horror movies.  Even though they usually turn out crappy, there’s something about the kitschy clothes, the staid production values, and casts full of familiar television faces that is something of a comfort to me.   The same goes for werewolf movies.  I’ll watch just about anything that’s got an actor with crepe hair glued to his face.  I’ll be the first one to admit that Deathmoon is not good, but I’m still glad I watched it.

Robert Foxworth stars as an overworked businessman plagued by bad dreams.  His shrink tells him he needs a vacation, so he goes to Hawaii for some rest and relaxation.  While at his resort, he hits it off with a fellow vacationer (Barbara Trentham), but seems to have a pesky habit of turning into a werewolf whenever the moon is full.  How can he find romance when he’s busy at night giving the other guests a nice Hawaiian Munch?

I think this might be the first Hawaiian werewolf movie in cinema history.  While Deathmoon is far from the quality of the old Lon Chaney films, I can’t exactly fault everyone in the cast and crew for taking a paid vacation to Hawaii to make this flick.  In fact, it feels like the screenwriters changed up the werewolf lore just so they could scam the studio out of a free trip to Hawaii.  Instead of gypsies, caravans, and pentagrams, we have Polynesian dancers, luaus, and tiki statues.  Okay, sure.  Whatever gets you a free Hawaiian vacation, buddy.

I’m used to seeing Foxworth with a beard, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to see him turn into a werewolf.  The werewolf make-up isn’t bad either as it looks sort of like the Paul Naschy version.  Unfortunately, we don’t see a whole heck of a lot of it.  You also have to wait a long time before Foxworth finally turns into the werewolf, but on the plus side, it’s a pretty good old-fashioned lap-dissolve transformation scene.

The supporting cast includes Jake and the Fatman’s Joe Penny as the hotel’s house detective and Welcome Back, Kotter’s Debralee Scott, who takes a Made for TV shower.  I like Penny and all (I’m a confirmed Riptide fan), but his subplot eats up a lot of screen time.  It’s almost like he’s angling to turn the production into a backdoor pilot for a supernatural Hawaiian detective show.  (Would that make it HOWLwaiian Five-O?)

I wanted to like Deathmoon more than I did, but the slow pacing ultimately sunk it for me.  The padding in the form of musical numbers by the house band at the resort were especially time consuming.  While the transformation during the final reel is a winner, the finale itself feels rushed, which is strange since it seemingly took forever to get there.