Werewolf of Woodstock

The Woodstock music festival is finally over, and a local farmer, furious at the noise and garbage generated by the throngs of hippies, takes out his aggression on the abandoned stage during a rainstorm. In perhaps the first (and last) instance of a werewolf being created through massive electrical shock, he is struck by lightning and somehow transformed into exactly what he hates most, a filthy long-haired creature in torn clothes and bare feet. Meanwhile, a struggling rock group hits upon a great gimmick for their demo tape. They travel to the empty festival site and play their songs on the legendary stage to legitimately claim they were "recorded live at Woodstock." The werewolf sightings convince the local police that a hippie is to blame for a recent murder, and the rock band is immediately under suspicion. However, a pair of hip, young detectives from Los Angeles aren't so sure, and when the girl guitar player is abducted by the beast, the rest of the musicians are recruited to assist in the rescue by playing their instruments as loud as possible, drawing the hippie-hating monster out into the open. This peculiar Dick Clark production proves that the generation gap was still considered bankable in 1975, or at least enough so to warrant a late-night debut on ABC's "Wide World of Entertainment" program. Cheaply shot on video, it's clear that no one thought much further than the goofy premise, and once the novelty of the concept cools the remaining action quickly becomes rote (although a third act scene featuring the werewolf making a hasty getaway in a stolen dune buggy is priceless). As the monster, Mod Squad star Tige Andrews spends all his time swathed in bandages or hidden behind a cheap wolfman mask, and the damsel-in-distress role filled by Belinda Belaski is a stereotypical flaky hippie who feels "vibrations" and eventually bonds with her captor. Perhaps an Altamont Speedway werewolf would have had more resonance with the target audience. The psychotronic viewer will note a fleeting appearance by Al Adamson leading man Robert Dix as a policeman; it's nice to know he found work in a "legitimate" production like The Werewolf of Woodstock. - Fred Beldin

Memorial Valley Massacre

Slasher films are often criticized for their habit of encouraging the audience to identify with the killer. Memorial Valley Massacre is an extreme case, but not for genre-standard hand-held POV shots. Instead, the "maniac" is a feral forest-dwelling manchild resisting the encroachment of modern society with violence, and his victims are city-slicker campers who threaten his pristine wilderness with litter, ATVs and land developments. While the gentle valley hermit feeds his pet mouse and frees a hapless rabbit from a snare meant for men, the "civilized" weekenders guzzle beer, blast speed metal and prove themselves to be among the most repellent disposable characters in slasher film history. This unique perspective doesn't make Memorial Valley Massacre worth watching, however, unless one is interested in seeing what happens when the worst elements of 80s junk horror and teen sex comedies collide. Slutty teenage girls dance in the rain, a fat kleptomaniac kid provides unneeded comic relief, and a gang of mismatched bikers dress like extras in a John Mellencamp video. The death-dealing wild boy's outfit is a Halloween-cheap faux fur getup accented with plastic buck teeth, and if he's been isolated for twenty years, where did the candles in his cave come from? The third act boasts a steady stream of absolutely unconvincing gore effects, so the squeamish need not fear unless they’re sticklers for logic. Most of the cast was never heard from again, but a few genre regulars appear as ringers among the amateurs. William Smith has a pointless role as a retired Army general who loves his RV and John Kerry (no, not that one) is an alcoholic park ranger with a secret link to the killer in the forest. Cameron Mitchell is onscreen for all of three minutes, getting off easy with top billing and minimal effort as a greedy land developer. - Fred Beldin

The Demon

By not including any actors of color in its lily-white cast, this dull, dimly-lit slasher nonsense from South Africa is a rare instance of apartheid actually sparing the dignity of those it means to oppress. The Demon moves disjointedly between two sets of characters whose lives are impacted by an "aberration of the species" that is "less than a man and more than a man." Exactly what and how is never addressed, nor is the reason why the rubber-masked killer wears pre-Freddy Kruger razor-tipped gloves but chooses to suffocate his victims with ordinary plastic bags and twine. Cameron Mitchell is set up early on as a main character, a psychic investigator called upon to find an abducted girl. He glares intensely into space, tears up a feather pillow and speaks in hushed tones to the vengeful father, then disappears for the next thirty minutes, reemerging just long enough to be shot in the forehead ("Did your extra sensory perception prepare you for this?"). The bulk of the screen time is enjoyed by a pair of cousins who teach at a nursery school and spend quality time with their respective boyfriends. Meanwhile, the unidentified maniac looms in the background, stalking the girls for some reason rather than just offing them outright like the rest of his prey. It all leads up to a lengthy cat-and-mouse that ends when a resourceful naked pre-school teacher makes an impromptu smock out of a shower curtain and protects herself with a bottle of shampoo and a pair of scissors. Ridiculous as The Demon is, few will gain any pleasure squinting through the dusky cinematography or enduring the long wait for things to actually happen. Boycott it. - Fred Beldin