Track of the Moon Beast

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Track of the Moon Beast is a 1976 horror movie about a lonely man named Paul (Chase Cordell) who gets a piece of meteor lodged in his brain causing him to transform into a werelizard, the titular "moon beast", whenever the moon comes out (whether or not the moon needs to be full for this to occur is not established). In his lizard form, Paul loses all traces of his human self and goes about killing people at random. While human, Paul is subject to spells of dizziness and perhaps nausea, causing his girlfriend Kathy Nolan (Donna Leigh Drake) and friend and former teacher Johnny Longbow (Gregorio Sala) to become concerned. Eventually it is deduced that Paul is the monster, and that the meteorite fragment in his brain is the cause of his transformations. Plans are made to remove it from his skull, but Johnny realizes, after remembering some Native American legends documenting similar phenomena, that the meteorite has disintegrated and will eventually cause Paul to self-combust. When Paul learns of this, he escapes into the desert, presumably to kill himself so he will not cause any more harm. Kathy, Johnny, and the local law enforcement follow him, and Johnny shoots him with an arrow made of the original meteorite, which overloads his system and causes him to explode.

This movie was featured on a season 10 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.