“Death comes out of the woods on four paws and returns on two feet. A beast? A human? Only the dead know.” Synopsis: A big-game hunter comes out of retirement to help track down a killer wolf, and begins to suspect that it isn’t a wolf but an animal that can take human form.

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Calamity Brains:

Dan Curtis‘ Scream of the Wolf is a made-for-TV movie with a short runtime, and feels like it. Fortunately, the length saves it from being unwatchable; it moves along quickly between attacks and generally manages to just keep the audience from being bored.

Though there is some mystery to the plot, the ham-handed foreshadowing and exposition throughout is generally laughable. The killer is never a mystery – only his tactics and reasoning. The “mystery,” such as it is, is kept alive through the clever (and necessary) use of MonsterVision to build suspense and avoid showing the attacks in their entirety. Still, even with that technique reasonably well employed, it’s hard to take the movie very seriously.

By far the best part of Scream of the Wolf is the acting. Peter Graves as the lead, a hunter begrudgingly drawn out of retirement by an animal attack, is a solid watch. His interactions with his old friend Byron (Clint Walker) are also engaging. This is largely due to Clint Walker’s fun portrayal of the rival hunter; Byron’s soliloquies and quirked eyebrows were entertaining throughout the movie.

Scream of the Wolf isn’t completely bad, but it’s not good or particularly worthy of note. The length (it’s only 78 minutes) means that it goes by fast enough to keep the audience somewhat engaged, but that’s not enough to make up for the lazy characterizations, shaky plot, or mediocre effects.

Calamity Brains’ Rating: C-
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