Honourable Moon: Warlock Moon

Despite the movie poster’s vampiric look, I need to begin by saying that this 1973 movie directed by William Herbert is not a vampire movie but it is so much more than the “cannibal movie” it is often described as. Yes there is (partially unwitting) cannibalism in it but there is much more going on, laid out for us to see but never gathered together and certainly not drawn into an explanation at any given point.

It is a low budget, independent movie and it certainly had ideas above its station – which is no bad thing. The film ended up being held up in distributor Hell but was eventually released and we get a film that looks and feels like a product of its time but, in some respects, edgier without really showing too much.

first victim

It starts off with a couple in an old abandoned building, finding their way by candlelight, their faces lost in the dark. They end up in the dark and by the time she (Joan Zerrien) relights her candle he has vanished off and she thinks he intends to jump out at her. There is a noise (like finger cymbals clicking twice, and we’ll come back to this), she searches, horror music rises to a crescendo and an axeman (Steve Solinsky) leaps through a broken door to her.

John in Groucho disguise

We move to a college, and the film shows its age with a lecturer (Michael Herbert) talking about deviant behaviours and listing the top 2 as incest (fair enough) and homosexuality (in a comment that is outrageous now). The lecture ends but in the next one they’ll discuss cannibalism – in quite a forced but naïvely effective piece of foreshadowing. We then see Jenny (Laurie Walters) walking across the campus. She is watched from behind a newspaper (and Groucho disguise) by John (Joe Spano), who then goes after her, making her laugh with a variety of accents until he asks her to go on a picnic. She refuses at first but eventually concedes…

missed the turn

We know this because we see them driving back from the picnic. We realise they didn’t know each other and find out that John works for a newspaper and wants to be a reporter eventually. John suggests they have missed a turn but Jenny refutes the suggestion, conceding they have gone the wrong way when they reach a disused road. Jenny is the one who suggests they see where the road goes and they follow it until they reach an abandoned complex of buildings. The sign on one of them suggesting it is the long-closed Soda Spring Spa. The kids don’t notice but we see the axeman and a second accomplice (Richard Vielle) lurking.

ghostly bride

They become separated and Jenny ends up inside one of the buildings when she is approached by an old lady called Mrs Abercrombi (Edna MacAfee). She takes them to her rooms, tells them a little about the Spa, gives them some tea and offers to show them around. John is keen to take up the offer but Jenny feels dizzy and suggests they go on ahead. The dizziness seems to pass but, before going to catch them up, she spots a syringe and medications in a draw. As she looks for John and Mrs Abercombi she enters a room with a circle marked out on the floor, she walks the circumference slowly and then goes to step in when all the doors slam shut, scaring her. She hears a ghostly voice calling her name and steps onto a balcony to see a figure in a bridal dress (also Laurie Walters) on a balcony opposite. She vanishes around a corner and John and Mrs Abercrombi then step from where she has gone, clearly none the wiser.

Laurie Walters as Jenny

They leave but, some time later, John finds Jenny again and suggests a date. It will have to start, however, at the Spa. Jenny is less than impressed with the idea but John explains that the paper editor has given him a shot by allowing him to write a feature on the abandoned complex. Reluctantly she agrees to meet him at the place (he has to go elsewhere first with another reporter) but she arrives before he does. She is exploring again, perturbed by the fact that the place seems even more abandoned, wrecked even, certainly not in the state of upkeep from before, when a rifle goes off. It is a hunter (Harry Bauer).

an axeman

Jenny and the hunter talk. He has never heard of Mrs Abercrombi and suggests the place was abandoned after an incident allegedly in the 1930s. The owner’s daughter had her wedding and there was a banquet but she never showed up and after the banquet they found, in the kitchen, that dinner had been the girl. The Spa closed, people claim to see the girl (the ghostly figure Jenny saw) and the cook escaped – it is not stated but the likelihood, of course, is that the cook was Mrs Abercrombi. The hunter escorts Jenny back to the front of the building.

playing Dracula's nephew

After they separate there is a cymbal sound again and an axeman gets the hunter. John has arrived and the parts of the buildings that seemed wrecked are back to their previous state and flowers Jenny noticed as dead are now alive. The sound seems to represent a transition between two states, different dimensions perhaps. Anyway, Mrs Abercrombi drugs Jenny and this leads to them having to stay the night. They have a meal that is “hunter stew” (unwitting cannibalism). However, before that there is a scene of John goofing around where, after acting out a couple of characters to make Jenny laugh, he becomes “Dracula’s nephew”, claiming to be “out for a bite” – his acting, at that point, scares her but we get a mention of vampires in passing.

the meat locker

What is interesting is that this is not the simple cannibalism tale the film makes out. Jenny has been selected due to her similarity to the bride (whereas other victims are just meat). The ghost of the bride intervenes but her intervention eventually seems more malevolent than benevolent. The buildings shift between states, almost dimensionally moving. There is mention of others involved, suggesting a cult of some sort. There is the circle and the need for jenny to enter it of her own free will, for it to be marked with her blood and clearly for her to be used as a sacrifice on a certain night and in a certain time frame. However, this occultism is just there, we never discover what purpose it might have? Is it to sustain the cultists or sustain the buildings – the film is silent. Certainly Mrs Abercrombi appears to be of the age where she may have been the cook in the 30s, so there is no suggestion of maintained youth.

Edna MacAfee as Mrs Abercrombi

This is one of those films that deserves a cult status and I’m glad that a mention of Dracula, in passing, has allowed me to bring it to your attention (although, without that, the poster would have allowed me to o a ‘Vamp or Not?’ article). Joe Spano is in turns charming and sinister, and Laurie Walters portrays naïvety very effectively, but it is Edna MacAfee who steals the film with her over-the-top performance as Mrs Abercrombi, which stays just on the right side of camp and can be undercut with some truly ominous looks. The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK