Review of The Legend of Wolf Mountain

"The Legend of Wolf Mountain" was an early effort by prolific family filmmaker Craig Clyde. Unlike most of his other family movies, here he managed to wrangle up a few actors with some name value (Bo Hopkins, Robert Z'Dar, Mickey Rooney). However, it seems that getting those three actors blew most of the budget, because this movie looks really cheap and tacky despite taking place almost entirely in the wilderness. Actually, the low budget isn't what really sinks the movie. For starters, there's the script (that Clyde co-wrote) and the direction. I admit it gets to a good start, setting up the situation in the first ten or so minutes, but after that point, it doesn't take long for the movie to get really slow and boring. There's very little tension or danger felt anywhere in the movie, and the little there is doesn't seem right for a family movie (escaped convicts firing shots at little kids?) It doesn't help that the three juvenile actors not only give really bad performances, they also suffer from miscasting; one young boy is repeatedly declared to be "fat", but he's not the least bit tubby. Though come to think of it, the adult actors aren't that much better. Watch Clyde's later effort "The Long Road Home" instead.