Teased throughout his childhood after his father is executed for a murder, an angry young man goes on the run after killing one of his peers in self-defense in this melodrama with noir elements from Frank Borzage. The film opens well with atmospheric high camera angle nighttime shots as the main character is bullied and teased as a boy. There is also some great nightmarish imagery as his childhood memories every so often haunt him as an adult. Excellent as 'Moonrise' might look though, it is not an easy film to get through. Always moody and morose, Dane Clark is never actually likable as the emotionally distraught protagonist. The love triangle that he gets into never quite gels either since we are given little insight as to what his love interest sees in him. This in turn makes it a little hard to care what happens to the characters, which is a shame because the film taps into some intriguing psychological territory - guilt over the sin's of his father, forced to live in a community where being a killer is thought to be hereditary and then unsure of what to do when he actually kills a man, albeit by accident. It is all too easy to understand his decision to flee and his conflict about leaving his girl behind.