Bad Moon

Despite what you might think after reading my title, I quite liked Bad Moon. It's good for a werewolf movie even though I sometimes had the feeling I was watching an episode of "Lassie" rather than a movie about a werewolf.

A man and his girlfriend, both American scientists on an expedition somewhere in the jungle of India, were attacked by a werewolf. He manages to survive the attack and knows to kill the animal, but his girlfriend has already been ripped to pieces and died a horrible death. Even though he survived the werewolf wounded him badly and now he's a werewolf himself. Despite popular believe, the man doesn't only turn into a werewolf at full moon. He becomes one every night and there is no cure. His only hope is his sister and her son. He hopes that the love of his family will cure him from his "disease".

As I already said Bad Moon is an enjoyable movie. Especially the morphing technique (when you actually see him turn into a werewolf) is cool to watch. The story may not always be the very original, it still does the trick. The same for the acting. There is nothing spectacular about it, but it is very decent and believable. I give this movie a 6,5/10.

Honestly, I don't know what some people expect from werewolf movies these days. -They can't be as good as "The Howling" or "An American Werewolf In London" all of them, you know. This one at least tries to give us a decent werewolf film, and I think it (largely) succeeds. Some reviewers complain about there being too much CGI in this movie, but as far as I can tell, there is only a tiny bit. When the werewolf is seen full body, hey, that's not CGI it's real hairy make-up !. -Isn't that what we're all screaming we want back in movies ?. Sure it is, and here it is. As werewolf movies go this is a pretty good little movie. "Little" actually being the keyword there, because if there's a problem with this movie it's the running time. -I mean, 79 minutes, come on !. That's way too short. It doesn't look to me like it was cut down though, I fear they just didn't shoot anymore than what's on screen otherwise the DVD would've included outtakes, I'm sure. I wonder why it's so short, it doesn't make any sense, afterall you want beastly action in a creature feature like this. What this movie needs to be really great, are some more werewolf attack scenes, alas, we get only a couple when just a single one more kill would've done the trick. Oh well, it's still a good werewolf movie and there's even a clip on a TV-screen from Universal's "Werewolf Of London" (1935) with Henry Hull. The beast itself in "Bad Moon" is great looking, a bit like the creature in "Silver Bullet". All in all a fine flick, we should be happy they even make werewolf movies anymore. I guess it's true what they say; legends never die, no matter how oldfashioned the subject. -Just stay away from CGI; a guy in a suit will do nicely, thank you.

While researching in the jungle with his girlfriend Marjorie (Johanna Marlowe Lebovitz) and a group of natives, Ted (Michael Pare) and the group are attacked by a beast and only the wounded Ted survives. When his sister Janet (Mariel Hemingway) learns that Ted is back home, she invites him to bring his trailer to her real property and spend some time with his nephew Brett (Mason Gamble) and her. Ted accepts the invitation when the police find several corpses attacked by an animal nearby his trailer. Ted is welcomed by Janet and Brett but their dog Thor estranges him. Soon Janet suspects and finds evidences that Ted is a werewolf and her family is in danger.

"Bad Moon" is a decent werewolf film, with reasonable story. In this film, Ted turns into a werewolf every night, and not only in the full moon. He comes closer to his beloved sister and nephew expecting that the love of his family heals or at least help him to control the beast within as his last chance. The dog Thor (Primo) steals the movie. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Lua Negra" ("Black Moon")

This is quite a unique movie because it's based on the book Thor which tells it's story from the perspective of a dog called Thor. The movie doesn't do this for the most part, but the dog Thor remains an important character in the story. So sometimes it feels almost like a horror movie interpretation of Lassie.

The cinematography, acting, directing is top notch for a 90s horror and I'd say those elements are actually superior to many newer, more recent, horror movies. One early birds eye view shot for example is just as good as the opening shot of the classic movie The Shining.

The monster, obviously a big werewolf, is at times quite menacing and horrific and not the predictable CGI that we often see in modern films but instead the old school animatronics/puppet type. I'm not sure how younger audiences will react to it since they're so accustomed to CGI these days. To me, CGI often looks fake and lacking substance, density and textural reality. But with a puppet of this nature, while you can easily tell it's fake, it just has more substance to it because it's made of real material, moving in real space, as opposed to CGI emptiness.

This movie is only let down by a slightly weak story. It starts off very well and carries on being fairly gripping up until the third act when certain plot holes and weaknesses in the script come into play. The final scenes unfortunately are probably the biggest let down and that's where this movie loses most of it's points for me. If it had a stronger third act and much better ending I think it would have possibly been regarded as an all-time horror classic instead of the cult classic that it still remains. But it's still very much worth watching for any horror movie fan and I'd definitely recommend it for some guaranteed horror movie fun.

I was positively impressed with just how well done the transformation into the werewolf was done. I am very familiar with werewolf movies from the ones done by Lon Chaney Jr. to the present day and this one was pretty effective.

The plot was standard, but just how much can one change the werewolf saga? A good man is against his will unfortunately transformed into a murderous creature of the night, and even though he tries his best to control his urges, it is all to no avail, and in the end someone close to him has to end his bloody reign of terror.

The acting by the principles was reasonable, and yes the German Shepherd, Thor, did steal the show, but again, so what? I would even enjoy watching it again!