Bad Moon

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Horrorphile - August 2008

Bad Moon

August 27th 2008 01:25

I'd like to say that any werewolf movie is a good movie, but that's just not the case. Let me elaborate: I get excited at any cinematic attempt at capturing the lycanthropy folklore, or re-envisioning the mythology. I love werewolves. There’s something primal, yet elusive, sensual, but base. I love the contrasts; t battle of control over the body and mind, undercover of the night, the influence of the moon, the raging hunger and dangerous desire, the animal instinct and the powerful pheromones.

Screenwriter Eric Red penned one of my favourite road movies, which also happens to be a psychological thriller, and a serial killer horror movie. Diabolically brilliant, The Hitcher (1986) - which I’ve still yet to review – directed by Mark Harmon, is a tour-de-force of mood and relentless tension. Pared back dialogue, but still a vivid narrative, Red’s tale of the demon from Disneyland is without peer.

Red next penned the excellent vampire movie Near Dark (1987), directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Bad Moon (1996) was fourth movie as director, which he scripted based on a novel by Wayne Smith. It’s a werewolf movie, but not your average angry lycanthrope flick. What sets it apart is that the protagonist is a German Shepard. Yup, it’s a dog’s hero journey.

Bad Moon Michael Pare and Mariel Hemmingway

Michael Pare as Ted and Mariel Hemmingway as Janet

When the movie opens Ted (Michael Paré) is engaging in some hot lovin’ jungle action with his girlfriend Marjorie (Johanna Lebovitz) in a tent in the rain forests of Borneo. Unfortunately there’s a large ravenous werewolf on the hunt nearby, and suddenly the tent is torn asunder and poor Marjorie is ravaged. Ted, survives, and manages to blow the head off the damn beast, but not without a nasty laceration to the shoulder.

Mason Gamble as Brett

A little time has passed and Ted is back living in the Pacific Northwest and staying with his sister Janet (Mariel Hemmingway) and her son Brett (Mason Gamble). They have an intuitive protective dog, Thor (real name Primo), who immediately susses out Ted for who he really is. Ted is struggling with the curse. He’s desperate to maintain some kind of normal semblance of a life. He moves to an airstream caravan out of town on the outskirts of the wilderness. But the full moons continue (at alarming frequency), as do the killings.

The novel Bad Moon is based on is called Thor. It’s told entirely from the dog’s POV. Highly unusual, but then I’m sure as prose it probably works fine. As a movie Eric Red does a valiant job, and he’s aided by a fine canine performance from Primo. The same can’t be said of Michael Paré and Mariel Hemmingway, both of whom can barely act their way out of paper bags. The question: where are they now? is painfully pertinent.

A big bad wolf and a dummy of Johanna Lebovitz as Marjorie

The werewolf POV shot through an anamorphically squeezed lens looks great, and not too dissimilar to the under-rated movie Wolfen (1981). However – and this is the movie’s great failing – what really kills this movie is director Red’s ill-conceived over-exposure of the werewolf itself. And the reason this fails is that the special effects just aren’t good enough. Steve Johnson, an accomplished animatronics man and also a dab hand at prosthetics, has designed a very scary-looking werewolf (Neil Marshal’s designers on Dog Soldiers must surely have been influenced by it), but the creature is frequently over-lit and those animatronics don’t work fluidly enough. There’s also a very dodgy looking transformation sequence that tries to combine low-rent CGI and animatronics, which only shows up the movie’s budgetary constraints.

Brett gets up close and personal with the big bad wolf

The werewolf-inflicted wounds are very good, and the overall atmosphere of the movie is consistent. But it’s a short movie (barely 80 mins), and much of the narrative seems to be taken up with kitchen sink melodrama between the fractured “family” of Janet, Ted, Brett … and Thor. The movie demanded more action, less conversation. If Eric Red’s name wasn’t attached to the movie, you’d be hard-pressed to recognise the writing to be from the same penman as The Hitcher or Near Dark. As novel as the perspective is, perhaps this is a movie that should’ve stayed as a book. It seems An American Werewolf in London and The Howling are still the benchmarks.

Here’s the original trailer, which sports the dreadful tagline: "It doesn't have to be halloween to be this scary":

Here's Ted's transformation scene which starts off just okay, but goes lame very quickly. Like the trailer it makes the movie look like a comedy:

As a contrast, here’s the sexy and savage opening sequence in a rare uncut form, as the movie was originally slapped with an NC-17 (Warning! Not work safe!):

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

3 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Cibbuano

August 27th 2008 02:25

Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak

oooh, I'll have to watch that at home...

...definitely agree - show less werewolf, not more!

Comment by JohnDoe

August 29th 2008 07:02

Film & TV on DVD

Hi Bryn,

Though i do agree that their is to much of the monster to early in this film and it wpould have been nice to have real actors, there was much I really enjoyed about this film at the cinema.

There is an originality to the angle taken in the story, the treatment of loneliness and disconnetion within the effected etc....sure its no Dog Soldiers, Ginger Snaps, American Werewolf or Howling but for me it was infinetly better than 90% of werewolf movies that have been released over the last 20 years.

Comment by Bryn

September 3rd 2008 00:27

Horrorphile

JD, I had it hyped too much mehtinks ...

With added expectation from Mr. Red.

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