Bad Moon (1996)

Flashback to 1996, i'm 12 years old, in my bed, when suddenly I wake up from a nightmare. I'm sweating, breathing heavy, and my eyes are darting around the dark room.  What was that in the corner? Is someone, or some THING, over there? I can't see. "MOM! DAD!" I scream. A couple moments later, my dad comes into the room, turns the light on and yells "WHATS WRONG?!??!" Thats when I realize nothing was in my room and I just had a nightmare.  A nightmare that involved a werewolf lurking around the outside of my house, preparing its sudden entry, I tell my parents, but no one believes me.

What caused my terror? Obviously something I did that day must have sparked this nightmare. Well, something did spark this nightmare, that often reoccured over the next few months, and that movie was Bad Moon.

You might have read reviews about Bad Moon, hell, you may have actually watched Bad Moon at some point, and if you're like the 208309234 other reviewers and critics out there, you probably hated it.  I've came across remarks such as "This one hits rock bottom.the only originality is that the hero was bitten (why by the way?) in the jungle,while making love with his girl friend who was less lucky and got eaten by the beast.", "The rest of the movie is so trite,so hackneyed and so "déjà vu " it's extraordinary people should produce such drivel, and even "Horrible movie, horrible effects, lame werewolf, probably the worst movie I've ever sat through." Before you pass this movie off as "horrible" or "trite", read my review and see what a fan thinks.

Bad Moon starts off with a big, gory, BANG.  We open up the movie with a character that we find out later to be known as Uncle Ted, apparently some kind of researcher, bangin' the hell outta some chick in a tent in the jungle.  From the jungle comes this massive werewolf that rips the chick apart and screws Ted up pretty good before he manages to fire a shot off and survive.

Soon after, Ted is living back in the Pacific Northwest, in an old Airstream parked next to a lake. He waits a couple months to contact his sister Janet, who lives a few hours away. Janet talks Ted into moving his trailer into her backyard and living there. Suffice to say, he does.

As soon as Ted moves in, Janet's dog, Thor, whom is a freakin' bad ass, automatically senses something is wrong with Ted. Ted and Thor develop this kind of, mutual disrespect(?) for each other. Ted even goes as far as to pee on the land, just to kinda claim it his territory. Oh yeah, and they have a staredown, that continously zooms closer and closer to their eyes, alternating between the two. Cheesy? hell yeah, but I like cheesy.

So anyway, SPOILER. If you didn't already know, Ted is a werewolf after being attacked and surviving.  He tries to refrain from hurting anyone by going into the woods before nightfall and chaining himself to a big tree.  Doesn't work for too long and he starts killing people.

Let me take a quick side turn here and talk about the transformation and the werewolf. TOP notch. I believe it definitely ranks up there with The Howling and the transformation scene from American Werewolf in London. This werewolf is MASSIVE. It is probably 8 foot tall, hulking, drooling, huge ass teeth and some sick long fingered claws. Probably my favorite werewolf an I would probably kill for an 18" figure.

Ok, sorry about that, back to the story. Ted starts transforming and killing people and Thor begins protecting the family and the house. Have I mentioned that Thor is a bad ass? If not, then let me tell you, in all caps, HE IS A BAD ASS. I need a dog like this. All the dogs I have ever had have just laid around. None of them wanted to protect me from a werewolf. Anyways, this movie is apparently an adaptation of a book called "Thor" so that tells you that the dog plays a pretty important part of the story.

This flick is from Eric Red, someone I'm actually a big fan of. I liked The Hitcher and I loved Body Parts (A flick that hasn't gotten the justice it deserves). I believe he did a great job of the flick and made a horror fans werewolf movie (gore, great werewolf, boobs).

So needless to say, I love this movie. I loved it when I was 12 and it was keeping me up at night, and I love it at 27.  If you're a fan of horror and more specifically, werewolves, you owe it to yourself to watch this movie and give it a chance. It deserves more credit than it has received.

On a side note, this review came about because of a conversation with Yell! Magazine and Eric King (Robocop's Sad Side) from Back Online, Back On Duty. They are also both reviewing the movie, so make sure to check them both out, courtesy of the links provided. Also check out their facebook pages (links below) and give them both some LIKES!

Yell! Magazine - Facebook
Back Online, Back On Duty/Robocop's Sad Side - Facebook