Lycanthropes seemed to hit a peak in the 80s thanks to a trifecta of classics that each put the classic creature on a leash and dragged it into the realms of contemporary filmmaking. The most famous of these was John Landis’ An American Werewolf In London which updated the legend with a merciless sense of perfectly balanced humour, but right on its tail was Joe Dante’s The Howling, which went full post modern when dealing with the lore. Finally was the lesser loved, but still rather bewitching The Company Of Wolves which saw Neil Jordan merged the werewolf legend with the story of Little Red Riding Hood to memorably trippy effect.
As a result, everything that seemingly could be said about werewolves had been said and movies featuring people turning into slavering, snarling, lupine killing machines either seemed to get rarer than the beasts themselves or simply just weren’t anything to howl about. However, that didn’t stop the creator of The Hitcher from taking a typically brutal punt.
While during a work expedition in Nepal, photo journalists Ted Harrison and his girlfriend Majorie grab some quality time (and each other) while take refuge in their tent for the night. However, their time together reaches an altogether different sort of climax when they are attack by a huge, bipedal wolf that shreds Marjorie like pulled pork and viciously wounds Ted before he blows the creature’s head off with a shotgun.
In the aftermath of such a traumatic event, Ted returns to the States and seeks isolation by living in a trailer deep in the woods – which seems odd for someone mauled by wildlife – but the quiet life seems to calm him to the point where his sister Janet, her son Brett and their loyal dog, Thor, can come to visit. However, while this proves to be rather healing for the siblings, his living arrangements are made a little complicated when the obliterated remains of a Forrest Ranger are found nearby and he has no choice but to accept Janet’s offer that he come down and live with her and Brett.
At first, things seem fine, but soon it becomes clear that Thor has sensed that something fishy is going on that will require him to protect his family from this newcomer. Of course, no one is able to figure out that Ted is now a full on werewolf and he’s long since found out the hard way that the extablished rules of lycanthropy are not much more than fanciful wolf shit. For example, while legends dictate that he should only turn during a full moon, he actually turns under the light of any moon which makes things extra dangerous for anyone within Ted’s lunar orbit.
However, while Ted is trying to maintain and hide his condition, the fact that Thor is on to him means that he has to get the family dog out of the picture before the furry jig is up. It’s supernatural monster vs man’s best friend with the lives of a beloved family laying on the line.
While Bad Moon is actually an adaptation of a novel by Wayne Smith named Thor, fans of 80s monster stories might find matter quite familiar as it seems to be the merging of two different stories by couple of the genre’s most famous authors. While the source novel practically told the whole thing from The family pooch’s point of view, the movie feels more like Stephen King’s Silver Bullet (small town werewolf terrorising a boy and his family) and Dean Koontz’s Watchers (laboratory dog is locked in battle with hairy, government experiment) both fell in a mixer and got blended together. As a result, Bad Moon has that feeling of a film so familiar, you’d swear blind you’ve seen it before even if that isn’t the case, which can kind of go either way when you watch it for the first time – meaning you’re either going to find it exceedingly watchable, or horribly predictable.
As the man who scripted the diabolically lean The Hitcher, director Eric Red is more than familiar crafting stories with minimal fat, but even though werewolves are famously lithe, there are times you wish that Bad Moon carried more meat on its bones rather than clawing it off in a carnivorous frenzy. This isn’t the first time Red has aimed his sights at a classic movie monster (it could be argued that 1991’s Body Parts was a modern mash up of the Frankenstein myth), but he seems so obsessed by keeping everything brutally minimal, the film barely lopes in at eighty minutes and those brought up on unnecessarily long, two hour plus bloaters may feel a little short changed.
However, while the director keeps things basic, you can’t deny that Bad Moon brings the goods when it needs to. For a start the werewolf itself may be shown way too much, but it’s Howling inspired design is pretty fucking sweet as the thing is a goddamn juggernaut of blazing eyes, snapping teeth; ok, sure it may have the stiff neck syndrome of a Michael Keaton era Batsuit, but this thing doesn’t just bite and claw people to death, it straight up savages them into a bloody paste that makes the bear attack from The Revenant look like a game of pat-a-cake with Paddington. It’s a shame that technology hadn’t advanced at that point to provide us with possibly one of the worst CGI werewolf morphing transformations you’ve ever seen (sorry gang, Rick Baker’s and Rob Bottin will always undefeated), and some weaned on digital wolves might find the whole man-in-a-suit thing a bit twee. However, the results prove to be a memorably savage creature that looks suitably malevolent, especially when it’s crunching on a man’s skull like a hippo feasting on a melon.
In comparison, even though the concept is simple and strong and the creature is suitably big and bad, the humans prove to be a little too basic to really hook you. Michael Paré is effectively threatening as his attempts to save people from his monstrous alter ego gradually start to lose their luster. Plus, his growing beef with Thor the dog results in a memorable moment where Ted takes upon himself to spray some teritorial piss on his doghouse. Elsewhere, Mariel Heningway delivers solid work as a single mother facing her brother’s more darker side, but the script doesn’t really give her much to do except slowly play Nancy Drew and her son, played by former Dennis the Menace Mason Gamble is also far too vanilla to stand out.
However, the parts of Bad Moon that work the best are the parts that stick to the original novel and so props have to be given to how much the story tries to place Thor front and centre and have him be actually be the main character. Red isn’t totally successful in accomplishing this primarily because the horror genre probably wasn’t ready for an entry where the lead character is a canine, but I feel that if the right director tried it now, audiences would be pretty open to it. However, the Thor vs werewolf stuff is still surprisingly gripping and original and the final showdown is structured in a way that’s far more exciting than a fight involving dog a attacking a dude in a fuzzy rubber suit has any right to be.
Flawed as Bad Moon may be, it’s still got enough of an edge to be something of a minor gem that might prove to be buried treasure for anyone itching for a bit of the old howl and chomp. But who knows, maybe a reassessment is overdue because every dog has its day – even huge murderous ones.
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