BAD MOON
USA. 1996. Director/Screenplay - Eric Red, Based on the Novel `Thor' by Wayne Smith, Producer - James G. Robinson, Photography - Jan Kresser, Music - Daniel Licht, Visual Effects - VIFX (Supervisor - Gregory L. McMurry), Special Effects Supervisor - Gary Minielly, Werewolf Effects - Steve Johnson's XFX Inc, Production Design - Linda Del Rosario & Richard Paris. Production Company - Morgan Creek. Mariel Hemingway (Janet Harrison), Michael Pare (Ted Harrison), Mason Gamble (Brett Harrison)
Plot: Anthropologist Ted Harrison returns from an expedition to India and goes to stay in a caravan out the back of his sister Janet's house. But while away Ted was attacked and gored by a werewolf and each night transforms into a werewolf, handcuffing himself to a tree in the woods to restrain the wolf. But Janet's dog Thor takes a dislike to this invader in its domain and a territorial dispute between the two ensues.
Eric Red wrote two of the best horror films of the 1980s - `The Hitcher' (1986) and `Near Dark' (1987). Since then Red has progressed to become director of his own material with the kidnap thriller `Cohen and Tate' (1988), the horror film `Body Parts' (1991), the thriller `Undertow' (1996), and this. None of Red's directorial efforts are bad films by any means. But the relative failure of any of them to set the movie-making world alight either with directorial panache or dazzling innovation leave one with the increasing suspicion that the successes of `The Hitcher' and `Near Dark' belonged more to the bravura style that their respective directors brought to the projects than any native talent upon the part of Red.
`Bad Moon' is a werewolf film. Red offers a rather amusing spin on the theme - that of the werewolf and the dog of the household squaring off in a dispute over whose territory the place is. And Red conducts it quite competently directorially - he even manages to get a performance of sorts out of the usually wooden Michael Pare. But it is just that in many other aspects the film disappoints and leaves you wondering just how much more it could have been. Part of the problem here is its length - a surprisingly short 80 minutes which leaves it feeling dramatically rather slight. Red barely sets up the situation than he seems to almost cursorily jump to the climactic showdown. One cannot help but think another whole middle act would have filled the film out to a far more dramatically satisfying whole.
The most disappointing aspect of the film are the werewolf effects. It is not that there is anything wrong with them - they are technically impeccable and have an impressive fluidity of movement. But the end effect is thoroughly unconvincing - the werewolf looks like one of those plastic Classic Creature kitset models. And any effectiveness is considerably undercut by the actual transformation scenes which resort to cheap and unconvincing morphing effects. I am becoming increasingly of the opinion that the morph is a special effect that has run its course. For all the innovation in digital effects technology that `Terminator 2: Judgment Day' introduced in 1991 with the morph there have been a bare handful of films which have justifiably used it since - organic shapes simply do not transform with the fluidity of a morph. But for the sake of cost-effectiveness the morph now seems to have now supplanted air-bladder transformation effects. But despite such classic physical makeup effects films like `The Howling', `An American Werewolf in London', `The Thing' and `Fright Night' still retain an infinitely greater edge over the eminently forgettable digital effects transformations in films like this and `From Dusk Till Dawn'.
Copyright 1998 Richard Scheib
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