Ted (Michael Pare) is an adventurous photo-journalist who travels to the ends of the earth to capture his images. On one of his expeditions deep in the jungles of Nepal, he encounters a horrific beast that savagely murders his girlfriend. In this violent encounter, he receives a vicious bite that changes him forever. When he returns home, a brutal murder takes place. Coincidence? Now understanding his fate Ted turns to his sister (Mariel Hemmingway) and nephew (Mason Gamble) in hopes that their bond can somehow save him.

Ok, why have I never heard of this film? This is a werewolf flick that I accidentally stumbled upon on Blockbuster.com. I have never heard of, nor seen this in the eight years since its release. This is not your typical low budget movie, it was written and directed by Eric Red, the same man behind “Near Dark” and “The Hitcher”, two very well done films.

Let me start with commenting on Thor. Thor is the best actor in the entire movie. Thor is the hero. Thor is fricking awesome. Thor also happens to be a German Sheppard. Don’t let that deter you, Thor makes Rin Tin Tin and Lassie combined look like sissy poodles. Thor is the very definition of “man’s best friend”. There were a couple scenes in this film where I actually found myself getting choked up over some rough patches for our hero.

The werewolf in Bad Moon looked good. Not the best ever, but still a well done werewolf suit. In some scenes this bad boy looked pretty darn frightening. The bad part about the werewolf was the transformation scene. This was the only time they used CGI and it looked totally ridiculous. Very disappointing. It makes the CGI in “American Werewolf in Paris” look Oscar worthy. They would have been better off not doing a transformation at all rather than the silly looking crap displayed here. There was however, good make-up done with the effects and gore. There isn’t a lot of it (gore) mind you but still everything looks fairly realistic.

The plot was very simple and worked nicely for entertainment purposes. No deep thoughts required, this is just a fun ninety minute werewolf feature. The people behind the scenes were talented and you could see that talent displayed here. Yes they fell short on a few occasions and yes it had its share of WTF moments but all in all they did a nice job creating a simple, enjoyable flick.

In summation I feel this will have mixed reviews. Although I enjoyed it some of you may not. I will tell you this though; if you are a fan of the werewolf genre you must check it out. At the very least you will have a fun time. You may want to consider throwing down a few, that always helps enhance a movie like this. This is a must see for all werewolf fans and definitely worth checking out for horror fans in general. This just slides in to receive the Marshal’s seal of approval. Good time!

6 out of 10 Werewolves who pissed on the wrong shepherd’s house