Bad Moon -

An interesting twist can’t save this sloppily written werewolf tale. Michael Pare is an archaeologist whose exploration group has an unfortunate encounter with a werewolf. He is the only survivor, and now is cursed to transform into a half-man half-wolf each night. He returns to the states, and after several unsuccessful attempts to rid himself of the curse, he finally moves in with his sister (Mariel Hemmingway). She has a young son and a german shepherd named Thor. Thor discovers the werewolf’s secret, and must struggle to prevent any harm to his family. The family dog as protaganist might be an interesting idea, and there are occassions when the script seems just about on the verge of doing something interesting with it, but it never does. While you do get a sense of what Thor is thinking, you never can understand the human characters. Why would Michael Pare carry around pictures of his slaughtered girlfriend? Why does Mariel Hemmingway blithely disregard her brothers the above mentioned picture and her brother’s written confession? Why did I sit through this whole film? The werewolf himself is nothing special, he moves a bit too mechanically to be eerily realistic. Thor is well trained, but heck, they should have at least taught him to limp after nearly being torn in half… This one should have gone straight to video, and don’t even bother with it once it gets there.