Bad Moon (1996)

Werewolf Wednesday #6: Bad Moon (1996)! This movie is pretty darn mediocre! A German shepherd named Thor tries to protect his family from a recently-turned werewolf, and I can’t super recommend it BUT! The 90s were an interesting transition period for werewolf movies because it’s juuuust before everything officially turned CGI so this feels like finding the Lucy Australopithecus fossil of werewolf movies: you get the combo of stiff Jim Henson-style puppetry (lots of fast close-ups of the werewolf in this film, which is a smart way to keep the practical effects feeling dynamic

and as gorgeously done as this werewolf suit is it always just feels like a man in a big wolf costume for me) paired later with a digital morph for the ONE mini transformation scene that we actually get to see (big pet peeve!!: werewolf movies that don’t actually show the transformation! It’s lazy!! Like what do you think we're here for??).

A weird thing im discovering is that when writing the script for any werewolf film, someone has to decide: after the transformation, is this like a fully feral “more wolf than man” situation or is this basically like just an aggressive dude in a giant wolf costume? Movies that go with the first situation feel tense and unpredictable and lend a sympathetic air to the human aspect of the lycanthrope, while movies that go in the latter direction end up with these really clunky and hilarious Kung-fu wolf fight scenes that I absolutely live for. Altogether a D+ film with overall weird Spielberg-like “family comes first”-vibes that paired really awkwardly with a weird unnecessary gratuitous sex scene and really dim dialogue, but definitely the best werewolf bodysuit ive ever seen, and watching a werewolf attempt to strangle a child is particularly strange.