Bad Moon (1996)

Bad Moon (1996)

Director: Eric Red

Cast: Michael Pare, Mariel Hemingway

Werewolf movies are a tricky bunch, same as the characters in these films, the werewolf film seems to be cursed at the box office where they rarely make their money back. And I’m not talking about vampire films that include werewolves like the Underworld and Twilight franchises, I’m talking about films where the werewolf is the central character. Hell, even when they are actually good they fail! For example The Wolfman (2010) starring Benicio del Toro was an excellent werewolf movie in my book, yet it bombed horribly. In fact, if we get down to it, there hasn’t been a true blue successful werewolf film since An American Werewolf in London (1981) and The Howling (1981) ripped into theaters and wowed everyone with their excellent make up effects. Maybe that’s the reason why we haven’t had a successful werewolf movie. Nobody has been able to top what was done in An American Werewolf in London (1981) in terms of makeup effects. But most of the time, werewolf movies simply aren’t that good. For example An American Werewolf in Paris (1997), made the mistake of replacing practical transformation effects with bad CGI, plus the comedy angle just fell flat. Of course, there have been exceptions. Teen Wolf (1985) made a hefty profit, but that was because its budget was a measly 1.4 million and it starred 80’s ‘it’ boy Michael J. Fox. There was also Silver Bullet (1985), which made its money back because it was based on a Stephen King novel. But putting these exceptions aside, werewolf movies are rarely successful. The film I’ll be reviewing today, Eric Red’s Bad Moon (1996), is a good example of the werewolf curse. Was it one of the good ones?

I’d say that it had potential, but failed to perform. The main problem I had with Bad Moon is that it was too damn simple. A photo journalist named Ted gets scratched by a werewolf while on an expedition in Nepal. Sadly, while Ted only gets a nasty scratch on his chest, his girlfriend gets ripped to shreds! When he returns to America, he lives an isolated life in the middle of the forest, trying to forget it all. That is until his sister visits him and tells him that he should move in with her for a while. He agrees, because he comes to the conclusion that maybe family love might cure him from the werewolf curse, which of course makes no sense at all! You’re putting your sister and her son in jeopardy! But whatever, I chalked it up to wishful thinking. Point is that his sister has a dog named Thor, and Thor detects Ted’s werewolf condition. Um…there really isn’t much more to say about the plot because there isn’t much conflict, a quality sorely missing in this film. We needed more complexity to the story; the movie is just too damn simple. The thing is that the book on which the film is based, a novel called ‘Thor’ by Wayne Smith, actually offered an innovative concept. It tells the story from the dogs’ point of view. Now I realize you can’t really make an entire movie that way, but I find the director could have exploited this angle a bit more.

Speaking of the dog, he’s gotta be the cutest freaking German Sheppard ever. ‘Primo’ (the dogs name in real life) steals the movie from Michael Pare and Mariel Hemingway who offer some of the most wooden performances ever. There’s no chemistry between them whatsoever, the whole brother/sister thing was not played off in a convincing manner, and I normally dig Michael Pare’s movies! If this was meant to be a movie about family, then they should at least have shown a strong familial bond, which just doesn’t happen here. In a way, this movie was supposed to be like the Poltergeist franchise, where family love is at the center of the whole thing. Sadly, Michael Pare’s character Ted doesn’t even come off as likable. Which of course is a huge mistake, we’re supposed to sympathize with the guy. Eric Red should have emphasized Ted’s despair and anguish a bit more; we needed a scene or two of him in true mental and emotional anguish, the director should have given us time to warm up to Ted and his family. As you can see, we simply needed more character development, we needed to complicate things. And it’s not as if they didn’t have any screen time to do it, the film only runs for a measly 80 minutes.

What else ails this film? Well, the big draw with werewolf films are the transformations, which should try and top everything that has been done before, or at the very least be good. Here’s the thing with Bad Moon, the werewolf looks cool and the creature itself was pulled off rather nicely, when completely transformed the werewolf looks imposing, only a little wooden and robotic with its facial movements. Eric Red obviously wanted to build up the suspense with the creature because we don’t see a werewolf transformation until we are way into the films third half. So we’re left expecting a cool werewolf transformation, and we kind of get it. The practical side of it actually works, sadly, somebody decided to include a few scenes of the worst computer generated effects in the world, so we get this horrible morphing transformation, by the way, I’m really glad they don’t use morphing anymore! Morphing works on certain situations but not for hairy, muscle bound creatures like the werewolf. So yeah, morphing effects aside, the werewolf transformation isn’t all that bad. Also, the gore effects are actually quite good on this one, gotta give it that! 

Everything builds up to a confrontation between Thor and Ted. If this film was going to be centered around the whole Thor vs. Ted thing, they should have built up on that a little more. Sadly, the film feels a little half assed, it could have been so much more. I think the film simply didn’t embrace its strengths which is a sad thing because usually, Eric Red makes fantastic films with strong performances. Case in point, the script for The Hitcher (1986), which Eric Red wrote or Jeff Fahey in Body Parts (1991), which Eric Red both wrote and directed. Hell, Eric Red wrote freaking Near Dark (1987), one of the best vampire films from the 80’s! Now these are films with strong characters! This is the reason why I was stumped that Bad Moon had such weak characters! Normally this is Eric Red’s strength! But whatever, every filmmaker deserves a dud in his repertoire and Bad Moon was Eric Reds. It’s worth a watch, it's far from being the worst werewolf movie ever made, but it’s nothing memorable either.

Rating: 3 out of 5   

   

Streets of Fire (1984)

Title: Streets of Fire (1984)

Director: Walter Hill

Cast: Michael Pare, Diane Lane, Willem Dafoe, Rick Moranis, Amy Madigan, Bill Paxton

Review:

Streets of Fire isn’t all that different from director Walter Hill’s The Warriors (1979), it’s an alternate world created by the filmmakers, the rules created by the screenwriter, the director and the actors. In The Warriors, Walter Hill mixed fantasy and reality into a world all its own. The first time I saw The Warriors, it struck me as strange because I asked myself, “who the hell dresses up like clown baseball players?” To me, that wasn’t real, gang members wouldn’t be caught dead in that attire, but then I realized, this is an exaggerated representation of reality. It was Walter Hill’s way of addressing his frustrations and thoughts on the whole gang scene that was destroying the lives of young people during the 60’s and 70’s. And so, if we take The Warriors as an exaggeration of reality, a comic book like fantasy world if you will, then it works. You just gotta let yourself go and dive deep into this cinematic world, suspend your disbelief and just go with it. The same can be said of Streets of Fire, it’s a world into itself, the characters and situations depicted here are not meant to be taken as “reality” but a mere exaggeration of it, a Rock and Roll Fable that takes place in “Another Time, Another Place”.

This is a world where cops allow street gangs to fight, a world in which a biker gang can walk into a rock and roll concert, kidnap the lead singer and terrorize concert goers in all sorts of violent ways. And they can get away with it just fine! This is the premise of Streets of Fire, a film in which we have two gangs of young kids that for whatever the reason hate each other. Willem Defoe and his gang of bikers, who all dress like they belonged in The Village People, kidnap Ellen Aim (Diane Lane) right smack in the middle of her concert and it’s up to Tom Cody (Michael Pare) to rescue her from the clutches of Rave Shaddock (Willem Dafoe) and his gang. The plot is that simple, but we need to keep in mind that Streets of Fire is the classic example of style over substance and I mean that in a good way! Streets of Fire is meant to be enjoyed from a purely visceral point of view, the film is clearly aimed to pleasure our senses and our instinct rather than our minds. Not that it’s a stupid movie; it’s just that its emphasis lies in sensory input because it’s a film about passion and violence, and getting things done. This is a film about action, not about talking. The sensory input comes in the form of enhanced colors, and the awesome Rock and Roll soundtrack, speaking of the soundtrack, this is part of the reason why I say that this is a film that creates its own rules because the film seems to take place during the 50’s but some of the music is very 80’s. I mean, some of the songs were written by the great Jim Steinman (from Meatloaf) and what’s more 80’s than his style of operatic rock and roll?

In a way, the whole story behind Streets of Fire reminds me of Homer’s The Iliad, in which a whole war is sparked by the abduction of a woman, Helen of Troy. In Streets of Fire everything starts because Rave Shaddock and his hoodlums abduct Ellen Aim, now that I think about it, Helena sounds a lot like Ellen,  maybe the similarities between Streets of Fire and The Iliad aren’t that far off, it looks to me as if the writers were partially inspired by ancient epic poem. And yeah, there’s some epicness to this film, there’s this really cool seen in which Tom starts shooting with a modified shotgun at all the bikers motorcycles and the motorcycles start blowing up in balls of flames! Awesome scene! The ending is this clash between two gangs, the evil bikers vs. Tom Cody and his friends, and the battle is like a battle between two rock and roll gods, they even battle with freaking metal hammers! I was like what? Metal hammers? Who thought that up?

The cast is excellent, Michael Pare is great as Tom Cody, he's the guy you don’t want to get mixed up with, he’s a loner, a rebel. Ellen the up and coming rock star, is his old flame; he broke up with her because he doesn’t consider himself the kind of guy who would tag along with her carrying her guitars. Nope, he’s too much of a loner for that. He talks very little, broods a lot and wears a trench coat. He’s a war hero that steals cars, fights for the love of his life, fires shotguns, fights with hammers, and rides motorcycles! This is the ultimate tough guy. Like Pee Wee Herman in Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985) or Jack Burton in Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Tom Cody is too much of a rebel to get tied down by a relationship. But he doesn’t mind a night of passion! Michael Pare’s career was starting to take off, he was apparently going to be the next big thing in Hollywood, unfortunately he filmed another Rock and Roll themed film called Eddie and the Cruisers (1983) and then he went and filmed Streets of Fire and they both tanked at the box office! Yet, the cinematic gods have smiled upon him! This double death at the box office didn’t kill his career completely, he’s continued his career making b-movies and even one or two studio films. And then there's Diane Lane, wow, she really portrayed a girl worth dying for! Every time she was singing on stage, I was transfixed by her persona, totally captivated. Seeing her on this movie is totally worth the price of admission. Rick Moranis is on this film as well, if you can believe it he plays Diane Lane’s agent/fiancée, and some feel he was miscast in the role. I have to admit he does stick out like a sore thumb amongst all the tough guys and gals. Super sexy Diane Lane with a nerdy dude like Moranis? I didn’t buy it, but whatever, it’s a minor flaw in the movie, plus Moranis is always entertaining.

One of the most interesting characters in the film was a girl named McCoy (Amy Madigan) a tomboy who has as much attitude as everyone else on the film. Willem Defoe is a cartoon of a villain, even his facial expressions are exaggerated emotions, he wears this leather bound attire that’s straight of an S&M magazine or something. My only gripe with the film is the motivations for kidnapping Ellen were not fleshed out , Raven Shaddock says that he’s kidnapped her simply to have his way with her for a couple of weeks, and that’s it. Is that enough to warrant an all out destructive war between two factions? Apparently it is. If a woman is good enough to start a war in The Iliad, then I guess it’s good enough of a reason in Streets of Fire as well and like I said earlier, she is to die for in this movie.

When it was released, Streets of Fire failed horribly at the box office. It didn’t manage to make its money back, so the sequels that were planned for Tom Cody were never made, still, when you watch it, look out for that open ending, they kind of hint at the idea of future films. But as it often happens with cool movies that pass unnoticed in theaters, audiences eventually discover them and so the film has garnered its cult following. Streets of Fire was a good Joel Silver production and you can tell a lot of work went into creating this world, which is why I recommend it, it’s a film that deserves to be seen. Walter Hill wanted to make a film that had all the things he considered cool when he was a kid. Cool cars, rock and roll, kisses in the rain, motorcycles, shotguns…basically, it’s an explosion of coolness tinged with a bit of nostalgia coming straight from Walter Hill’s memory banks. Closing statements: I highly recommend this overlooked Rock and Roll Fable; it is a film that aims to remind us what it means to be young and alive, gotta love it for that!       

Rating: 4 out of 5