BAD MOON (a review)

BAD MOON (a review)

This is a Michael Pare movie not named EDDIE AND THE CRUSERS. And you either know what that means or you don't. See, Pare was like this B-movie action star in the 80's and 90's. I'm not sure almost any movies got play outside of cable tv (except the horrible but wonderful STREETS OF FIRE) but they were all good natured-B-movie-bad but sort of fun movies. They weren't movies you'd really recommend, but they were movies you always watched. This is one of those movies.

Before I get into this movie, I'd like to recommend two other Pare films first. One is EDDIE AND THE CRUISERS -- the story of a journalist trying to track down the lost music of a famed New Jersey musician. Great 80's movie. Not the sequel. That sucked. But the original is absolutely worth seeing. And STREETS OF FIRE. Now my opinion of that movie is alittle biased as I was at the exact right age when it came out and watching Diane Lane dance around in a backless red dress on stage was...well, I better not finish that sentence. Still this is another movie-was-music featuring Michael Pare as the tough ex-boyfriend who must help get Lane back after she is kidnapped by a rival gang. In parts a cheesy. In parts wonderful. Just a great, fugly mess of a movie. It should be watched by everyone. It should be shown every Christmas. It should be memorized by school children instead of the Pledge of Allegence. And I bet Diane Lane would still rock that little red dress!

The story (BAD MOON): while in Nepal, a photojournalist (Michael Pale) and his girlfriend are attacked by a werewolf. The girlfriend is killed. Pare's character isn't, but becomes a werewolf himself. Unable to find a cure elsewhere he moves in with his sister thinking that family and love might be the cure. It isn't. As he changes he becomes a bigger dangers to the family and it is up to the family dog to protect them.

Now this movie is based on a book, Thor by Wayne Smith where the story is told from the dog's point of view and I can see why that would have been more interesting and more compelling. It isn't that the idea is bad (in fact I had a similar one...now maybe I'll have to scrap it...D'oh!) but that the story would have been more compelling from the dog's point of view. The dog loves the family. The brother moves in but there's something wrong with him except only the dog knows this, and as the dog tries to protect the family things get worse and worse. However, in the movie they change it from the POV of the dog to the POV of the brother and it just doesn't hold up -- NOT because the idea couldn't work, but because they didn't change the story enough to really make the brother at the center of things. So the story ends up feeling very blah.

Still...this is a Michael Pare film. And I like almost all Michael pare films, so

*** RECOMMEND (as are all Michael Pare films) ****