Anytime I talk or write about a horror film from that 90’s I feel like I have to defend that era of genre films. For whatever reason the collective we have come together and decided that a decade’s worth of horror is garbage. The more we look back and re-visit those films, the more I think we realize the decade was actually pretty good to horror fans. Our very own Daniel Baldwin is currently in the midst of Exhumed & Exonerated: The ‘90s Horror Project, a wonderful series shedding light on the lesser loved, but still very good horror movies of the 90’s. I’m not making my way through a specific decade the way Daniel is, but I am going through a bunch of Blu-rays. Every so often, and seemingly more frequently lately, these Blu-rays take me back to the 90’s. Today my journey goes back to 1996 with a trashy piece of werewolf fare known as Bad Moon.

Before actually diving into my review I think it’s worth noting that I had never even heard of Bad Moon, let alone actually seen it. This viewing was my first, meaning everything within the film was completely new to me. And that basically means there’s no nostalgia factor tied into this review.

The film opens with a sex scene in a tent with Ted (Michael Paré) and his girlfriend Marjorie (Johanna Lebovitz). It’s kind of a shocking sex scene as these two are full-blown going at it. This is like late night Cinemax stuff, which is basically borderline soft-core porn minus the borderline. As they start to pick up the intensity a werewolf jumps up rips through their tent and easily pulls Marjorie off of Ted and begins to shred her to pieces. Ted attempts to save her but is slashed across the shoulder and knocked back. While Ted struggles to get to his shotgun the werewolf continues to eat away at Marjorie. Eventually Ted grabs the gun and blows the werewolf’s head off, but at that point it’s too late for Marjorie.

This is quite the opening. We go from a hot and heavy sex scene to an incredibly graphic werewolf attack. This. Is. Bloody. The practical effects in this scene are terrific. Everything looks great. It’s a gory, bloody death and you see a werewolf’s head explode. Nothing is left to the imagination. The werewolf looks a little cheesy, but overall it’s pretty impressive. This scene was quite shocking though. I certainly didn’t expect it to open up like this, but I dug it.

The film then jumps ahead and we meet Janet (Mariel Hemingway) and her young son Brett (Mason Gamble). While outside one day playing with their dog, Thor, a passerby approaches Brett and asks if his mother is home. This stranger purposely agitates Brett’s dog and then pretends to be bitten and threatens Janet with a lawsuit. Janet quickly shuts him down advising that she’s a lawyer. The stranger than angrily wanders off.

This scene totally attempts to trick the audience. The stranger provokes Brett’s dog but even before it gets to that point the dog lets it be known that he does not approve of this guy. Given that this scene takes place immediately after a werewolf attack it plants the idea in your head that maybe this stranger is a werewolf. He’s not but it does make you think that for a bit.

Janet and Brett head out to visit Janet’s brother who turns out to be Ted. Ted is living in a trailer not too far away and we learn that he just recently returned home to this trailer. Janet asks about Marjorie and rather they saying she died in a crazy werewolf attack, because that would be crazy, Ted simply says they broke up. Janet can tell something doesn’t seem quite right with Ted and invites him to move his trailer over to their property and live with them. Ted resists at first but eventually decides to take Janet up on her offer.

Due to the attack at the top of the film Ted is now a werewolf. So while Ted agrees to live with his sister he makes it very clear that he will be spending his evenings alone in his trailer. In reality Ted is heading out to the woods to tie himself up to a tree with hopes that doing so will prevent him from attacking anyone. Ted spends his days researching werewolves desperately trying to find a way to reverse this curse.

Bad Moon is so bizarre. It’s almost like two different movies mashed up as one. The middle portion of the movie is like a family drama that you may see on Lifetime or ABC Family or something along those lines. You have a sister and a brother both going through difficult times in their lives attempting to re-connect and assemble some kind of family unit. All of this family drama is bookended by incredibly graphic violence. The werewolf stuff really goes for it. There’s absolutely no playing it safe.

It terms of story there actually isn’t much that happens. Ted becomes a werewolf, tries to figure out how to reverse it and eventually he’s unable to fight it. Even during the days when he’s just a normal dude the werewolf side of him starts to take over. He becomes meaner and it impacts his relationship with his sister and nephew. While Janet is unable to determine what exactly is bothering Ted, Thor knows and will do anything to protect the family. So the film plays with some interesting dynamics into how it affects his family life, but overall there really isn’t much that happens.

This is a pretty basic and straight forward werewolf movie. And that’s fine because it succeeds with what you want in a trashy werewolf movie. You have some werewolf transformations, you get some violent attacks and you’re good. Just don’t expect anything groundbreaking and you can have a lot of fun with Bad Moon.

The new Blu-ray from Scream Factory looks and sounds fantastic. There’s an HD version of the theatrical cut plus a new director’s approved cut of the film. Both of which look great. Each cut has its own commentary, director Eric Red on the director’s cut and then Red is joined by Paré on the theatrical cut. In addition to the commentaries there are some storyboard sequences, an unrated opening sequence from the director’s first cut of the film (different than both cuts on the Blu-ray) sourced from VHS and a pretty good making-of feature entitled ‘Nature of the Beast.’ The making-of features quite a few interviews with different players from the cast and crew, the most interesting I found to be Steven Johnson on the special make-up effects used in the film.

Bad Moon doesn’t raise the bar on werewolf films but it gets the job done. Plus it’s another solid example of why 90’s horror is far better than people seem to think.

Bad Moon is now available on Blu-ray from Scream Factory.