BAD MOON {1996)

THAT WEREWOLF HAS A MONOCLE!!!  Sorry, that's what that poster always looks like to me.  Eric Red (writer of NEAR DARK and THE HITCHER) writes AND directs this time with BAD MOON.  The wonder that is Michael Pare comes back from an expedition somewhere (did I miss where they tell us where???) after a werewolf has torn apart his girlfriend and apparently has also bitten him.  He comes to stay with big sis Mariel Hemingway and her young son Mason Gamble (the 90's DENNIS THE MENACE) and their protective German Shepherd Thor.  Pare chains himself to a tree each night but Thor isn't having any of it and he engages in a pissing contest (literally!) with Pare as he squares off against the werewolf to protect his family.  

BAD MOON is based on a novel called THOR in which the entire story is told

from the dog's point of view; therefore the movie's hero is really Thor.  And this dog is probably the best actor in the film!  Thor's face gets many, many close-ups as the dog seems to be actually acting his furry little butt off.  Hemingway is slightly wooden while young Gamble is actually quite good (and I'm NOT a fan of child actors as a rule).  Pare, who usually gets a lot of stick for not being able to act, is actually quite good as well towards the end of the film's climactic transformation scene where his eyes well up and then, mid-transformation his face is genuinely unsettling.  Steve Johnson's werewolf FX are also pretty good.  An OK werewolf movie.