Blood Moon

I saw this at my local film society (its first public showing in Kent, where it was made). I thought it was pretty good by any standards (and not just "pretty good for a film that only cost £520,000").

If you're expecting state of the art special effects and CGI and an extended gore-fest, you'll be disappointed, but it's highly watchable, engaging, sometimes funny and made me jump more than once!

In a Q+A afterwards, the director and the director of photography admitted they had had the same problem that a lot of creature feature makers have - the creature never looks as convincing on screen as you had hoped (we all remember the rubber-looking shark in Jaws!). As a result, their creature is only briefly on screen but its presence and menace are still felt.

All the actors give a good performance but I'd maybe highlight Shaun Dooley as Calhoun, looking like a slightly younger Russell Crowe, and Corey Johnson as Hank.

I'm not a big horror genre fan myself - if you are, you might find yourself insufficiently scared - but Blood Moon still stands as a well-made indie film. It benefits from having been shot in Laredo, a Western town in the UK recreated by a group of re-enactors - the period detail throughout is much more than skin deep and it's a convincing enough location to have fooled many people into believing it was shot State-side.

It's done pretty well on the festival circuit and, as the first British-made Western since "Carry on Cowboy" in 1965 (reputedly), I think it deserves watching.

I don't know any of the players or production crew (except Corey Johnson and Anna Skellern, a bit) , but this film SHINES! Oh, yes, it is definitely worth your time!

The dialogue is excellent, the story moves, the players are all topnotch and the cinematography is worthy of a Hollywood production. I've seen big budget flops that couldn't patch this effort.

Shaun Dooley (Calhoun) sparks memories of Ben Johnson - he plays the cool hand very well with minimal cheese. Corey Johnson and Raffaello Degruttola (the Norton brothers) put just enough "yuck" into the bad guys. Eleanor Matsuura (Black Deer) and Amber Jean Rowan (Sarah Norman) play convincing female roles, while George Blagden (Jake Norman) and Jack Fox (Wade) play lawmen you will believe. But best - and worst - is Anna Skellern's portrayal of Marie: best because she is so beautiful and hot as an old time saloon matron and worst because... well, spoiler. Just watch.

Oh, and I believe the creature is a windigo. One of my favorite North American monsters!!!

Well, while this 2014 "Blood Moon" hardly is going to move any boundaries for the werewolf genre, it still turned out to be a watchable and entertaining enough movie for what it was. Sure, there are better werewolf movies available, but "Blood Moon" wasn't actually as bad as I had anticipated.

The storyline in the movie is pretty straight forward, for better or worse. That, unfortunately, means that there are no surprises in store for the audience. So it feels like the movie just fairly quickly settled into a monotonous pace and trotted onwards.

There is enough action in the movie to liven up the moments when you are about to drift off and your attention start to falter. But, for me at least, it just wasn't enough to fully keep my attention. I actually fell asleep during the last 20 minutes or so. Did I go back to watch what I missed? No, the movie was adequate, but it wasn't good enough for me to do that.

The make-up, prosthetics and such were adequate, but not really top of the line. The werewolf was adequate, but hardly the best seen in the werewolf genre. The wounds and such were fair and adequately made.

Now the setting of the movie was good. There is just something about that Western period, so having a werewolf movie set in the late 1880s was just great. That worked quite well for me.

All in all, "Blood Moon" is adequate entertainment for what it turned out to be. However, it just wasn't outstanding enough to make itself memorable. As such, I am rating the movie a mediocre five out of ten stars.

This is supposed to be a B movie, werewolf, Western made in the UK. It's obviously tongue in cheek and all these British folk are having fun doing a Western. They can barely keep the twinkle eyes from it all. Knowing that makes it that much better. You can be in on the fun or grouse because it's not Jason or Michael. Get your popcorn and blanket, dim the lights and have fun with them.

Under attack by a group of criminals, a small outpost town attempts to find a way of derailing the bank robbers stalking them find an even more dangerous and vicious beast in the nearby woods and must band together to stop the deadly creature.

This here wasn't all that bad of a werewolf film and did have some solid points about it. When this one is mostly concerned with it's attacks by the creature itself, this one really comes off nicely with the action providing this one with some rather enjoyable elements throughout here. The opening assault against the different hunters makes for a great time with the rather suspenseful attacks keeping things chilling while letting the kills generate some nice bloodletting in the savagery of the actions, while the later attack in the saloon is quite a hit of fun with the rather frantic and chaotic attacks coming through the walls and windows requiring all sorts of shootouts throughout trying to kill it. As well, the finale in the streets of the old-west town as they try to get the creature killed is a bit of fun with the fun attacks and different escapes required throughout the town that makes for an enjoyable if slightly problematic effort that highlights the few flaws within here. The fact that the action is enjoyable is fine, but it's way too confined to that one section of the film as the majority of the time this one doesn't really offer up a whole lot of rather frantic werewolf action on display. It's only got these several scenes to really go on that generates the kind of overall action within this one that lets it be known it's actually a werewolf movie since the majority of the film is concerned with other areas than getting to the creature. By focusing on the different criminal gang interacting with the townspeople and how they're getting the underhand against the creature running loose, it all holds off the attack generated from the attacks actually occurring as there's so much time in between it getting loose again that it takes up the time on these other matters which isn't all that interesting as the main section of the film. As well, that problem also brings up another in the form of a rather brief series of action scenes that go by quickly in order to move on to the next scene without ever letting the action sink in, and with the quick-shot editing this one really does have some substandard action within here. These here are the film's few issues that hold it down.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.