At the start of the movie “Bad Moon” Janet,Mariel Hemingway, is harassed by this two-bit shyster Flopsy, Hrothgar Mathews, who’s trying to make a quick buck by inciting Janet’s and her young son Brett,Mason Gamble, handsome smart and courageous German Shepherd Thor on him in order to sue her for everything that she’s got.

Thor has Flopsy running for his life with his tail between his legs and threatening to report her and Thor to the local sheriff. Later Janet gets a call from her brother Ted, Michael Pare,who’s been away for a while on the Indian sub-continent with his fellow archaeologist and girlfriend Marjorie, Johanna Lebovitz. Janet is more then happy to invite Ted to stay with her not knowing that Ted had picked up a little something in the wilderness of Tibet; a vicious wolf bite when he and Marjorie were attacked in their tent by a wolf-like animal that tore Marjorie to pieces and left Ted barely alive.

At the house Thor senses that there’s something strange about Ted and Ted knows it. Thor’s got the drop on Ted for what he really is. Thor being civil doesn’t let on to Janet and Brett who Ted really is in order not to spoil the family get-together but keeps a close eye on Ted to the point where one night he follows him into the woods and sees what he really is, A Werewolf.

Ted to his credit does try to prevent himself from going out in the woods at night, when there’s a full moon, and killing both people and animals by handcuffing himself to a tree in the forest. This doesn’t work all the time with Ted breaking loose and attacking and killing a number of campers and neighbors.

One night Flopsy sneaks onto Thor’s dog-house with an ax in order to kill him for making a fool out of him by showing him up for what he really is a coward and chiseler. Flopsy instead of finding Thor is found by Ted, in his werewolf mode, and ripped to shreds.

Sheriff Jenson, Ken Pogue, who Flopsy reported that he was attacked by Thor earlier in the movie has the local ASPCA take Thor to the dog-pound to be euthanized for the suspected killing of Flopsy. With both Janet and Brett alone and Thor not being around to protect them Ted again turns into a werewolf at moonlight. Janet follows Ted into the woods to see just what he’s been doing all those nights that he’s been away from the house and, seeing him for what he really is, gets the shock of her life.

Ted chasing Janet into the house while Brett, who left earlier, drives with his bike to the pound and saves Thor from being killed by letting him loose. Thor immediately shoots right to the house, almost getting himself killed in the heavy traffic on the country roads, where Janet is being attacked and fighting off the man-turned-beast Ted.

Taking on the much bigger and more powerful werewolf Thor’s courage and valor more then makes up for Ted’s strength and ferocity. With the help of Janet blasting Ted with a full load of lead from her handgun Thor, injured and bleeding, then slams Ted right out of a top floor window killing him. Thor who was on death-row just hours before ended up saving the day, or was it the night, as well as both Janet and Brett lives.

“Bad Moon” is a pretty good dog coming to the rescue film with Thor stealing every scene, as well as bone, that he was in. The one thing that puzzled me about the hero of the movie, Thor, was what happened to him after he was savagely bitten and mauled by the werewolf? shouldn’t he have also turned into a werewolf himself like Ted did or are werewolf bites only effective on humans not animals when it comes to making then into beasts! The answer may be that Thor being a dog he can’t be effected by any werewolves bites since he’s, I know this is very hard to believe, a beast already?