Blood Moon

To start I love the cast, I've seen all of them in various TV shows and movies and I commend them on hiding their accents (most were English) The atmosphere was good, the dialog well done and the acting pretty good. A well made B-grade horror set in the old west, I'd watch it again.

This one actually took me by surprise - I was expecting much less from this film so I found it a pleasant surprise. I think I was expecting bad acting, horrible script, terrible cinematography and that sort of thing but what I found was the complete opposite from my expectations.

You will see the werewolf at the very beginning then it turns into a really good western drama that builds suspense towards the last 30 minutes or so of the film - which is where you will see the werewolf and get some action involved.

I really like this one - it's not a gore fest - there is a little but NOT overly done by any means. It's just a well written and acted werewolf western film.

8/10

151005: For a low budget film; a surprisingly good film. There's not many glaring holes in the special effects because they keep them so well hidden through the use of lighting, movement and angles (see extra features). Some decent acting from this group, Shaun Dooley (Calhoon) being the weakest in my opinion. Other than that annoying pistol Calhoon carried, happy with this lost cost, low budget western. Can't say that for most I end up buying. As an added bonus, it even had me jumping at times (turn the volume up).

Blood Moon is a hackneyed B grade werewolf flick with a Western flavour.

The premise behind this film has in one form or another been done before.This is by no means the worst interpretation but its by no means the best either.

The acting is, by and large, of a very good standard. That said the actors are constrained by the, at times, cheesy stereotypical cowboy characterizations, replete with lots of gormless gun twirling. Even worse again, are the tame and tacky monster effects, that are more comical than scary.

Blood Moon had the makings of a half decent horror if only more care had been taken with the special effects and more common sense had been injected into the script. As it stands, this film rates a five out of ten from me.

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.