Main cast: Katrina Bowden (Juliet Delaney), Jay Mohr (Thomas Delaney), Will Carlson (Billy Bloomfield), Spencer Daniels (Lenny Bloomfield), India Ennenga (Lisa Delaney), Amanda Wyss (Bernice Delaney), Daniel R Hill (Daryl Bloomfield), David Labrava (Vinnie), Emmalee Parker (Wendy Delaney), Lexi Atkins (Stacy Phillips), Sean Patrick Flanery (Martin Ellsbury), and Thomas Jane (The Sheriff)
Director: Michael Caissie

Oh, Jay Mohr. That’s one fellow whose movies I haven’t come across in ages, and oh my, age certainly has… made him look distinguished, let me just say in order to be kind. Also, to the three people that want to watch Hunter’s Moon because Sean Patrick Flanery is in the poster and the main billing, I hate to break it to them but he appears in a glorified cameo only to get killed off in the first ten minutes of the movie.

I also don’t know what to make of Thomas Jane being in this thing. Now, I know people in Hollywood do a lot of decadent and possibly illegal things on a daily basis, so who knows, maybe they have some pretty strong blackmail materials to force him to be in this one. Perhaps he’s sleeping with someone involved in the film and now has to pay the piper. That or he has just given up on his career. Whatever the reason, he just makes me feel sad because he’s the only one here among the cast that comes off as halfway trying to give a decent performance.

Anyway, the plot. Mr Flanery plays Martin Ellsbury, a serial killer that is hoisted on his own petard during the opening scene of this movie. Then we cut to a while later, when the Delaneys show up to move into Mr Ellsbury’s big house in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by an orchard that gave the movie its original title The Orchard before someone thought the super generic Hunter’s Moon would be a better sell. The parents have to go away to do… something, leaving the three daughters on their own. The young ladies bring in two guys that turn out to be on the cray cray side, and so it looks like they are in trouble. Oh, and with the howling outside and all, are there werewolves around?

Here’s the thing. Despite the danger posed by the two crazy guys. the young ladies act like it’s all a mild nuisance, even taking time to make quips. Hence, I can only wonder just whom will be shocked to learn later on that the Delaneys are actually werewolves and this whole set-up is just a ritual for the young ladies to make their first kill or something like that. Even those that don’t see this so-called twist coming will likely be put off by how the movie seems to be missing any sense of danger and quit watching after being convinced that everyone involved in the movie must be on something wild. To add insult to the injury, the last few minutes of this movie are all about the characters explaining the whole plot to the audience, like the members of the audience are too slow to catch on the obvious.

That’s not to say that this movie is rife with delicious gore or mayhem. Perhaps it’s because the movie budget dried up the moment they had to pay everyone’s salary and rent the place for the movie to be filmed in, but this one is basically annoying people running in and out of the house, repeat and rinse. It’s really as dull as it sounds, trust me. The one time they show the werewolf… I don’t know, I can only speculate that maybe they had someone steal the werewolf costume from some store downtown, and can only film one scene with that costume before the cops show up to arrest everybody.

Everyone in this movie, aside from Mr Jane, puts on a performance that screams “I’m only here for the paycheck, screaming inside as I wait for this ordeal to be over!” Thomas Jane plays the cray cray sheriff that every rural crazy neighborhood must have, and he chews the scenery hard, probably because doing that is less of an anguish than chewing on his lips and raging at his agent about the poor choices in his life.

Ultimately, Hunter’s Moon is a werewolf movie with hardly any werewolf, a horror movie with nadda horror, and  a thriller with no thrills. The only way everyone involved in this crap will get to retain their dignity is to reveal that they have been coerced into making it, because this is one movie so utterly, completely pointless that I really question why it even exists in the first place.