- Director: Eric Red
- Writers: Wayne Smith, Eric Red
- Stars: Mariel Hemingway, Michael Paré, Mason Gamble
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 20 Minutes
Synopsis
A couple are on a jungle safari and they decide to have sex in their tent. Meanwhile, something outside is spooking the horses and the natives. A werewolf claws the man and rips the girl to pieces. The man blows its head off with a shotgun. Credits roll.
Brett plays catch with his dog Thor, but Thor just won’t bring the ball back. Thor does, however, attack a traveling salesman. Janet’s a lawyer, and she’s not intimidated by his threats to sue. He’s just a “Flopsy,” a kind of con man who does this for a living. When he still threatens to sue, she promises to call her friend the sheriff. She’s tough and intimidating, and the guy slinks off with his own tail between his legs.
That night, a forest ranger is out measuring trees in the dark, and he hears something growling nearby. The growling gets closer, and the ranger runs for it. The werewolf bites right through his helmet.
Uncle Ted calls Janet and arranges a visit since he’s back from his safari adventure. They go up to Ted’s tailer in the wilderness, and Thor immediately catches a strange scent in the woods. Brett finds that Uncle Ted has a bunch of scientific equipment in his trailer, including a book on werewolves. Meanwhile, Thor finds what’s left of the ranger hanging in a tree. Thor isn’t quite sure what make of Uncle Ted; he senses something strange, but it’s only Ted, right? It starts getting late, and Brett, Janet, and Thor go back home.
The next day, Ted calls and wants to come visit them. He doesn’t tell them, but there are police everywhere after the ranger’s body is discovered. That night, Janet hears Thor barking like crazy at the back door just after the full moon comes up. Thor watches as the werewolf struggles, handcuffed to a tree. The two have a staring contest before Thor gets called back home. These two are not going to be friends.
Janet hears that a fifth hiker has been found in the Timberline area. They say some kind of wild animal is attacking hikers. Ted laughs at the film, Werewolf of Londonon TV, since werwolves don’t only turn at the full moon; wolves aren’t like in the movies. Ted warns Janet not to let Brett play in the wolves for a while; that thing is out there; Thor shouldn’t be allowed out there either. Janet thinks Ted is overreacting.
The following night, Ted leaves the trailer to go chain himself to another tree, but Thor slows him down until Janet calls him in. Thor fights the monster off in the backyard, but nobody else sees what happened. Thor gets a cut, but Janet calls in the sheriff to report the animal that hurt him. Janet goes out to the trailer to warn Ted about the animal, and she finds his collection of werewolf victim photos. Then she reads his diary that explains the whole thing as the werewolf approaches the trailer from outside. The werewolf is about to kill her when, just then, “Flopsy” the con man sneaks up to the house to take his revenge on Thor. Thor isn’t the “dog” he finds.
The sheriff thinks Thor fought Flopsy and killed him; Thor has injuries that might make that true, but Janet knows Ted’s secret now. Thor attacks Ted, and she calls Animal Control to take him away. It wasn’t clear in the beginning whether Ted was a regretful, scared curse victim or if he enjoys what he’s become. We see from his reaction to Thor’s situation that he’s learned to love being evil. He goes out and pees in Thor’s doghouse; that’ll show the mutt!
That night, Brett sneaks out to jailbreak Thor from the dog pound. Ted goes out “for a run,” and Janet follows with a flashlight and a pistol. Nope- she puts the pistol back on the shelf and goes after him unarmed. Janet catches Ted at an “awkward moment.” “You should’ve listened to the dog, Janet,” he growls. Then he changes right in front of her in one of the cringiest, worst transformation scenes on film.
Janet runs from the werewolf as Brett breaks Thor out from the dog pound. Thor goes running. Ted goes running. Janet goes running. Brett’s little, so he gets a bicycle. Janet runs home where this time, she gets the gun for real. Just as the wolf is about to do something bad to Janet, Thor jumps in and attacks the Tedwolf. They do battle but Ted outclasses Thor by about triple, so Janet finally shoots the Tedwolf repeatedly. In what should be a final, desperate act of self-sacrifice, Thor jumps on the Tedwolf and they both fall out the second story window and limp into the woods as the sun comes up. Ted turns back into a ripped-up, bloody human, and Thor finishes the job.
Time passes, and we see that Janet has a nightmare about Thor turning into a super-wolf. That’s just a dream, right?
Commentary
There are numerous shots from the point-of-view of the dog, and apparently the book this was based on was entirely from the point of view of Thor. It’s obvious here that the only one who really knows what is going on is Thor.
The werewolf looks very animatronic in several scenes, not really giving a lifelike appearance. The actual transformation scenes has some kind of lensing-morphing effect that may or may not have been early CGI, but sucked painfully whatever it was.
Overall, this is an unusual take on a fairly standard werewolf story. The dog’s point of view makes it all interesting.