Samurai Dreams 5 SNEAK PEEK #2

Full Eclipse (1993) Reviewed by James

From Anthony Hickox, the director of the Waxwork movies, comes this hard-hitting werewolf cop HBO original movie starring Mario Van Peebles and the obnoxious Bruce Payne. Van Peebles plays your typical movie cop: he's tough as nails, takes unnecessary risks, hates authority, talks about "the job" a lot, has a rocky marriage, and feels really guilty when he gets his partner almost killed.

But then the movie’s formula starts to change when his dying partner gets injected with werewolf blood, and is instantly healed. He starts hopping around and is impossible to kill, and the movie's best scene is with him chasing a car full of thugs while jumping crazily over cars and driving a guy’s motorcycle straight into a wall! But he doesn't like being a werewolf cop, so he shoots himself in the face with a silver bullet. Our man Mario then gets invited to Bruce Payne's police officer therapy group, which is actually a squad of vigilante werewolf cops!

Most of the werewolf cops don’t get any character development at all, except for Patsy Kensit, who is the required babe who gets to sex up Mario. The worst part is definitely Bruce Payne, who is a really shitty actor. His idea of acting cool is talking really dumb alliteration, having really long, flowing locks, and strutting around like a retarded robot learning to be human. The action sequences are fun and well put together, but the make-up blows. Bruce Payne is the real werewolf, while the others are just hooked on a derivative of his blood that acts like a drug. When they show their werewolf powers, its just goofy claw hands and fang faces, while Payne turns into a lame poofy werebear at the end. *1/2