Full Eclipse

Plot synopsis:
Max Dire is a Los Angeles detective who is feeling the strain that his profession entails when his wife of two years, Liza, accuses him of bringing his work home and leaves him to ponder her future, while his partner, Jim Sheldon, commits suicide by shooting himself in the head. Realising that Max is experiencing problems, Adam Garou, a high-ranking officer distinguished by his success in reducing crime in other big cities, invites Max to join him at a weekly meeting of other police officers who are experiencing difficulties at his apartment. Adam informs Max that he should try to solve his problems rather than quitting the force as he is a good detective.
Although Max is skeptical as to whether he will derive any benefit from the meeting, as he and his wife had already attended counselling sessions without success, he reluctantly attends the meeting at Garou's apartment where he meets other police officers who have experienced problems such as Casey Spencer and Ramon Perez. Everyone who Max meets at the meeting praises the impact that Garou's influence has had on their fortunes. Max soon realizes that the activities of the group consist not merely of talking but also entail embarking on vigilante missions to clean the streets of criminals.
Max advises Garou that he is not interested in joining the group, but he immediately forgets this and agrees to accompany them to a party where criminals are exchanging weapons. Before gatecrashing the party, Max, being a veteran detective, notices that each of the group members injects themselves with a strange chemical, which he learns has been produced by Garou. After they have injected this chemical, Max notes, thanks to his finely honed powers of observation, that Garou and his group are transformed becoming more powerful and seemingly impervious to injury. The next day Max attempts to advise his incredulous boss of the strange goings on, but to no avail.
He visits Casey Spencer who tries to persuade him to inject himself with the chemical. When he refuses, she shoots him. As Max lies dying on the floor gazing at her in a perplexed manner she injects him with the chemical and he is instantly healed. They sleep with one another and afterwards raid a criminal lair after injecting themselves. As Max and Casey kill the criminals, they sprout long claws from their knuckles, and grow sharp teeth. One of the criminals escapes and informs his crime boss what he is up against. He is given instructions to deal with Garou.
Garou learns of Casey's sexual encounter with Max and angrily advises her that he is 'top dog' before raping her. Afterwards Garou and his group, including Max, gather together for another night of attacking the criminals. After injecting themselves with Garou's chemical the officers enter a vehicle to depart on their journey. The vehicle explodes as the key is turned in the ignition. As the remnants of the vehicle burn, the criminal who had been instructed to kill Garou looks on with glee. This happiness is soon replaced by terror when he notices that all of the officers have survived and that they are in their monster-like state. In the next scene the dead bodies of the criminal and his associates are dropped from a helicopter through the glass ceiling of the crime boss' home.
The same night, Max meets in a holding cell an ex-police officer from a city where Garou used to work. The officer is deformed and speaks badly of Garou. He advises Max that Garou may have cleaned the streets of the other cities, but that all of the officers who had worked with him were killed (though he had escaped). He also explained that his deformity was caused by overuse of the chemical. Garou kills the officer to silence him and Max covers for him, but his suspicions are aroused and he begins to conduct some research into Garou.
After making a startling discovery, he sneaks into Garou's apartment and finds Garou extracting the chemical from his own brain. Max advises Garou that he realises that he is a werewolf. Conflict ensues and although Max and Casey escape from Garou's apartment, the latter is fatally injured. The next day Garou prepares to complete his final operation and Max resolves to stop him. After Garou has killed all of the criminals, including the aforementioned crime boss, Max shoots him with a silver bullet and Garou falls to the ground. Thinking that Garou is dead, Max turns away . Then suddenly, he hears Garou say 'Didn't you get my memo? A full eclipse protects me from everything; including silver'. A full eclipse had passed overhead as these events took place. As Max dreads to consider what will happen next, Garou asks him 'Wanna see something really scary?'. He then turns into an extremely large werewolf, losing his human form entirely.
Max flees as the other members of Garou's group are killed. Garou tries to kill Max, but the latter injects Garou with a solution of silver nitrate. As the eclipse is over, this kills Garou. Before he dies Garou returns to his human form and tells Max that if he lies in his blood he can take his power. In the final scenes of the film, Max is shown to have moved to Denver with his wife Anna and their relationship seems to have improved. She is shown cutting her finger with a knife as she is chopping up food. Max licks her finger and then leaves to undertake some paperwork. She notices that her cut heals immediately and stares after Max bewildered. Meanwhile, Max is shown looking up on a computer the dates of coming eclipses in different American cities. These scenes reveal that he has inherited Garou's power.

Tags: violence

Review:
A good sense of humor, some snacks and some suspension of disbelief will help make this movie more enjoyable.There is some sex,plenty of gore, fangs, claws and guns...The cast seemed to have had a blast in this movie.
Sleek, sexy, and kind of like X-Men. Full Eclipse was a cool werewolf film.
Mario Van Peebles is great as Max Dire, the cop who becomes involved with a top secret group of werewolf cops led by Bruce Payne.
The love scene between her and Mario is the best one I have ever seen in on film.
An enjoyable werewolf action movie..
It's starts off with two cops, Max Dire and his partner, and his partner is telling him how he's going to quit the force and get married.
it's not great, but it definitely kept me entertained.It comes from director Anthony Hickox, who's first movie was Waxwork in 1988 (which also featured werewolves), and he does a particularly good job here at emulating John Woo -- the action sequences are very exciting, adrenaline-fueled affairs and in the other scenes there are plenty of close ups and interesting sound effects to set the mood of the movie.
Mario Van Peebles does his usual action hero thing with great flare, and Bruce Payne makes an excellent villain as Mr A Garou (Garou is French for werewolf, see -- pretty much the only high-brow werewolf reference in the movie).
It doesn't really pick up it's pace until the the second half, when Max Dire becomes one of the pack, and that's when things really start to get interesting.
First off the action sequences are incredible, John Woo had a major influence on the style of this film.
The performances couldn't be better, Mario Van Peebles is extremely underrated and Bruce Payne is the quintessential bad guy.
This movie is Shaft meets The Howling, throw in Hong Kong-flavored action and you've got Full Eclipse.
Full Eclipse is an excellent spin on the classic werewolf tale and just a fun, cheesy B movie.
Bruce Payne and Mario Van Peebles are hamming it up a bit but it fits the tone.
This may be director Anthony Hickox's last good film (besides Warlock: The Armageddon which was made the same year).
Full Eclipse is a little hard to find, but well worth it for a good mix of action, horror, and cheese..
There was a lot of posing and it felt like posing.Patsy is slinky, Mario is suave, and Bruce is sinister, but that's about all I can say for this one.
I just got done watching it and I can't even remember what ultimately happened to Patsy's character.On the whole, I still enjoyed watching the movie enough to give it a 5, but the letdown after the opening part prevented me from going higher..
Anthony Hickox at this time of his career could have been seen as a horror journeyman with such films behind him like; ""Sundown: the Vampire in Retreat", "Hellraiser III", the first two "Warlock" features and the two "Waxwork" films.
So "Full Eclipse" was another addition to the cycle.Los Angeles is filled with crime, as detective Max Dire sees his partner brutally gunned down and to make matters worse his girlfriend left him.
However Max is hesitant about it, but soon he is seduced into joining them.After a tough, cracking opening half-hour, from then on it becomes a brooding cop melodrama with a supernatural edge that harboured character conflicts, bemused performances and plenty of posturing.
However when the werewolf angle kicks in (an elite group of cops are dosing up on a serum that gives them superhuman abilities to tackle crooks), it can get sidetracked (you know the stress of the job) and becomes a little preachy (with some sort of parallel to drug addiction -- "At least try it" and "Just watch, then decide.").
The stunt-work also has a lot of people rev up and jumping around, especially through things and these werewolves leave plenty of destruction ("He's Acting like Dirty Harry on crack").
Mario Van Pebbles gets by, that is because of that powerful name "Max Dire".
Bruce Payne camps it up in a very cold, but lethal manner and Patsy Kensit simply sizzles.Junky, but mildly satisfying."Sometimes its good to know your not alone.".
But it keeps the pace up throughout most of the movie, yes a bit slow in places but if you like cheesy aging actions you will probably go in for Full Eclipse.If you want something just a little better try *One tough Bastard*.
It doesn't have werewolves, the main actor is torture and the child's character is dumb as a fence post but Bruce Paine as the villain saves it with some of the best one liners you are likely to get in an action movie - much better than any of the Die-hard sequels anyway!
The special effects aren't that bad, but remind of say Lost Boys & other movies and the comparison is very unfavorable.
That is your typical salad bowl movie: bada$$ honest cop loses patrol partner when sickos raid club...or so he thinks, because he's back the next day & performs like three vandamme 80's movies put together ( the action scenes aren't bad but they look like stand-ins & stunt-men a mile away ).
There is an attempt at virtuous camera angles and there is a salad bowl plot including some romance subplot & some cop-in-distress-going-through-divorce subplot...again trying to borrow here & there from more famous movies.
The best way I can describe it is that it's like an early 90's John Woo flick, only with werewolves.
In fact, I'm sad he didn't end up becoming a bigger action film director or sticking to this very specific style of directing .
But much like other directors, his visual style and approach began to change and he just never carried the same aesthetic or visual tone that some of his better earlier films had.
I mean, this is a guy who has done some amazing things visually with a lot of his early films, and I just can't stress that enough with Full Eclipse, a film that blindsided me with it's visceral punch of hard-hitting action and spectacle.While this film carries elements of both the horror and action genre, it's really in the action where Full Eclipse excels.
There was never a single moment during the action sequences where Mario Van Peebles wasn't shooting two guns at the same time while simultaneously flying through the air a la Face/Off or The Killer wearing a black suit and tie and landing on his stomach or back as he continues to shoot off rounds Chow Yun Fat style.
It's hands down one of the slickest looking action films I've ever seen, and easily his most visually satisfying work to date.While Mario Van Peebles was excellent as the lead, special attention must be made to the lead villain here, played by none other than resident bad guy Bruce Payne, and oh my word is he just amazing here.
But again, the real star of this film is Payne, and he steals every single moment he's on film.While there's an insane amount of satisfying action, it's also a werewolf film, and in that regard, it also doesn't disappoint.
Much like other 90's films I've recently revisited such as Timecop and Freejack, Full Eclipse is an awesome example of this very specific type of action film, the 90's kind, and I really hope it gets a Blu Ray release someday.
FULL ECLIPSE is an unusual and offbeat type of werewolf movie.
The good guy cop is Detective Max Dire, played by Mario Van Peebles.
He is a troubled Officer, trying to deal simultaneously with the aftermath of seeing his partner shot and critically wounded during a police raid on a criminal's hangout and having marital problems at home.
The medieval French term for a werewolf is loup-garou, so I knew immediately what Bruce Payne's character really was.
Garou invites Dire into his home, ostensibly to involve him in group therapy with a small group of other troubled police officers.
But Garou's real motive is to recruit Dire into the Pack and have him become a werewolf, too.
Garou asks Officer Casey Spencer(PATSY KENSIT) to help "recruit" Dire.
Kensit is seen talking to a reluctant Van Peebles in a soft and seductive manner about joining the Pack and then she gives him an erotic lick on the mouth.
Next thing you know, the Officer is back in the saddle chasing down the bad guys like Superman.
She then explains to Dire that the members of the Pack are able to transform themselves into lupine entities by injecting a serum provided by Garou.
We know it's going to wind up in a fight to the death because Los Angeles isn't big enough for two good-looking werewolf dudes.
Garou is shot in the chest with a silver bullet- not by Dire, but by one of the female members of the Pack.
It looks like he's got the upper hand(or paw) but suddenly the eclipse starts to wane as the Earth's shadow moves off the Moon.
I liked this movie quite a lot and I'll give it an 8 out of 10..
This is an underrated, superhero-inspired dark action flick about a secret police task force who are really werewolves.
Max is the promising rookie cop who gets inducted into this task force (without being made a werewolf - at first), among other things by being seduced by the delectable Patsy Kensit, whose role here is also one of her very best.This movie's got style and coolness oozing out of every orifice.
I made a commitment over the Summer to try and binge watch as many werewolf films as I can.
Going into Full Eclipse, an HBO Original Movie from the early 90s that hardly anyone seems to remember, my expectations were staggeringly low.
While it does suffer from several cons common of Made-For-TV movies, the film's developed characters, interesting themes, strong performances and (At moments) genuine suspense make it well worth a watch for fans of the werewolf movie genre.Much like the previously reviewed Spawn (Which I also loved), the most glaring and distracting issue with Full Eclipse is the special effects.
The budget just simply didn't allow for very convincing or effective practical effects.What really saves Full Eclipse and elevates it to the upper tier of werewolf films is the acting.
Payne has such a natural charisma, charm and likability as Officer Adam Garou that for the first 2 acts, he genuinely had me on his side.
Payne plays that revelation frighteningly, while never seeming like a different character from the idealistic, security obsessed Police Officer we were tricked into loving in the beginning.
This kind of sympathetic, relatable villain was rare in action films of the 90s and what Payne pulls off with him is rather impressive.While Payne is easily the best performance in the film, Mario Van Peebles is an excellent lead and I really found myself gravitating towards the character of Officer Max Dire.
Peebles has a real wide eyed fascination to the world of possibilities, power and purpose that Adam Garou offers him, his impassioned delivery and subtle facial acting really invest me in the journey of a cop trying to re-discover his purpose in a time of existential crisis.This brings me to another point of praise for the film, how unpredictable it is.
The character arcs of both Garou and Dire manage to avoid the various cliches that plague both werewolf films and cop films while still feeling natural and logical.
They act like actual characters rather than stock archetypes in a cop or werewolf film.
The film is surprisingly inventive in terms of subverting the cliches of its genres and I wasn't easily predicting plot points left and right like I thought I would be doing.
Genuine effort was put into the characterizations of this movie.Thematically, the film has a lot more depth than one might expect for a movie about werewolf policemen.
The appeal of the spectacle is several degrees more than what you'd expect from such a small production.The miniscule budget and resources of Full Eclipse hold it back from its full potential, but this is still a highly entertaining and surprisingly smart werewolf film with some outstanding performances.
Max Dire (Van Peebles) is one of the best and bravest officers on the LAPD.
Because of his stellar track record as a crimefighter on the mean streets, he attracts the attention of Adam Garou (Payne), a mysterious man who wants Max to join his gang of underground vigilantes to clean up the streets in their own way.
There's a lot to love and appreciate about this movie - not only is it a solid action movie in its own right, but it puts a nice spin on the cop/action drama.
It even puts a spin on the vigilante movie, which we especially liked, because we love those, generally speaking, and if you add in werewolves, it's hard to lose.
And the great cast ties it all together, along with the fast-paced direction of Hickox.Mario Van Peebles was terrific as Dire: not only is he a quality 90's coolguy with his ever-changing beard stubble, loose ties and sunglasses, but you can feel his conflict as it relates to the unfolding werewolf situation.
On top of that, he shines in the action sequences, as he fires two guns while diving through the air in slow motion, in true John Woo style.
So while this even has a dash of the then-current "homie movie" (there is a drive-by shooting and Van Peebles has a tendency to say "yo yo yo"), Full Eclipse, in general, is a cut above the average DTV film, in our opinion.
The only bad thing is that this was a point in time when annoying pop-culture references were starting to pop up in characters' dialogue.But the 80's weren't that far behind, as you know that Dire's partner, who says he's "getting married", is "too old", and is nervous and complaining a lot, that he's not long for this world.
As someone else had previously pointed out, the 1993 action-horror film "Full Eclipse" plays out a lot like a mad combination of "The Howling" (1981) and "Dirty Harry" (1971), mixed in with the feeling of a gore-filled superhero/horror comic book.
The plot to "Full Eclipse" is probably one of those stories that comes up out of a 10-second brainstorming session and the filmmakers just run with it; these end up being some of the best films ever released, so that's not a jab at Hollywood brainstorming.
I wouldn't be surprised if more than half the films that came out of Hollywood in the '80s and early '90s probably started out in such a fashion."Full Eclipse" is a movie that begins like an ultra-violent cops & robbers action flick, and ends as a gore-filled, special effects-laden comic book-styled horror film - although it's an admittedly high concept for a low-budget, made-for-TV film directed by Anthony Hickox ("Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth").In Los Angeles, violent crime is out of control and the streets aren't safe.
Detective Max Dire (Mario Van Peebles) and his partner Jim Sheldon (Anthony John Denison) are out patrolling one night when they get a call about a hostage situation out a downtown night club.
To make long stories short, Max and Jim go in without a S.W.A.T. team back-up and Jim is critically wounded during the ensuing gun battle.You would think that at this point the movie would be about Max going out to get revenge or being partnered up with a young inexperienced rookie - a la, "Lethal Weapon" - but the movie is only just beginning.
Max, who is already going through a crumbling marriage, is then placed in a support group for troubled police officers.
The group is run by a highly decorated veteran detective named Adam Garou (all-purpose villain Bruce Payne).
It turns out that Garou secretly runs a rogue squad of vigilante police officers who go out at night and exact their own form of justice on the streets.This is where the horror elements kick in.
In other words, Garou is actually a werewolf, and he has his right-hand woman Casey Spencer (Patsy Kensit, Mel Gibson's ill-fated love interest in "Lethal Weapon 2") seduce Max into joining their pack as its newest member."Full Eclipse" has an interesting story concept behind it, and for a low-budget made-for-TV (HBO) movie from the early '90s, it's carried out quite competently - given its financial limitations and lack of real star power, aside from Mario Van Peebles.
Admittedly, the "Lethal Weapon"-/"Dirty Harry"-inspired opening moments really do fool you into thinking it's going to be another cheap action film, and then the horror elements unexpectedly kick in and the film takes on a new dimension while still retaining a running cops & robbers theme.The performances aren't bad (Bruce Payne seems to be having the most fun here, even if he seems to be hamming it up a bit), and the special effects, make-up, and gore are quite impressive - the latter of which was reportedly toned down somewhat so the film could get an "R" rating (this review is based on the restored unrated version of the film).
The werewolf transformation sequences are nowhere near the strength of "The Howling" or that other big werewolf movie from 1981, the landmark horror-comedy "An American Werewolf in London," but the make-up employed to realize them seems like something straight out of an "X-Men" comic book.
(In fact, the whole story feels like it could be a gore-filled horror comic book series.)"Full Eclipse" is an impressively realized horror film, even if it falters in several aspects of its story and performances, but its high-concept - albeit comic book - premise, and special effects give it an edge for being a low-budget made-for-TV film.I wish more low-budget movies like this came out in the early 1990s.6/10