There’s a Harvest Moon tonight.
It’s supposed to be a clear night here in Pittsburgh, so I’m looking forward to seeing it.
In honor of tonight’s full moon, I decided to combine information about Full Moons with a listing of my top picks on Werewolf movies.
Did you know there are different names for the full moon each month?
Well, I didn’t. I’ve heard of the Harvest Moon, Hunters Moon, Blue Moon, and Blood Moon, but I never knew there were distinct names for each month’s full moon.
Check them out:
January – Wolf Moon (also a.k.a Ice Moon): primarily named for the howling of hungry wolves lamenting over the scarcity of food in winter.
February – Snow Moon: reminiscent of the typically cold and snowy weather in this month.
March – Worm Moon: This is the name Native American’s gave the last full moon of winter, due to the worm trails they’d see in the newly thawed ground.
April – Pink Moon (also a.k.a Fish Moon): named for early blooming wild flowers. Other cultures call it the Fish Moon.
May – Flower Moon (also a.k.a Milk Moon, Hare Moon): aptly named for the abundant flowers in bloom.
June – Strawberry Moon (also a.k.a Rose Moon): named for the strawberry harvesting that happens this month in North American. Europeans call this the Rose Moon.
July – Buck Moon: Native Americans were the naming source of this moon, relating it male deer, that shed their antlers, and regrow them in July.
August – Red Moon (also a.k.a Sturgeon Moon): Named for the reddish hue it acquires due to summer haze. Fishing tribes in North America called this the Sturgeon Moon due to the abundance of sturgeon fish they found in August.
September – Harvest Moon: This moon rises early and appears very bright. Its name is derived from farmers who were able to work longer in the fields during nights of this full moon. This moon appears near to the autumnal equinox.
October – Hunter’s Moon: Typically bright like September’s moon, this moon was named by hunters who were able to spot and hunt deer more readily in October.
November – Frost Moon: Aptly named for the onset of winter.
December – Cold Moon: Another appropriate name, indicating weather conditions in winter.
There are also the:
Blue Moon – A 2nd full moon occurring in one month is called a Blue Moon. This occurs every 2.5 years.
Blood Moon – When the moon is in full lunar eclipse it appears reddish, like the August Red Moon.
Now let’s talk Werewolf Movies!
I haven’t watch a ton of werewolf movies, but I’ve watched a few over the years that I’ve liked enough to watch them over and over again. And as I was making this list, I found that most of my favorites were released in the 1980s and early 2000s.
Interesting.
Here’s my list of the coolest Werewolf movies I’ve seen.
- American Werewolf in London (1981), staring David Naughton and Jenny Agutter. Two American college students, backpacking through Britain, get attacked by a large wolf. One survives, and as he heals in a hospital, he’s plagues by nightmare of this dead friend, who warns him that he’ll become a werewolf.
- The Howling (1981), starring Dee Wallace and Patrick Macnee. A traumatized television journalist gets counselling at a secluded psychiatric retreat run by werewolves.
- Wolfen (1981), starring Albert Finney and Diane Venora. While trying to solve a series of grisly murders, a New York police investigator and an expert criminologist stumble upon a inner-city band of Native Americans, who warn them about a wolf-like, mythical creature that may be responsible for the murders they’re covering.
- Silver Bullet (1985), starring Gary Busey and Corey Haim. A wheel-chair bound boy encounters a werewolf and enlists the aid of his sister and uncle to help him capture the creature.
- Teen Wolf (1985), starring Michael J. Fox. After a high school nerd learns his family has a freakish trait of becoming werewolves, he decides to make the best of his own transformation by using his newfound agility and strength to excel at basketball, but soon wonders if his popularity is due to him being just a novelty rather than because of who he is as a person.
- Ginger Snaps (2000), starring Emily Perkins, Mini Rogers, and Kate Isabelle. In a suburban town, two outcast sisters struggle to deal with tragic consequences resulting from one of them being bitten by a werewolf.
- Dog Soldiers (2002), starring Sean Pertwee and Emma Cleasby. During a nighttime training mission in the Scottish Highlands, a small squad of British soldiers encounter a pack of werewolves and barely escape, retreating to farmhouse where they struggle to survive under the full moon and live to see dawn.
- Underworld (2003), starring Kate Beckinsale and Michael Sheen. A ruthless Lycan leader, hellbent on ending the vampire bloodline, clashes with a female vampire who works as a trained killer for a vampire clan.
- Van Helsing (2004), starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale. In a movie laden with CGI, the renowned monster slayer, Van Helsing, journeys to Transylvania to defeat Count Dracula, who has formed an unholy alliance with Dr, Frankenstein’s monster to exact a curse on the Valerious family.
- The Wolfman (2010), starring Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, and Benicio del Toro. An aristocrat returns to his ancestral home to find his missing brother and struggles to deal with a family curse and his estranged father.
My all-time favorite of the above: Dog Soldiers.
Have you seen any of these?
If so, which one/ones did you like best?
