First Moon Review: A Bloody Clash of Faith and Fangs
The trope/sub-genre of the “evil church” continues strong with writer/director Peter McLeod’s First Moon (2025). This sub-genre grew legs around the oppressive times of Covid and has continued now into 2025, alongside such films as The First Omen, Immaculate, Heretic and many other evil church/evil religion films in this horror sub-genre.
Lauren Esposito (The Conjuring 2) plays Jessica, an uncharacteristically innocent bar tender who seems too naïve or immature to be tending an actual bar, which is enhanced further by the bar’s contrivedly over-the-top, grabby male patrons. Luckily, she is ‘rescued’ by a handsome preacher, Thomas, played by Julian Curtis (Are You Afraid of the Dark?). These men at the bar are so offended that he objects to their attempts to make Jessica their wench, they punch the preacher right in the face. This sympathy play gets Jessica to return home with the preacher, only for her to be kidnapped by the religious sect Thomas belongs to, who enjoy applying medieval tortures to ‘cure’ those infected with the werewolf virus. This time the virus is sexually transmitted. So, they’re going the viral route with werewolf mythology which is at once inoffensive and about as interesting as midichlorians in terms of adding to the mythology.
Jessica wakes up in a cage in a large wooden room. She is manhandled and tortured by Elyse, played with sadistic pleasure by Shannon Ryan. This is an effective performance from Shannon and it rounded out this religious sect as well as the menacing enforcer in the shadows, Marcus, played by Anthony Ciccotosto, and their psychotically driven leader, played with aplomb and drastic mania by Soren Jensen, who I didn’t realize until after the movie was named “Father Torquemada” named after the historical sadist of the Inquisition. They are a convincing assortment of ‘healers’ who take their mission very seriously. At one point they are asked “How many have you healed versus how many have you hurt?” A fair question. Through their blind devotion the answer they give in all honesty boils down to them only saving one person. Earlier we see a whole morgue full of their ‘cured’ Werewolf potentials.
At first, we just think they’re sadistic monsters. Soon the sect confesses they are trying to save Jessica. Jessica experiences strange dreams with others who were infected with the same ground zero werewolf virus carrier. They can see each other in a dark dream and communicate psychically. Jessica is generally angry that she was drugged and caught a virus from this carrier as she wasn’t even aware it happened.
In several memorably cool sequences, members of the werewolf pack are killed by a religious sect in violently entertaining and ironic scenes. Notably, Father Torquemada, frustrated by his failure to cure an infected member, savagely beats them to death with his fists in a terrific mania. As the pack members die, they say goodbye to Jessica, knowing their end is near, and fade from the dark collective dream of the werewolf pack. It was cool to see them fade away like a vapor from this dream state as they were dying in real life elsewhere, leaving Jessica the sole survivor of the unborn pack.
First Moon had a lot of entertaining reversals, where Jessica understood the religious sect’s point of view and allows them to torture her to cure her, after she almost kills Elyse with superhuman strength. She allows them to torture her for a while to save her. It doesn’t work. She falls in love with Thomas, as her capture and perhaps with genuine affection for wanting to help her through this dangerous situation.
The writing gets a bit purple at times, and the scenes go on longer than they need to as the back and forth goes on too long without moving the story forward fast enough in the second act. It reverts to that kind of independent style where you begin feeling more editing is required, which can happen with writer/director virtuoso productions. First Moon is still entertaining, but it slows down to a crawl in certain scenes. It picks back up here and there with the unexpectedly excellent fight sequences and cool ‘clergy handguns,’ uncharacteristic in werewolf movies, which added some needed entertainment in the middle of this half-hearted torture porn film.
I’ve seen a similar ‘girl in a dog cage’ indie film that hits its beats better (had more of a story rhythm) and had more going on story wise only subbing in scientists for the clergy in Like Dogs (2021). They are different in terms of the active versus passive nature of the lead character. Jessica only really becomes active towards the end when she becomes a werewolf. Jessica, while giving a great series of transformation moments, is mainly passive till then, as a protagonist. In Like Dogs there is a necessary twist where we find out the girl in the cage is part of the experiment. A great twist. This movie needed more reason for the lead character to be there beyond just being a victim of circumstance.
A lot of sequences felt like repetitions of Jessica going in and out of her cage for a variety of reasons, sometimes to trick Thomas to escape, sometimes to get cured and be tortured as she screams as they cut her open and insert (Wolf’s Bane) into her skin? A lot of in and out of the cage. I guess they blew a lot of the budget on this set-piece and wanted to get more out of it? But we needed more variety of locations and events. The scale didn’t feel limited until I think back on it, the morning after. Much like Jessica didn’t remember sleeping with the guy who infected her with the werewolf virus. I mean, it’s situations like that, where instead of milking it for the drama, she doesn’t remember her lover? It’s just passive. Drama could have been around more corners, but it is artificially limited in an empty petri-dish of the religious sect who are all the same flavor of deluded sadists versus a last girl/eventual werewolf avenger.
First Moon Uppers:
There were elements and flourishes of this film I genuinely liked. I thought the directing from Peter McLeod was promising. It is the stronger suit in his writer/director moniker. He had some great scenes, and I really felt I was in good hands visually and stylistically.
I liked some of the concepts in the story, such as the psychic collective communication of the infected wolf pack.
And I liked the performances of the religious sect. They were all uniquely memorable and yet uniform enough to come off as a cohesive religious tribe with a clear hierarchy. It kept the concept from being too cliché, just enough for me to suspend disbelief. The fight sequences also entertained me unexpectedly as a curve ball. They were serious and not schlock. Well done!
The concept was adhered to and the logic of the situation played out with seriousness. It’s all I ask.
First Moon Downers:
The lead protagonist, as mentioned earlier, was too passive, was not particularly sympathetic, and did not come off as a well-rounded person in a movie that needed a stronger character with stronger motivations to a. fight the church; and b. had more stakes to her living or dying. She was written as a last girl until she becomes a werewolf but by then it’s too late and too one note. Now she has the power, but everyone is dead, and she only really saves herself to an extent. Low stakes. But this was not the fault of the actress. She did a very good job given her lack of motivation that I almost forgot she was really, mainly passive in the story. It was the screenwriting. It was too reliant on the premise of evil church and torturing werewolves. It wasn’t enough to carry the story to the end. It wasn’t cathartic. But it was generally entertaining, mostly.
I also felt the film needed more editing in sequences. I noticed this particularly in a later scene with Thomas, the guy who set Jessica up to be kidnapped, where they are just talking back and forth in what felt like forever without moving the story forward. We needed higher stakes in the story beyond the pile of bodies and the one final last girl’s survival. Too many stories over rely on ‘survival’ in horror but it is always in these highly contrived torture chamber situations with harnesses and chains and leather binding in little hidden torture rooms. The genre itself is stale and needs rethinking. Here it is about chasing the evil church sub-genre which is fine in theory, and I must admit, at least the motivations of the church were clear here, unlike other films who just make all Catholicism one long evil menace without reason or even misguided good intention. I liked that they took the time to explain the good intention that paved the road to hell that this movie was howling on about.
Also, the final hairless werewolf with plastic tits was passable and didn’t fully disappoint but didn’t wow me either. It’s hard to constantly excite in the genre based on ‘another werewolf’ and I get that. The bar was set very high in the ‘80s and high metaphorically in the ‘90s. Which means they came out ahead here. Hairless is new enough not to tip the cow completely over.
Overall:
First Moon entertained me here and there, but it was a mixed bag. I literally must recommend it differently based on the genre you like the most (which illustrates my confusion with this film). I marginally recommended it if you’re a torture lover (not enthusiastically), but I would recommend it more if you like the evil church sub-genre. However, I would not necessarily recommend it at all if you’re coming into this as a werewolf genre enthusiast, as it didn’t add much to that genre or mythology.
I liked the direction, but the writing and editing needed more momentum, and the concept fell flat in parts and the infected werewolf pack needed stronger lead character work as protagonists. They were bland and almost generic, but the religious sect made up the difference.
Elements were missing, maybe due to budget. Too many roles for the virtuoso director? Maybe they needed more brilliant people in the room collaborating and more writers in the mix? Whatever the situation, plenty of potential. I’d like to see what this director does next as he progresses.
I recommend this movie on the margins. It is fun for a torture/confinement film. It is not extreme despite being torture porn. That might have kept it from tipping over into an absurd movie. They played it safe and reasonable for a film of this type. Live to fight another day, right? But I was disappointed there wasn’t more werewolf stuff in this film. There wasn’t even an attempt at metaphor or symbolism, like Ginger Snaps (2000) did successfully for sexual coming of age in puberty. The werewolf was an afterthought here. A complete artifice without purpose, and not in a good way.
Directed by: Peter McLeod
Written by: Peter McLeod
Produced by: Tanya Esposito
Cinematography by: Dillon Pearce
Music by: Dominic Cabusi, Bronte Maree O’Neill
Edited by: Balraj Khan
Special Effects by: Andy Mauger, Melanie Nekro, Jake Porath, Thomas E. Surprenant
Cast: Lauren Esposito, Julian Curtis, Shannon Ryan, Soren Jensen, Mitchell Slater, Yasmin Langlois, Anthony Ciccotosto
Year: 2025
Country: Australia
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 1h 37min
Studio: One Tree Entertainment
