Review of 'In the Shadow of the Moon'

So I saw an odd, little, strangely compelling movie on Netflix the other night, just as our clocks were slipping back an hour. Turns out that that timing, for want of a better word, was just right.

In The Shadow of the Moon is advertised as as a strange crime movie, in which a series of bizarre murders happen every nine years. In Philadelphia. That should have been the tip-off for me—Philadelphia. I mean, that's where one of the all-time greatest time travel moves, 12 Monkeys, takes place. And Philadelphia just speaks of science fiction. That's where I'll be this coming weekend—at Philcon, the world's "first and longest-running" science fiction conventions (organized by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society)—where I'll be on panels, reading from my new alternate-Beatles story, and singing songs from my new album, Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time," to be released early next year.

And, sure enough, that's what In the Shadow of the Moon turns out to be: a science fiction story, more specifically, a time travel story! (I love time travel), in which the killer turns out to be a young woman from the future who travels back in time, on a quest that is every time traveler's dream (well, most of them) to save the world from an awful fate.

The Philadelphia ambience, starting in the 1980s and moving up to the present, is excellent. Dexter's Michael C. Hall has a decent role, and the acting in general is fine (shout-outs to Boyd Holbrook as the cop, Cleopatra Coleman as the killer, and filmmaker Jim Mickle). There's a mad scientist, an obsessed cop, and most important (for me), the movie has a real heart and soul.

So see the movie, and if you're in Philadelphia this coming Saturday, come by and hear some of my science fiction songs. At least one is about time travel.