Best movie of this year hands down!

Overrated and overhyped

Better Late Then Never

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Every fan has their guilty pleasure, the one film they enjoy whilst just about everyone else hates and loathes it. KILLER'S MOON is such a film for me, an infamously shoddy bad-taste production in which just about everything is god-awful: sub-par editing, atrocious acting, dialogue written as if by a drug-addicted loon. Director Alan Birkinshaw (a very minor personality in British exploitation stakes) goes out of his way to deliver helping upon helping of over-the-top nastiness which amazingly managed to get through the BBFC with an 'X' certificate back in the days of its first release. A video release followed in the very early '80s, but otherwise this crummy wannabe slasher-epic has rarely seen the light of day and is mostly forgotten by fans of mainstream horror. KILLER'S MOON transcends its many limitations to become a schlocky masterpiece of so-bad-it's-good entertainment; a laugh riot throughout and for all the wrong reasons.Birkinshaw seems to be going out of his way to make an offensive movie right from the start, when a bleeding, three-legged dog limps into view - apparently the fourth limb has been severed, by persons unknown! The setting is an effectively barren Lake District, which is one of the film's finest points: the isolated atmosphere of the British landscape really comes across and gives the movie an ideal setting, as in much the same way as a film like THE LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE for instance. Cold, gloomy, yet still attractively lush with greenery in places, the setting is ideal. Into this forbidding landscape comes a coach full of clichéd '70s schoolgirls, all into singing "Greensleeves" before their trip goes awry when the coach breaks down and they are forced to trek through the woods to the nearest place of salvation - a closed down hotel.So far, so good, although you'll have already realised by now that this isn't the paciest of movies. The slow nature of the film may be off putting to those looking for faster, more serious scares, but let's face it, nobody here had a lot of budget to work with so things necessarily must be dragged out and laboured. And just as the film looks to become a bit boring, in come four of the most outrageous film characters to liven it up. Nevermind that they're all loonies from the local asylum - here the mentally ill are portrayed as evil, twisted psychopaths with no redeeming values, three ending up brutally killed as a result of their own crimes, the fourth finally resembling a pathetic child of a man. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is the big influence here, both in the characters' attire and their choice of names ("Mr Smith, Mr Muldoon... Mr Trubshaw" - I mean, please!), and also in the way in which they casually go about raping and murdering all in their path. The idea that they believe they're living out all their worst desires in a safe dream-world is a clever one, giving the movie the one spark of minor originality and interest which it otherwise lacks.What follows is a catalogue of atrocities, all played out in a commendably straight-faced manner. Cats have their tails cruelly lopped off; shrewish housewives are pinned to their own doors with kitchen knives; all manner of young and attractive schoolgirls are stripped and violated by the scheming mad men (watch those nightdresses, which seem to fall off suspiciously easily). Even the comedic coach driver (as played by the inimitable "Chubby" Oates - I wonder what became of him?) gets an axe in the head. It goes without saying that the minor gore effects here are pathetically done and very unconvincing, with the body-on-the-door gag being the only real "special effect" of the bunch. Of course, what goes around comes around, and eventually the bad guys are offed by dog-mauling, fire, and scythes to the back, in that order. The fourth guy (get this) dresses up the charred corpse of one of his former friends in a female wig and shirt and cries in its lap, apparently looking for comfort from his "mother"! The acting is unbelievably bad, all amateurish and no familiar faces to be seen. The actresses playing the schoolgirls have all obviously been picked for their lack of inhibitions rather than anything else, whilst the guys playing the killers go way over the top with some of the most outrageous, hammiest acting you're ever likely to see in a British horror production of the '70s. Even the American (?) hero, Mike, is played by a really wooden bloke. So why does this film work for me? For a start, the dialogue, which is positively ringing with classic gems of priceless ineptitude, including the legendarily bad summing-up of the situation the characters find themselves in: "Blood on the moon, one mangled dog, one missing axe, and one lost girl who just found a body at the wrong end of the axe. How's that for the great English outdoors?". Then there are the over-acting guys, who turn the wannabe figures of terror into laughable buffoons, the abundance of poor effects work, unpredictable events and cheesy heroes. Birkinshaw, I salute you, for making one of the last great stands in British exploitation cinema history!

A coachload of schoolgirls on a tour of Britain singing choir songs has to make an emergency stop in the middle of nowhere because their vehicle has broken down. There are four escaped mental patients on the loose, who have been hypnotised into thinking everything they do is a dream.. allowing them to fulfill their darkest fantasies. Here's a newsflash: Their paths cross at some point. Luckily, they have a three legged dog on their side, and two blokes camped on the moors come to their aid. I don't think much of the ladies night attire, though...Fay Weldon did some work on the script of this slasher, which later she claimed was a 'terrible mistake' as her written dialogue turned it into a cult film. Pardon me for taking the wind out of your sails Ms Weldon, but I didn't hear anything remotely witty or sparkling during the course of the film. What did catch my ear was loads of verbal diarrhea from our resident quartet of on-the-run loonies. Who ever thought insanity could be so... dreary?And to think, it all starts off decently enough, with a nice set-up to provide the template for a satisfactory horror. Then, the weirdos show up, prancing around as if trying out for cabaret, spouting their absolute drivel... and we can't take them seriously. Whatever mood the director tried to establish is more-or-less ruined by these four walking bad jokes. They're not frightening in any way, just bloody annoying. After listening to them for minutes on end, death would almost be a mercy. 4/10

Four criminal psychopaths undergoing LSD therapy (!) that escaped from a lunatic asylum. A group of stranded schoolgirls lodged in a mansion/castle. The four psychos will make their way to the girls through a string of murders. When they meet the girls, there will be a massacre - rape and murder."Killer's Moon", story wise, is the exploitation buff's dream, but there's no real nudity (just some bits of flesh), sex is more suggested than shown, and there's violence (not very explicit) but no gore. But this isn't really important because the story is violent and sleazy."Killer's Moon" may not be a great film but I've quite enjoyed it - besides having a good story, it's ironic, involuntarily funny and bizarre (suffice it to mention the three-legged dog!).Recommended for those who love the 70s exploitation films.

A school bus carrying two schoolteachers and their teenage female students breaks down and so they, following the bus driver, sojourn for a spell, as the night begins to bare its presence, looking for shelter until help can arrive. Well, an old timer who lives in the general area leads the group to a hotel (which, by its exterior, looks like a castle) with a proprietor kindly enough to offer them refuge from the cold weather and nightfall. This proprietor is worried about a young woman who assists her, and the phone line seems to be out. Meanwhile, it is established that four lunatics have escaped from a "mental cottage" whose therapeutic techniques concern a type of "dream therapy", and it's only a matter of time before these psychopaths find the hotel, and the women who occupy it. The heroes of the film include two mountain climbers camping in the woods nearby the hotel who attempt to rescue the girls from certain doom. The filmmakers make damn sure to create a sense of foreboding, with characters (like the old man and the hotel proprietor) often expressing a feeling of unease about something being wrong out there. It takes about forty minutes for the loonies to make their presence known, although the bus driver gets it in the neck with an ax, and the old man's wife is strangled not long after slicing her killer with a knife he used to slice off a cat's arm. The killers, as we soon learn when they start yapping after some violence, believe their actions occur within a dream state—there's a bit of irony here, the supposed therapeutic technique used to cure them instead lends to their psychotic behavior. Rape, depravity, and executions on practically anyone they come across results from the failed dream therapy and the cottage's lack of security needed to keep them from escaping. To be honest, I didn't particularly find this movie, rated X by British censors, to be that frightening or sadistic, and it's laborious to sit through, while also occurring mostly at night (it looks like the filmmakers used the "day for night" technique), a murky viewing experience for a good deal of the running time. It's slow and uneventful, with the nutcases going on and on about their dreams. Sure these creeps take the teenage girls, in their nightgowns, forcing them on tables or the floor, delighting in the power they have because of the dreams they inhabit (or believe they inhabit). The gowns split down the middle to unveil the teenagers' breasts as the psychos decide to enjoy what they think the dreams allow them to. One girl is held down, her gown slowly ripped open as the sicko smiles fiendishly, resulting in sexual molestation. Two girls are told by Pete, one of the climbers, that the path to the village is safe, but one of the teenagers is chased away, her run futile as he catches up, ending in strangulation as her gown splits open—this is really as depraved and exploitative as the film gets, girls' gowns splitting down the middle, breasts revealed, a small bit of rape and strangulation to a few of them. Never really quite as potent as these films have a tendency of being, KILLER'S MOON shows how the climbers, because they are not insane, are able to outsmart the wackos who continue to believe they exist within a dream and therefore can do whatever their hearts desire. The weapons of execution include fire, a scythe, butcher knife, ax, and, as mentioned previously, hands—this might be enough to attract interested slasher fans and those who enjoy any exploitation they can get their hands on.