KILLER’S MOON

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KILLER’S MOON

2 Stars 1978/18/89m

“One endless night of terror!”

Director/Writer: Alan Birkinshaw / Cast: Anthony Forrest, Tom Marshall, Georgina Kean, Alison Elliott, Jane Hayden, Jean Reeve, Nigel Gregory, David Jackson, Paul Rattee, Peter Spraggon, Elizabeth Counsell, Jo-Anne Good.

Body Count: 9

Dire-logue: “One minute you’re a person, then you’re a sheep…all covered in blood.”

I was born in 1978. The year of Halloween, Grease and…uh…Killer’s Moon, a film possibly even more fucked up than The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. ‘Ooh, I must see it!’ you may crow. But wait, remain in your seat with the belt fastened, for this is not a recommendation by any means. Tobe Hooper’s film is screwy in a truly horrific way. Killer’s Moon is shot to pieces. It’s like that mental middle-aged woman in accounts who talks gibberish on eleven different subjects at once.

It’s part Clockwork Orange, part exploitation trash and part girls’ school comedy. Said schoolgirls are in fact a choir travelling through the Lake District – yes, it’s 70s England! – when their bus conks out and they take refuge in a secluded hotel. Meanwhile, we learn that four nutters have broken free of an institute and, thanks for a new type of therapy, believe they’re dreaming.

The loonies eventually crash the big sleepover to rip off blouses, rape and strangle any jailbait they can get their grubby mits on. They abduct others and force them to…prepare food for them! OH MY GOD! The depravity! Sooner or later, a couple of camping buddies team up with the girls to escape and reap their revenge.

Author Fay Weldon rewrote much of the girls’ dialogue but some of what comes out of their mouths is unbelievable. We start off with; “I just want to die and get it all over.” Fine, stupid, but fine. But later, proto-heroine Agatha turns to a friend of hers and tells her: “Look – you were only raped. As long as you don’t tell anyone you’ll be fine.” Only raped!?!? By an insane escaped convict, no less! Oh, don’t worry Lucy, all is well, just internalise the anxiety for the next sixty years and all shall remain just tickety-boo.

Whether or not Killer’s Moon is supposed to be humorous is debatable. It could be that it just sucks. Characters don’t question anything they’re told, trust absolutely anyone and spit venomous insults akin to “you’re just horrible!” at the killers as if they’re all at a seventh birthday party. Throw in a random three-legged dog who saves the day, indifference to bodily violation and nightgowns so cheaply made they simply fall off in a passing breeze and you’ve got one of the weirdest 89 minutes one could hope to experience… Approach with caution.

Blurb-of-interest: Birkinshaw later directed a slasher remake of The Masque of the Red Death, which is immeasurably better.

COLD PREY vs COLDPLAY

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Do we know much about the culture of Norway, that slab of land that stretches from the North Sea up near the Arctic Circle? With no means to cause offence, the country isn’t famous for a helluva lot. Images immediately conjured up when one thinks of the place include herring, fjords and limited daylight hours.

Worry not, for this rather drab portrait can only be brightened by the fact that the country produced one of the most atmospheric slasher pics in recent memory, which also teaches us Norway has a lot of snow and therefore skiers and such.

Yes, Contender #1 is Cold Prey, or Fritt Vilt as shown here, the super high-tension cloud-of-dread neo-masterpiece of teenkill horror that pitts five stranded snowboarders against a fur-clad primal killer when they are forced to spend a night in an abandoned ski lodge. This rivals Haute Tension for the crown of most nail-biting stalk n’ slasher so far this century – but doesn’t have the same dumb twist.

Moving from the fjords and herring of Norway to the once great shores of Great Britain, but a pebble’s throw away to meet Contender #2, our very own Coldplay.

Now, Coldplay emerged on to ‘the scene’ several years back, shooting to fame with an endless array of drippy ballads such as ‘Yellow’ and ‘Clocks’; the kind of songs that, if sung by, say, Alanis Morissette, would have been minor footnotes in the British charts and likely criticised for being too whingey and whiny. But when you’re a quartet of blokes with a conventionally handsome leading man, you can moan all you want and Radio 1 will kiss your feet and declare you the best band ever.

Can you tell who’s going to win yet?

Premise: Cold Prey adopts a simple, back to basics approach and garnishes it with cold, claustophobic photography and an emphasis on the complexities of character relations over horny teens having sex.

Coldplay lean towards pianoey ballads with poetry-like lyrics and a lot of metaphors.

Originality: We’ve seen Iced and Shredder so we know that 80% of the primary cast members are no longer going to exist after 95 minutes.

Jo Whiley said Coldplay had a ‘definitive sound’. This actually meant that Speed of Sound was a carbon copy of Clocks and she didn’t want to look stupid by endorsing them after moaning for so many years that most pop groups’ output ‘all sounds the same’.

Violence: Make no mistake about it, Cold Prey gets brutal when it wants to. The first kill is especially terrifying (not least for the victim), but after this there’s no excessive bloodshed.

Listening to Coldplay may well induce outbursts of homicidal violence.

Leader: Jannicke is the sensible, kind final girl in Cold Prey. She loves her boyfriend and is nice to Morten, the dude who’s had the Jones for her since, like, forever. She kicks the killer’s ass when necessary.

Chris Martin seems like a nice fella, but bland, mind. Does anybody know the names of the other three?

Outcome: Cold Prey ‘borrows’ heavily from a scene in Hostel for it’s finale, but I was literally screaming at the TV for Jannicke to do what a (final) girl’s gotta do!

Coldplay are still going.

Spawn: Frit Vilt II is just as scary, taking the olde Halloween II route of moving both FG and killer to a near deserted hospital for further stalkage. One of those rare sequels that matches the first film’s quality.

Chris Martin has a child named Apple.

Victor:

Well that wasn’t at all obvious…

EVIL JUDGMENT

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EVIL JUDGMENT

2 Stars  1981/93m

“A homicidal maniac becomes judge, jury and…executioner!”

Director: Claude Castravelli / Writers: Claude Castravelli & Vittorio Montesano / Cast: Pamela Collyer, Jack Langedyk, Roland Nincheri, Nanette Workman, Suzanne De Laurentis, Walter Massey, Septimiu Sever, Sam Stone.

Body Count: 8

Dire-logue: Dino – “You know, where I come from they strap hookers to a mule and run ’em out of town.” April – “Yeah, is that how your mother came to America?”

My third Let’s-Celebrate-Halloween-by-the-medium-of-VHS outing.

I possess a strange fantasy about living in Canada. But maybe it’s not all trees, lakes, and Celine Dion. At least, if the Canadian embassy handed out copies of Evil Judgment instead of DVDs showing video of the a fore mentioned things, I might change my mind and go for Australia instead. Hmm…don’t like the sound of those killer spiders.

EJ isn’t a dire film. Canada makes good slasher films as it happens. Except for Study Hell. Alas, this is no Prom Night or My Bloody Valentine. This possibly explains why it wasn’t released until 1984. Unlike those other films, EJ is an ambitious little tike, deciding to take a handful of stalk n’ kill and shove it in the mouth of some gritty cop thriller and sprinke a Mafia plotline overhead. When I was young I didn’t think the Mafia was real. Chalk that up there with the Canadian life-plan.

Anyway, Janet is a bit of a wimpy, naive waitress who moans enough about her lack of cash that hooker gal-pal April talkes her into accompanying her on a little menage a trois at some wealthy judge’s mansion for $200. Janet reluctantly goes but soon regrets it when both April and the judge get their throats slashed.

She wakes up in hospital and is told by arsey detective Armstrong that she tried to kill herself. ‘Bullshit,’ she says, ‘I so escaped from a psycho looney killer!’ He’s all; ‘who’d believe a junkie whore?’ and she’s like; ‘I’m a waitress, man!’ The only person who seems to take her seriously is her hot n’ cold boyfriend Dino, who’s the dude with the Mafia connections.

The killer returns to try and do away with Janet and she and Dino decide to play Fred and Daphne and soon discover a whole conspiracy to do with the murdered judge, Armstrong and some botched trial. I lost interest here for a while until the killings were reignited. The assailant finally puts in an appearance and here I paid my dues for not paying attention as I wasn’t sure who he was or what was going on. I’ll blame the aged VHS copy and the tracking on my player. I don’t feel like watching it again.

The main shortcoming in EJ is the acting. Or, lack of. Pam Collyer, as Janet, isn’t so much bad, more that she feels the need to annunciate each and every word of her dialogue, robbing it all of any tension or meaning. The film’s rarity meant it escaped being scissored and there are some grisly throat slashings chucked in (mainly women of course) and, with a higher budget and more taut scribing, this could have been a minor cult classic. As it is, there’s not much her to earn a recommendation from me. Of course, feel free not to pay heed and dive in headfirst, it’s what I’d do. And should ‘judgment’ have a second E? J-U-D-G-E-M-E-N-T ?

Blurbs-of-interest: Roland Nincheri (Armstrong) had walk-on parts in Visiting Hours and Terror Train.

HOLLOW GATE

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HOLLOW GATE

1.5 Stars  1988/87m

“When Mark Walters throws a Halloween party, Freddy and Jason wouldn’t dare to come.”

Director/Writer: Ray Di Zazzo / Cast: Addison Randall, Katrina Alexy, Richard Dry, Patricia Jacques, J.J. Miller, Ted Buck, Mario Hernandez, Pat Shalsant.

Body Count: 6

Dire-logue: “Just a few Halloween nuts… Is that all you old bitches want? Happy Halloween, you filthy old hag!”

Yesterday was Halloween. I was at work, but managed to watch a certain famous flick about the day in question. It was amazing. Eerie, creepy, perfect all round 30 years on. I also watched Hollow Gate.

Now, the killer in Hollow Gate, Mark, had his head held in the apple-bobbing bowl by his beer-choking pop at a kids’ party. This actor’s name is Bartholamew Bottoms, which might explain why such a thing might happen to him off-screen. Title cards tell us that ten years later, on Halloween Night (despite it being daylight), he teaches two nasty classmates a lesson when they mock him and his gas-pumpin’ job by setting their tank alight and watching them burn. Another two years pass and, on the same day, he attacks a shop girl who won’t have ice cream with him (“I don’t like ice cream! I don’t like the movies!” -who’d want to date this chick?)

Some undisclosed time later, Mark is living with his dotty Grandmother at Hollowgate, a fat-ass mansion outside the town limits (somewhere in Oklahoma). His live-in nurse has been dismissed and, when she suggests throwing a costume party on Halloween to resocialise Mark, Granny gets a pair of scissors in the eye. A couple of weeks later, two teen couples on their way to a nearby rave opt to deliver a few costumes to Hollowgate in exchange for free wigs. Yes, really. They’re soon trapped on the grounds after Mark shows them what’s left of Grandma and, for each ensuing murder, he dons a costume and plays its respective part (drill sergeant, redneck farmer, snooty British fox hunter…) This is assumedly, Hollow Gate‘s ‘niche’, it’s ‘hook’. Sucks, don’t it? Well, not half as much as the film itself.

The teens in peril are an ensamble of am-dram rejects for sure. They squeal their lines and overact to the point of a lunacy that rivals Mark’s madness. Equally, their decision making abilities should be called into question: at one point, they elect to run across a plain one by one for no obvious purpose. The last girl goes and notices a combine harvester coming towards her in the distance. Now, you can outwalk a combine harvester, especially when it takes between five and ten seconds for each machine appendagey part to lower itself to ground level. But no, she stands there and screams, keeps still so the killer can shoot her and then run her over in said vehicle. She literally had over a minute, during which she could have crawled to safety!

Worse is to come. Another teen is mauled by Mark’s rabid…Golden Retrievers!!? Yes. The friendliest, most placid canine species is cast as a savage killing machine. I have a Labrador Retriever and the only living thing I’ve ever seen it eat is a spider. By the time the last girl is on the run and screaming at everything, two cops whose respective ‘stories’ we’ve had the displeasure of returning to throughout events the film come a-rescuin’ and things are wrapped with that old killer’s-eye-opens-in-the-hospital thing.

Low body count, rubbish gore, characters who should die but don’t – this is only made bearable by the bewildering lack of acting talent. Slam the gate shut upon your departure please.

CAMPING DEL TERRORE

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CAMPING DEL TERRORE

3 Stars 1986/18/83m

“…Now the woods are alive with the sound of screaming.”

A.k.a. BodyCount / The 11th Commandment / Camping Della Morte

Director: Ruggero Deodato / Writers: Alex Capone, David Parker Jr., Sheila Goldberg & Luca D’Alisera / Cast: David Hess, Mimsy Farmer, Charles Napier, Nicola Farron, Bruce Penhall, Luisa Maneri, Andrew Lederer, Stefano Madia, Nancy Brilli, Cynthia Thompson, Elena Pompei, John Steiner, Valentina Forte.

Body Count: 12

Dire-logue: “Does your moose have a sister?”

If you were channel surfing late at night around, say, Halloween and you happened to catch a few minutes of the wonderfully titled Camping Del Terrore, I’d forgive you for thinking it was a nameless Friday the 13th sequel, something like No. 6 or 7. ‘That’s Camp Crystal Lake,’ you might say to any companions you happen to have. ‘They’re counsellors…’; ‘there’s Jaso- Oh, wait a sec…’ Yes, Ruggero Deodato, who directed Cannibal Holocaust back in the 70s, is so very similar to Vegan Voorhees’ fave franchise that you could probably slip the video tape into a Friday box and fool small children and your grandma.

So, what’s the sitch? Well, it’s most certainly the mid-80s and that means that necking teens should know better than venturing into the woods at night for romantic trysts and pre-marital sexualisations. This doesn’t stop a couple of big-haired luvvers, who are summarily knifed by a hag-faced scary person who goes as far as to pre-prepare a wig similar to the hair of the local doctor’s daughter in order to fool her dumb jock boytoy. Actually, this happens, like, years earlier, so maybe their naivety can be overlooked…

cdt-3-pics2In the proper 80s, not those intrusive fake 80s, a camper-load of teens – some of whom suspiciously have Italian accents – roll into the Colorado campground where the murders, blamed on the standard local tale-of-doom character the ‘Old Indian Shaman’, occurred and subsequently sent admissions plummeting. The camp is owned by super-unhappy couple Robert and Julia, who very briefly cheer up when their son Ben hops out of the camper, having returned from the army and hooked a ride. Robert is played by David Hess, one of the loonies in Last House on the Left and directed the almost-enjoyable To All a Goodnight. He’s not very nice to Julia, which explains why she’s screwing the local Sheriff.

No sooner do more campers show up, so does the ‘Old Indian Shaman’, ready and able to make holes in nubile teenage meat with knives n’ stuff. To us, it’s obvious that the Shaman is little more than some psycho in a cloak and mask, unless mythical monsters wear hefty black boots. But who could it be? Moody Robert? Oppressed Julia? One of the teenies? Extra suspects are tossed into this Italian gore salad by way of ‘The Doctor’ (…not David Tennant), dad of the opening victim who scowls ‘I hate campers!’ to the Sheriff when a couple of soon-to-be extinct lovers paddle by in their canoes.

cdt-3-more-pics2The teen-wasting project soon begins with a hunt for a missing chick after her boyfriend stumbled back to camp and then lapsed into a coma (!). Unfazed by this development, the rest of the gang continue to flirt, strip off at a moment’s notice, play juvenile pranks and obsess over ‘doing up’ a dilapidated shower block they find in the woods, which happens to be the scene of most of the killings that ensue.

To oblige the audience’s growing need for some death, dodgy Doctor recalls the demises of another couple of teens fifteen years earlier… The Sheriff thinks a bear got them. Sure, man. Bears hide under beds and wait for dumbass girls to lie on them before shoving a machete through the underside and through said dumbass. A lack of swirly screen visuals ruins this little flashback, which we must suppose occurs in 1971, when fashions were spookily similar to those of 1986…

Back in the proper 80s, fat comic relief dude fancies shaggy perm girl (who is admittedly hot), but she’s into goody-two-shoes Ben, who is putting up with his parents’ respective weirdnesses and dreams about jars of maggots and such. Another flirty couple are killed in the outhouse and again, nobody seems to worry about them, even when morning comes the next day with no sign of them returning…

At this time, the Shaman obviously grows bored of how long it’s taking to kill people and attacks biker-dude Dave (Bruce Penhall), who, along with moody Carol, has hastily been shoved into the role of hero/survivor as if Deodato completely forgot about electing a Final Girl until the finale loomed. Ben rescues Dave and, without any rational thinking whatsoever, no brainstorming, no information gathering, concludes that the ‘Old Indian Shaman’ is back to KILL! KILL! KILL!

About now, things get a little complicated… Julia finally has a violent reaction towards Robert and thinks she’s killed him and when moody Carol runs in after finding some of the bodies, Julia, assuming she means Robert, confesses to murder and follows moody Carol into the woodshed where, it turns out, Robert is far from dead and, in turn, fatally slashes his wife down. THEN… shaggy perm girl also discovers the same bodies moody Carol did and, when fat comic relief dude comes to rescue her, he makes the undoable error of running into a complex bear trap.

Take a breath… OK, moody Carol tries to chainsaw her way out of the woodshed and is eventually rescued by biker Dave and the remaining few people take shelter in the main cabin and the Sheriff shows up. Some additional death transpires before the ritual unmasking happens. Things go down like a gored-up episode of Scooby Doo before the two surviving teenies are sent on their way to assumedly live happily ever after following their fifty-four second relationship blossomization from earlier on and the Sheriff takes the law into his own hands, only to – possibly – be thwarted by a real ‘Old Indian Shaman’! Alas, we end on a freeze frame and never find out the truth. Well, not a version of it that you could reasonably swallow anyway.

cdt-3-pics-3-2Camping Del Terrore is 80s horror epitomised: nobody does anything sensible, there are subplots that don’t mean anything and the whole package makes no immediate sense. It’s like a toasted cheese sandwich where the bread is made out of big hair and tinny pop-metal. Still tastes pretty good though. When I first bought it on VHS an acquaintance said ‘Bodycount… that was in every video store in the 80s.’ Well, yay, I say. Let’s hope lots of people rented it and thought it rocked, because it did. For me and those like me (smirk…) it still does, more so in the face of all the crappy, heartless remakes doing the rounds right now. Deodato, nobody may have saluted you at the time for this one, but Vegan Voorhees does.

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