Killer's Moon starts in the isolation of the Lake District in England as a coach of school choir girls travel onwards to a concert they are going to perform at. Meanwhile in central London a government minister (Hugh Ross) is giving a psychiatrist (James Kerry) & prison governor (Graham Rowe) a right going over as they try to explain away the escape of four mental patients who all have sexually violent convictions, the psychiatrist says that they were being treated with an experimental drug in which the patient would think he was in a dream. Back to the Lake District & the coach has run into difficulties & has broken down with the driver (Chubby Oates) unable to repair it. The supervising teachers Mrs. Hargreaves (Jean Reeve) & Miss Lilac (Elizabeth Counsell) decide to try & find a hotel which they eventually do, the owner Mrs. May (Hilda Braid) finds rooms for them all. Unfortunately for them the four escaped lunatics who now call themselves Mr. Smith (Nigel Gregory), Mr. Trubshaw (David Jackson), Mr. Muldoon (Paul Rattee) & Mr. Jones (Peter Spraggon) are on the loose & doped up on drugs ready to rape & murder. The girls only hope are two campers Mike (Tom Marshall) & Pete (Anthony Forrest) & whether they can contact outside help...
This English production was co-written, co-produced & directed by Alan Birkinshaw & I have to say I liked it to a certain extent but a few things let it down. The script by Birkinshaw & an uncredited Faye Weldon has a nice premise & lots of potential but it becomes too bogged down in unnecessary nonsense as it drags badly towards the end with endless shots of people walking around in the dark & overall it becomes rather dull around the hour mark & it never really recovers. Then there's the expected sleaze, sex & violence which when actually seen is a bit too tame for my liking & Killer's Moon reputation is way over hyped & doesn't deserve to be described as 'Nastily Exploitative' or 'One of the Sleaziest British Movies Ever Made' as it has been. Killer's Moon has a certain British eccentricity & quirkiness about it that I liked while some of the dialogue is really funny & lightens the tone a lot, one of the lunatics to another after having raped one of the girls "Mr. Jones I feel we may have done something wrong" & one of the girls comforting another "you were only raped, as long as don't tell anyone about it you'll be alright" are just two of the absolute gems that can be heard in Killer's Moon.
Director Birkinshaw does an OK job but it's hardly the best looking film ever, he also throws in a bizarre three legged dog that pops up on occasion & there's a Clockwork Orange (1971) thing going on with the way the lunatics are dressed in white & the way they speak to each other. I thought Killer's Moon had a nice sleazy atmosphere to it as a film dealing with the rape & terrorising of school girls would have, having said that I never forgot that I was watching a film & couldn't take it seriously. I just wish the pace of the film had been tightened up & that there was more gore in it rather than lots of silly dialogue. The gore is actually a little tame, an axe in someones neck, a slashed cheek, a dog with it's leg cut off & a cat has it's tail chopped off, a woman is impaled to a door with a knife through her throat, a burned body & someone is stabbed with a sickle with none of it being particularly convincing or graphic.
Technically Killer's Moon is quite good, it's competent & the location shooting helps. The acting was OK & those thick English accents are just great aren't they? What a country I live in!
Killer's Moon was a nice & pretty sleazy film to a certain point but unfortunately there are too many flaws for me to be able to wholeheartedly recommend it. I think it's worth a watch for horror fans but most casual viewers will probably hate it. Maybe one for most people to give a miss even though I thought there were a few decent moments in it.
This English production was co-written, co-produced & directed by Alan Birkinshaw & I have to say I liked it to a certain extent but a few things let it down. The script by Birkinshaw & an uncredited Faye Weldon has a nice premise & lots of potential but it becomes too bogged down in unnecessary nonsense as it drags badly towards the end with endless shots of people walking around in the dark & overall it becomes rather dull around the hour mark & it never really recovers. Then there's the expected sleaze, sex & violence which when actually seen is a bit too tame for my liking & Killer's Moon reputation is way over hyped & doesn't deserve to be described as 'Nastily Exploitative' or 'One of the Sleaziest British Movies Ever Made' as it has been. Killer's Moon has a certain British eccentricity & quirkiness about it that I liked while some of the dialogue is really funny & lightens the tone a lot, one of the lunatics to another after having raped one of the girls "Mr. Jones I feel we may have done something wrong" & one of the girls comforting another "you were only raped, as long as don't tell anyone about it you'll be alright" are just two of the absolute gems that can be heard in Killer's Moon.
Director Birkinshaw does an OK job but it's hardly the best looking film ever, he also throws in a bizarre three legged dog that pops up on occasion & there's a Clockwork Orange (1971) thing going on with the way the lunatics are dressed in white & the way they speak to each other. I thought Killer's Moon had a nice sleazy atmosphere to it as a film dealing with the rape & terrorising of school girls would have, having said that I never forgot that I was watching a film & couldn't take it seriously. I just wish the pace of the film had been tightened up & that there was more gore in it rather than lots of silly dialogue. The gore is actually a little tame, an axe in someones neck, a slashed cheek, a dog with it's leg cut off & a cat has it's tail chopped off, a woman is impaled to a door with a knife through her throat, a burned body & someone is stabbed with a sickle with none of it being particularly convincing or graphic.
Technically Killer's Moon is quite good, it's competent & the location shooting helps. The acting was OK & those thick English accents are just great aren't they? What a country I live in!
Killer's Moon was a nice & pretty sleazy film to a certain point but unfortunately there are too many flaws for me to be able to wholeheartedly recommend it. I think it's worth a watch for horror fans but most casual viewers will probably hate it. Maybe one for most people to give a miss even though I thought there were a few decent moments in it.