Despite being a veteran of watching horror movies I had not had the "pleasure" of this one, until now. As a Brit myself I always like to champion British horror but Killer's Moon is a real mixed bag, as much exploitation as it is horror but not terribly good at either. Four convicted rapists and murderers escape from an experimental treatment centre in the beautiful Lake District and come across a stranded group of school girls and their teachers, whom they proceed to rape and kill. More or less from the start we see a soft sex scene in a tent, the girl is topless and there is plenty more of this to come. We are also introduced to Pete, one of the main characters who sports a very fake American accent, not a good sign of the acting quality. The four escapees are heavily sedated on medically administered drugs and constantly keep talking about being in a dream state, which soon becomes very monotonous. Furthermore these maniacs are all wearing white garments, already an obvious take from "A Clockwork Orange" but when one puts on a black bowler hat then it becomes droogs in the Lakes. The girls' bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere, after a hike they find refuge for the night at an impressive looking Gothic hotel, closed for the season but kindly granted accommodation. The Brits were masters of Gothic Horror and this old building is a fine example of Gothic architecture and a great setting. Sadly, also in the British tradition, many of the night scenes were obviously filmed in daylight, the poor continuity has the sky going from dark to blue and back to dark within seconds of each other (there is a Full Moon, hence the title, so naturally the night sky would be lighter but not to the extent shown here). There are some vicious kill scenes such as axe to the head, though the special effects budget obviously wasn't up to much. Far more disturbing are the rape scenes, even more so because they include school girls as victims. Sadly the writers seem to downplay this horrid, vile act. A young woman is raped by three men (not shown) and afterwards she looks and sounds incredibly intact and calm despite her ordeal. Even worse one school girl says to another "Look, you were only raped. So long as yo don't tell anyone you'll be alright" - I'm thinking, what!!!??? Killer's Moon is a nasty horror movie, flawed but also memorable.
Review of Killer's Moon
