Despite my friend’s protests (which, if I recall, amounted to the quite reasonable “this movie is crappy and boring”), I sat through the entire thing transfixed. I was quite accustomed to “bad” movies at that point, so I let certain plot holes and lapses in believability slide. Instead, I allowed the film’s overall atmosphere of perverse dementia to invade my subconscious, and delighted in the bizarre dialogue voiced by its villains. In the following years I began to think I had imagined the movie’s existence, because I never stumbled upon another copy or saw it referred to in the many horror and exploitation magazines and books I read. By the time the Internets rolled around, I had almost forgotten about it.

So I was excited when I heard that Salvation/Redemption Films had actually released Killer’s Moon on DVD, with a cleaned up widescreen print. This was my chance to find out if my hazy memories of this sordid gem were based on any kind of reality. The plot concerns a gaggle of schoolgirls on the way back from a choir recital whose bus breaks down in the English countryside. They take refuge in a nearby hotel that is closed for the season, but things take a turn for the worse. It seems that four lunatics undergoing “an experimental form of dream therapy” have escaped and gone on a rampage, acting out their most violent fantasies of rape and murder under the assumption that it is all part of the healing process.

What ensues is a ridiculous game of cat and mouse, as two heroic campers attempt to sneak various girls out of the hotel without being caught by the goons. Along the way several murders, mutilations, and the odd rape occur. While the DVD box describes this as “Britain’s answer to I Spit on Your Grave only sleazier,” it’s nowhere near as nasty. The camera does linger lecherously upon the bodies of the nubile schoolgirls, and one rape scene goes on a bit longer than you would expect it to, but the overall effect never reaches the brutality of the aforementioned film. Compared to visceral 70s horror like Last House on the Left or modern day torture fests like Hostel, Killer’s Moon is noticeably tame.

The thing that makes this movie entertaining beyond its campy sleaze appeal is the depiction of the killers. Their dialogue is a series of abstract observations often bordering on the existential. One character looks and talks so much like Oscar-winning villain Anton Sighur that it’s plausible to think the Cohen brothers may have seen this film and taken notes.

The idea that all humans are essentially violent has been addressed more coherently in better films, but it’s certainly fun to watch director Alan Birkinshaw take a stab (no pun intended) at it. Early in the film, while describing the severity of the situation, a hospital administrator says “In my dreams I murder freely, pillage, loot, and rape,” as if this is typical of all civilized men. Later, when one of the girls saves the life of a camper by killing one of the lunatics, she cries, “I couldn’t stop myself!” But the moral high ground is reached at the end of the film, when one of the heroes finds one of the escaped mental patients sobbing over the loss of his companion. The idea of homosexuality is obviously too much for our hero, who exclaims “my god!” and walks away in disgust.

Despite the bits of unintentional humor and a few plot holes (including characters who walk off screen and never reappear), Killer’s Moon holds up surprisingly well as a unique bit of exploitation filmmaking. The DVD transfer is a bit dark and has some visible splices here and there, but overall it looks great and is a welcome upgrade from the impossible to find VHS.

Trivia: The dialogue was written by feminist Fay Weldon.

Choice quotes:

“Of course it’s a dream…and stuffed full of jailbait!”

“I saw a dead man once.”
“Was he smiling?”
“No - he was dead, silly!”

- Reviewed by Ryan O.