The Slayer

"The Slayer" follows a troubled avant-garde artist with psychic proclivities who travels to a remote island with her husband, brother, and sister-in-law in order to regroup. Immediately bothered by the atmosphere of the island, she insists something is amiss among the forests and derelict buildings— but the three dismiss her. Unfortunately, they're wrong.

An early entry in eighties horror that somehow got sidelined by history, "The Slayer" is shockingly good given its lack of notoriety. The set-up is straightforward, and the low character number means there isn't much in the way of the expected body count, but in its brisk eighty minutes, the film manages to achieve a dreadful atmosphere and also boasts some shockingly realistic and disturbing murder scenes.

J.S. Cardone, directed and co-wrote the film—it's his first picture, and he has gone on to work mainly in genre films over the years, giving us the marginalized 2001 vampire flick "The Forsaken" and 2006's "Wicked Little Things." Compared to those films, "The Slayer" is rather minimalistic, but there is a unique sense of foreboding in this film that is something that slasher flicks particularly don't always seem to achieve. The island locale is woodsy and populated with derelict buildings from when it was a resort years prior—an idyllic setting for a horror film. The film in some ways reminded me of a non-wintry "Ghostkeeper," another debased eighties horror picture. The score is quite elegant and ominous, and there are also high-caliber special effects throughout, which are on show during each death sequence, as well as during the monstrous reveal at the finale. Some have argued that the conclusion to "The Slayer" is a cop out. I don't know if I necessarily feel that way. It is rather abruptly thrown at the audience, but it also has narrative significance, linked to threads that are presented earlier on in the film. If anything, it's a somewhat bold move.

Overall, I was quite surprised by how well-crafted this film was. It's not a groundbreaker, but it's a sturdy exercise in dread that happens to be well-shot and eerie. Serious fans of stalk-and- slash movies may find it a bit slow, but it's worth holding out for the impressively jarring murder scenes and the wild card of a conclusion. 8/10.

A mentally fragile and damaged artist who has been tormented by terrifying nightmares all her life is taken by her brother and some friends for a break on a remote and deserted island where something spooky and unseen soon begins to brutally butcher the group until she's forced to face the childhood horror she has always feared alone... While I of course don't speak for everybody who's never seen this mystery-shrouded horror movie before, I really enjoyed it, and I went into it without any expectations one way or the other, it was a blind buy and it turned out to be a nice little surprise, I was quite won over by its beautifully desolate and haunting locations and its very strange and compellingly eerie atmosphere, I thought it was really cool and clever how it had a tone of surrealism that blurred the line between dreams and reality in a way that when it ended you weren't really sure which was which. I'd never even heard of it before, so based on my personal experience I'd say it's an underrated movie. It was very slow but not so much that I ever found it a slog, it had my interest, the tension was always there and it always built up to something. Personality-wise I thought it was a bit lacking, the characters were well acted but they were mostly just really plain and uninteresting, and the music, while definitely giving it a distinctive atmosphere and tone, was a bit too big and glorious for me, I started to find the melodramaticness of it distracting at certain parts.. Overall though I had a good time with it and it was a nice new horror flick to discover. That ending was just awesome and capped off and pinned the whole movie together beautifully and slapped a big eerie question mark over everything that was quite creepy and foreboding in itself. Did poor Kay actually die in the fire at the claws of the spectral abomination and the childhood nightmares had always been leading up to her inevitable demise in a never ending hellish loop she could never escape... Nightmare, premonition, or something in between..it feels like it's up to you to decide. Somehow I thought it was satisfyingly open ended, it actually managed to do that! It looks a little goofy but for the brief moment that you see it, I loved the monster, it looks like a spirit, you're not sure if it's Kay's personal demon or the manifestation of all of her fears... The kills I thought were all very well done, they had a great visceral quality about them that I thought was more than a match for the kills of Friday the 13th say..especially the guy who gets a fishhook in his throat and is slowly dragged into the ocean, that was awful. It's no gorefest but they sure made what little blood there was count! This fantastically atmospheric and tightly-wound surrealistic horror picture pulled me right in, and I liked how it gave you something to mentally chew on and puzzle over after the movie was done. Very recommended for those who enjoy horror that's slow burning and mysterious. Weird but solid and genuinely creepy! x

Siblings Eric and Kay, her doctor husband David, her sister-in-law Brooke along with pilot Marsh become stranded on a rugged isle face off against a supernatural beast drawn to Kay who dreams of its killings.

The story and script were co-written by J. S. Cardone and Bill Ewing; Cardone eventually directed while Ewing produced. Cardone had been, what he called, "the white token of the black film community" writing for folks like Bill Cosby but was working in a liquor store to pay his bills. This was his first credited work on a feature film. Ewing had worked as an actor, and did cast coordination for "Meteor" (1979), but was also new to writing and producing films. Although today classified as a "slasher", the co-writers maintain they were really aiming for a psychological thriller with hints of Lovecraft.

The two were able to move from script to screen thanks to production manager Eric Weston (who horror fans may know as the director of 1981's "Evilspeak") and Lloyd Adams' International Picture Show Company (who then went bankrupt within the year). Outside of "Slayer", Adams may be best known as the producer of "Grizzly" (1976). This bankruptcy unfortunately caused any number of distribution problems, but the film did manage to find a life of its own.

For the appropriate setting, they chose Tybee Island, the easternmost part of Georgia… known for its hurricanes and for being one of the few places an atomic bomb was dropped on American soil. Though storms do factor into the plot, as well as the island's relative isolation, the atomic bomb part is not mentioned. Perhaps an unfortunate missed opportunity? Not only were Cardone and Ewing new at the movie game, but this was DP Karen Grossman on her first feature film. She followed it up with "Microwave Massacre" (1983), as well as a couple of Cardone's films. The bulk of her credits are with the George Romero TV series "Tales from the Darkside" and its quasi-sequel "Monsters" Robert Short, the special effects man, had come out of Don Post's crew and had previously helped design the mask from "Halloween"; he can claim responsibility for the cool pitchfork scene, which is as good as any trick Tom Savini had pulled. Short went on to many, many huge projects, including "Beetlejuice".

Leading the cast is Sarah Kendall, who really sells the film with her wide eyes; she looks like a more terrified version of Sigourney Weaver, making her the perfect lead actress. She had apparently worked with one of the creators (probably Ewing) on a TV show, though this is unclear from her credits. Quite possibly, she had been on a few shows in smaller parts that were not well-documented at the time.

Ultimately, "The Slayer" is something of a mixed bag. Kendall is a strong leading lady, some of the gore effects are pretty good. And the concept of blurring the lines between dream and reality is incredibly clever. Although it is not likely this film was an influence, some of the ideas presented do predate similar ideas in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films. What makes "Slayer" just alright rather than great, however, is the pacing. Far too much of the film is a slow burn and even at 86 minutes it feels long.

The film's early theatrical release saw it on Broadway with sections cut out and the color uncorrected, due in part to the bankruptcy noted above. Over the years the releases were degraded more and more, and fans who saw it on VHS probably saw it in its worst possible incarnation. This was until 2017, when Arrow Video saved the day. Despite these hiccups, director J. S. Cardone really went on to great things, directing movies with Cannon films, Empire Pictures and beyond.

The Arrow Video Blu-ray has an impressive 50-minute making of segment, with just about everyone attached to the film brought in. We also have a 13-minute feature on the locations, and a June 2017 Q&A that took place on the island. Typically I would say the only thing missing is a commentary track, but the making-of does a fine job of replacing it and actually goes above and beyond by breaking down how some effects were done, something that could not be done with just audio. "The Slayer" may not be the greatest of all slasher films, but it does have an important place in history and fans ought to check it out.

Although not the most original concept in horror movie history ( girls dreams start to turn into reality), this is quite a decent and atmospheric movie, well acted and scripted, and it features some unusual and gruesome deaths (in the uncut version anyway). An unusually classy music score (played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra no less) gets things off to a moody start, and the tension slowly mounts as four holiday-makers travel to a deserted island for a weekend vacation which turns into a nightmare, when the bad dreams suffered by one of the group start to come true. Only disappointment I found was the let down ending, when the "monster" finally appears it looks dead phony. Apart from that, this is worth a look.

Four young people vacation on a barren island. One of them, a female artist, has dreams that depict ghastly murders. Sure enough, the fun begins when her boyfriend is found dead, and others begin to die, too. Soon, she becomes awear that something in her nightmares is escaping threw her dreams...and it ain't Freddy Krueger! A decent, watchable horror movie. I wonder if Wes Craven got the idea from this film for "A nightmare on elm street"? (Hmm, it makes one wonder…) The acting is generally pretty good, with the exception of Kay (Sarah Kendall) who overacted terribly. I've always liked the director, J.S. Cardone, He's capable of taking a generic plot and making it interesting and intelligent (See "Shadowzone" and "Alien Hunter", both were smart and enjoyable sci-fi movies that he scripted himself.) and he does well here with the creepy atmosphere he delivers. There's enough gore to satisfy, the pitchfork-threw-chest death scene being the best, but the gore is delivered just sparsely enough to make it effective. And the monster, once it finally shows up, looks really cool. I recommend "The Slayer" to horror fans, it's kind of different then the rest of the early 80's slashers, and one of the better ones at that. My rating for "The Slayer"—6.5/10.