Moonstalker

Oh Moonstalker. We could have had the world, could have had something beautiful. But sometimes these things aren't meant to be I guess. In terms of set up Moonstalker has everything there, dumb but somewhat likable cast, threatening killer with sad, chilling back story, snowy woodland setting, lots of death, it should be a winner and almost is. But the almost that the film falls into is a giant gap, wide enough to be well, a bit crap. The problem is that up to around the hour mark, the deaths are mostly off screen or bloodless and don't have enough in the way of set-up to make an impact despite being tame. The effect is of a tease and after a while it just gets really irritating, I don't necessarily care about bloodless or off screen kills so long as the presentation is germane to the film, but here gore was clearly necessary and for the most part just not really present. Sad thing is, when the film gets to the final block it warms up miraculously, slings a bit of bloodshed, mean spirit and even tension, fairly solid stuff that comes off multiple clicks higher than the rest of it. Still, there are little perks to the film as a whole. For one it pulls a fairly ballsy turn out of the first block and the heroine only gets introduced halfway through or so, plus it has no issues with randomly offing characters, making for some element of surprise, especially when more likable characters get nixed. For another there's a great bit of counter-intuitive costume design as the killer switches from creepy potato sack mask and neck chain get up into some gear nicked from a cop, immediately going from mildly unsettling to a down-market Psycho Cop riff. Oh and the repetitive, claustrophobic score has a certain punch. I think the characters are maybe the best thing here though, in a lot of these films the characters are nothing more than sacks of meat for the offing, but here a lot of them are actually pretty fun to spend time around. Which isn't to say that ultimately they aren't sacks of meat for the offing, but you know what I mean. For instance there's Bobby (Alex Wexler) a dorky sort of a guy who wants to get laid and miraculously for such a character, manages to ramp up a bit of sympathy. Then there's Regis (John Marzilli), running his wilderness survival training camp with drill sergeant demeanour and raising smiles along the way. The name of his girlfriend slips me but she's funny too, with a tigrish sexuality to her. The ladies of the piece are all pretty attractive and charming actually, which is handy. And towards the end, (sadly too late) we get a police officer who knows the score, played with fevered intensity by a Neil Kinsella. Its a fun bunch of people and I reckon the film would have been a lot better had it dropped the height of the body count and just hung around with them, gotten into their personalities and interactions. Sadly 'twas not to be, and so things are about two thirds 4/10 level frustration and one third low 6/10 chintzy fun. Feck it, I'll give a generous 5/10, its better than a poke in the eye with a wet stick so those who just have to watch it (you know who you are) won't have serious problems.

"Moonstalker" aptly illustrates how and why the teen slasher ingloriously died at the end of the 1980s. Although always watchable and sometimes even reasonably amusing, it's a thoroughly uninspired and derivative effort. It starts with the opening credits music being yet another blatant rip-off of John Carpenter's iconic score for "Halloween". By the time "Moonstalker" got released, "Halloween" was more than a decade old, and literally the entire world had seen it, so find something new already! The next 10-15 minutes are hilarious, but mainly because the plot is so cliched and the performances are so atrociously bad. A middle-aged father (and heavy beer can consumer) insists on spending a primitive "back-to-nature" vacation with his reluctant family in a rusty old camper, so they install themselves at the edge of a wide backwoods area. The bickering family runs into an ogre named Pop, and he's hiding his psychopathic and bloodthirsty son Bernie in a caravan, tied up with chains and wearing a bag over his head. Pop occasionally lets Bernie out, for example to feast on dim-witted camper families, but then Pop unexpectedly dies from a heart-attack and Bernie suddenly finds himself unchained with the world at his feet! From then onward "Moonstalker" plays on familiar slasher turf, as Bernie heads straight towards a nearby camping site where a bunch of young summer camp counselors are having their annual initiation weekend. Freed from his dominant father, Bernie makes the terrible (albeit understandable) mistake of switching his strait-jacket and potato bag mask for a lumberjack shirt, a cowboy hat and a shiny pair of sunglasses. I reckon it's a far more comfortable outfit for him, but he does instantly lose all the charisma and scary effect of a savage backwoods killer, especially because the mask made him somewhat a look-alike of Jason Voorhees in "Friday the 13th part 2". Luckily his appetite for nasty killings is still there. The first few murders are dull and bloodless, but "Moonstalker" eventually meets the 80s gore quota thanks to several amputations, axe-murders and even a knife in someone's forehead. The sadistic campfire moment near the finale (you'll know it when you see it) is a delightful little horror detail, but it sadly doesn't rescue the film from sheer mediocrity.

Not to be confused with MOONSTRUCK (1988), I was yelling "Snap out of it" and slapping myself in the face by the time this regional horror flick was done. An old man keeps his mentally unstable son Bernie (Blake Gibbons) locked up in a trailer, only unleashing him when pop wants some tourists killed for new appliances. Unfortunately, hauling the newly acquired microwave causes ol' dad to die of a heart attack and Bernie is on his own. Naturally, he heads home and begins offing winter camp counselors in training that are near his abode. You won't get much from this Nevada lensed slasher from writer-director Michael O'Rourke until the last half hour, where it turns surprisingly bloody as Bernie chops everyone with an ax. There is a pretty cool looking image of Bernie chained up in a straight jacket with a hood on, but that gets abandoned early on when he removes it and dresses in a cowboy hat (making him look like Powers Boothe for some odd reason). Surprisingly, Gibbons survived this mess and went on to be a featured played on GENERAL HOSPITAL. Helmer O'Rourke wasn't as lucky, disappearing from directing after this one (although he did script the truly bizarre HELLGATE [1990] the next year).

This movie is a bad to alright rip off of Friday the 13th. The movie is about a killer named Bernie who kills people around a camp councilor training camp. He kills people because the camp councilor training camp is on land that was owned by his father, and when the police came to forcefully take his fathers land they accidentally killed his mother (Another F13th take off). The intro is seeing Bernie killing his first victims. Then we are introduced to a family going camping in the same woods, soon after they arrive they are joined by a strange old man who likes talking about his son. Later we learn that his son is Bernie and that he has him locked up in the back of his caravan after having broken him out of a mental institute. He sets Bernie after the family so they can take their stuff and then the chase is on.

This Movie is only recommended to those who enjoy B grade 80's Slashers.

Flawed but fun typical 80s slasher. The film started out with a family and then we are introduced to "Pop". The family ends up hanging out with Pop the night they met him and Pop tells us the story of what happened with his son - but not the full story. Pop acts weird, the family leaves him, Pop goes inside his camper and we meet his son Bernie. Bernie is tied down with a chain, in a straight-jacket and special mask. Pop lets Bernie go to kill the people so they can steal their stuff. Bernie kills the family, Pop falls over and dies of ? (fright they said in the film but I thought maybe a heart-attack?) -- anyway Pop is dead and the killer Bernie is on the loose.

Next we are introduced to the main characters of the film. The main characters are part of some wilderness camp thing going on. Bernie makes his way to them and kills most all of them. Cops are also in the campgrounds investigating the murder of the family and Pop. And that's about it - minus the ending where the killer Bernie stole the cop's jacket and vehicle then drives way leaving it open for a part 2 or to simply show viewers he's still alive.

It's an okay time waster film, not grand but a watchable slasher. It has a few story flaws that most viewers will notice quickly but is a "B" slasher - and we all know what to expect of most of them.

Another reviewer mentioned the music of the film is similar to that of the classic Halloween 1978 - and that is true!! This film is not nearly as good as Halloween '78 but an alright watch.

5/10