Luna sangrienta

Moonstalker (1989) is a movie that was highly recommended by @jvetrano1 (Jeff) and is currently available on YouTube. The storyline follows a group that decides to go camping in the winter. They didn't know the area they picked is on the land where some historical tragic events took place for a family...and the family is still there. Some members of the family are in better shape than the others, and this may be the chance for revenge the family has been looking for.

This movie is written and directed by Michael S. O'Rourke (Deadly Love) and stars Blake Gibbons (Dexter), John Marzilli (Tales from the Darkside), Michael Capellupo (A Promise) and Kelly Mullis (How I Met Your Mother).

The storyline for this is absolutely perfect for the slasher genre - there's a great backstory, worthwhile settings and eerie circumstances. Even the background music was well selected and it possesses a relatable motivated killer. Unfortunately, the kills aren't as good as the setup, and this definitely could have used a special effects guru like Tom Savini to pull this through to iconic status. There was some cool scenes, like the "coming around the mountain" song ending. I also loved the final scene with the killer, which was classic 80s.

Overall, this is a must see for 80s slasher fans that just missed out on being a cult classic due to needing a little more gore in the kill scenes. I would score this a 6/10 and strongly recommend it.

In MOONSTALKER, a group of young, partying campers are slaughtered by an ax-wielding maniac.

Some time later, a family arrives in their camper. Soon, an old man arrives in a gigantic Cadillac, pulling a trailer / camper. Is it any wonder why the alternate name of this movie is "CAMPER STAMPER"?

Horror erupts, when the oldster tells the unwary family about his "nervous" son, Bernie. Let's just say that the family vacation is over! Add in a nearby team of camp counselors, and the mayhem continues.

In all honesty, this movie is far more enjoyable than one might expect. The characters range from goofy to zany. The killer is ludicrous, yet entertaining. The plot is typical slasher fare, but doesn't take itself too seriously.

GOREHOUNDS TAKE NOTE: The gore / blood level is minimal, with the deaths occurring mostly off-camera. Although, there is the occasional arm or leg thrown around.

EXTRA POINTS FOR: The Sheriff's office, full of ten-gallon hats on half-gallon heads!

P. S.- You'll never hear "She'll Be Comin' 'Round The Mountain" in quite the same way again. Ever!...

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.

HEY EVERBODY ITS ME (4) and today we review ...80's horror slasher film #500183

yup its that time of year again, the leaves are changing colour and falling, the air is becoming crisp, and the birds are flying south SO that means time to watch a bagillion different slasher styled films lost to time ..... and here we have "MOONSTALKER" and I have to say the first 20 minutes or so had me hooked , having a slasher with an outfit/mash looking like he was from the cover of a quiet riot record ALSO from the 80's lol.... BUT THEN tragedy strikes !!!!!! The monstrous villain becomes ..... a ...normal ... looking cowboy with sunglasses ? ..... WOW that was a let down, probably a bigger let down than what my wife had on our wedding night .....

now over all its just a stander basic 80s slasher flick ..... for better or worse , nothing new , nothing special, so you know EXACTLY what to expect and what your getting, so if you love those styled films BAM heres another one to add to the list ...if your not into the classic tropes of "kids in the woods getting hacked up " then skip ....

sadly I don't have much to "review" here, everything is middle of the road safe, the acting is meh nothing too bad nothing too good , the lighting , nothing too bad nothing too good , the story ....middle road ....just everything is riding that center line trying to play it SUPER safe and they did , probably why this guy never became the next jason or freddy ...well playing it safe and HE TURNS INTO A COWBOY IN SUNGLASSES !!!!!!!!!!!! Literally an awesome character design in a straight jacked with this REALLY weird almost jackolantern with square eyes and mouth kind of head going on ...and an axe ....into .... urban keith ??? Boot scootin around just hacking up campers ? ...come on now .... so much potential just thrown out the window

so sadly ... imma HAVE to give this one a middle of the road score at 5/10 BUT wait theres more ! Because the ytook a great slasher look and then ....countrified it .... you get 2 points deducted ....so

3/10.