The Slayer

"The Slayer" is definitely a forgotten film from the early 80's. The title "The Slayer" is not really a great title as it gives false hope of this being another typical slasher film. And in ways... it is a slasher, but not at all typical.

The storyline starts with a couple (Kay and Eric) trying to go on vacation for the sake of the Kay. It seems that she is having horrible nightmares and they are affecting her life, as well as Eric's. They decide to bring her brother and his wife along for the trip. They fly to an isolated island where instantly Kay feels like she has dreamed of it before. The rest of the group ignore her and explore the island to find the house they are renting for vacation. It is when Kay decides to go to sleep when horrible things start to happen, and people start getting murdered.

The plot is slightly similar to that of Craven's "A Nightmare on Elm St." but made before and not quite as unique. The movie is very slow but is very atmospheric also. At times it seems that the director didn't really know what he wanted to do, so he filled time with the vacationers wandering around the island looking for a missing friend. Those scenes seem to drag for quite sometime. Although, the music does help out a lot. It is a nice orchestrated soundtrack that adds depth to a depth-less movie. The gore in the movie is alright. There are a few moments that are thumbs up worthy but don't look for something like "Friday the 13th" here. One particular scene is great that involves a rowing ore.

If you are a true genre fan of the early 80's horror, this is definitely worth a look. Just try to keep focused on the movie because it can be a little difficult to watch at times. 6/10

"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.

Two couples in their 30s take a vacation to a secluded isle off the coast when a storm hits and people mysteriously start dying one-by-one. Kay, a troubled artist (Sarah Kendall), says she sees everything in her nightmares before it happens.

I suppose "The Slayer" (1982), aka "Nightmare Island," could be classified as a slasher flick, but it's more accurately a mystery-horror with haunting remote island ambiance, sort of like "The Shuttered Room" (1967), but mixed with elements of moody coastal horror, such as "The Fog" (1980). "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer" (1998) took the stormy island setting to forge a more conventional slasher.

The filmmaking is top-notch for the time period, including the superb score. Carol Kottenbrook as Brooke is a highlight, lookin' good in tight jeans. Kendall shows her acting chops as the haunted protagonist. Meanwhile the titular character is diabolically hideous, but you barely get to see him. Yet there's a twist and, even then, the movie's an enigma wrapped in a riddle.

The film runs 1 hour, 29 minutes, and was shot on Tybee Island, Georgia, and nearby Savannah.

GRADE: B

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.

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.