Die Säge des Todes

"Bloody Moon" is a great slasher film from the master of exploitation Jesus Franco.The plot is obviously inspired by "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th".The acting is pretty average,but there is plenty of gore to satisfy fans of splatter.There is for example very bloody power saw decapitation plus some other killings which involve chainsaws,razorblades and knives.The music score is pretty appalling and the film's theme tune is incredibly annoying.Overall,the film is moderately entertaining,so if you're a Franco fan give this one a look. Here is the plot:"Bloody Moon" takes place in a Spanish language school,where pretty female students are murdered by an unidentified stalker in a variety of grisly ways.

This mediocre slasher packs thrills , chiller , extreme horror ,tension and lots of blood and gore for the grisly killings . It's on the aesthetic and body count of a psychotronic slasher, as the pic was extremely prohibited in some countries , in fact it was considered to be a Video Nasty in United Kingdom . The loathing gore and guts are astonishingly shown as mutilated human limbs , beaheading , slashing in cold blood and using all kinds of cutting instruments to carry out the horrible massacres , such as chainsaws , long knifes , electric cutting machines, among others . It deals with Miguel (Christoph Moosbrugger) , a young man with a horribly disfigured face, who is released from a mental asylum into the care of his sister, Manuela (Nadja Gerganoff) . Along with their wheelchair bound aunt (Maria Rubio) , they operate a boarding school for young woman, called Europe's International Youth-Club Boarding School of Languages, on the Spanish resort of Costa Del Sol. There arrives the young Angela (Olivia Pascal), but things go wrong when at the language-school some girls are being surprisingly killed.

The film stars un unknown cast , exception for Olivia Pascal who played some softcore movies ; it displays thrills , chills , cardboard horror , and lots of blood and gore for nauseating execution . Eerie Euro-horror to want in on the action and with a big influence in the Italian giallo if you put it in the hands of Jess Franco , you end up with this extreme Bloody Moon (1981) . The grisly , disturbing murders are extremely scary and really disgusting with abundant stabbing shots including beheading , slitting and mutilation in which a mysterious murderous makes an authentic slaughter with gruesome and bloody executions . At the end takes place an exciting denouement detailing the persona who exects the scary murders while the victims are massacred at the hands of the sinister and mysterious series killer . The film takes accent as suspense as well as terror with creepy use of images-shock and botcher edition.

This is a delirious motion picture made in the early 1980's , financed in little budget by Wolf C. Hartwig (who produced Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron) with nice cinematography by Juan Soler , lousily directed by Jess Frank without originality and following the ordinary Slasher trappings , being a flick attuned to mainstream audiences at the time . A disconcerting horror movie with no much interest and regularly made by Jesús Franco , including a lot of goofs , flaws , gaps and failures . He often used a lot of pseudonyms , among the aliases he used, apart from the names Jess Franco or Franco Manera, were Jess Frank, Robert Zimmerman, Frank Hollman, Clifford Brown, David Khune , Toni Falt, James P. Johnson, Charlie Christian, David Tough , among others. In many of the more than 180 films he's directed he has also worked as composer, writer, cinematographer and editor. Jesús's influence has been notable all over Europe . Jess was a Stajanovist, restless writer, producer, director who played and realized over 200 pictures. His career spans over 50 years with a few successes and lots of flops, making all . From his huge body of work we can deduce that Jesús Franco is one of the most restless directors of Spanish cinema and often releasing several titles at the same time. Many of his films have had problems in getting released, and others have been made directly for video. More than once his staunchest supporters have found his "new" films to contain much footage from one or more of his older films. Jesús Franco is a survivor in a time when most of his colleagues tried to please the government administration. He broke up with all that and got the independence he was seeking and getting , at times great eye for composition. He was a hard-working filmmaker, directing a lot of ridiculous movies. However, making some acceptable films , such as : ¨We are 18 years old¨, ¨Labios Rojos¨, ¨The awful Dr Orloff¨, ¨The Bloody Judge¨ , ¨Miss Muerte¨, ¨Eugénie¨ , ¨Count Dracula¨, ¨99 women¨, ¨Death Whistles the Blues¨, ¨Rififi in the City¨,¨Justine¨, ¨Paroxismus, ¨The Blood of Fumanchu¨, ¨Faceless¨ and a few others. This ¨Bloody Moon¨is only for Jess Frank enthusiasts and followers of banned films labeled as Video Nasties , resulting to be a grand stab fest that still ends up being closer to a giallo than intended.

Bloody Moon - 1981 (This Film Rates a D- ) This film opens with Miguel, a facially disfigured man, attempt to deceive and rape a young female only to brutally kill her with a pair of scissors in her boarding room. Five years later he is released from a mental institution in the care of his sister (Manuela) and two others (the bitchy aunt in a wheelchair and Maria, the countess). Manuela runs a boarding school for young women but also has an incestuous relationship with her brother. It also features Angela who is the student now occupying that same room of the murdered student. She starts having auditory and visual hallucinations and witnesses murders. She decides to pack her bags and leave but winds up barricading herself in the room. Angela is tormented and her friends are killed. Come to find out the brother Miguel isn't really the current killer after all. The ending sequence is just crap. Ufff, the dubbing is truly horrid, over dramatic and just full of so much nonsense dialog. The acting is bad and some scenes are just laughable even though not intended to be so. Cheap and poorly done scares that only prolong the agony between kills. Another horrible cat scare tactic at the 1 hour 3 minute mark. The gore effects are decent but not often enough. What was the fake looking boulder thing at the 46:40 minute mark? There are numerous boobie scenes. Great 80's disco style soundtrack that is one of the only highlights to this film.

"Bloody Moon" aka. "Die Säge Des Todes" (literal translation: "The Saw Of Death") of 1981 is a gory slasher from exploitation's most prolific filmmaker - Jess Franco. I personally am a big Jess Franco fan, and it must be said that his repertoire of 180+ films ranges from brilliant ("Venus In Furs", "Count Dracula",...) to poor ("Sadomania"). "Bloody Moon" is not one of his truly great movies, but it is definitely a highly entertaining and gruesome flick that should not be missed by fans of gory European Horror exploitation. For Franco standards, this film does not feature a lot of sleaze, but even more gruesome brutality and graphic gore in exchange.

The movie takes place in a language school in Spain, where a bunch of hot German girls are enjoy the sun, alcohol and sex more than practicing the Spanish language. A maniac is loose in the little Iberian paradise, however. A maniac who enjoys murdering pretty young girls in most atrocious ways...

The movie begins a bit slow, but it gets really nasty and brutal later, and actually becomes quite suspenseful. The performances are, of course, not top-notch, but they're not terrible either, and actually quite good regarding what can be expected from young actresses most of whom never appeared in another movie. Furthermore, I found some of the performances amazingly convincing. Sexy Olivia Pascal fits very well in the leading role, for example. Director Franco also once again has a cameo appearance in the beginning of the movie. The eerie score composed by Gerhard Heinz, who has also composed the scores for a bunch of mainstream productions, is probably the greatest aspect of the film, and makes the whole thing a lot more atmospheric.

All said, "Bloody Moon" is a brutal little slasher that I recommend to my fellow Eurohorror buffs, especially Jess Franco fans should not miss it!

Bloody Moon is a rare combination of American style slasher and giallo a la Jess Franco.The director most famous for his exploitation films.As far as I can recall the only other film I have seen from him is Venus in Furs.It could very well be that I have seen more titles from him without realizing.He seems to have made quite a few.But one thing I know for sure he is without doubt one of the worst directors I have come across that surprisingly is still very active in the industry.And that can be explained because he has made some films that are in a league of their own .Mostly because he mixes up the genres in a way that is rarely done.What does that mean for Bloody Moon?A slow pace and severe lack of tension and thrills that make it a real task to stay interested.The excessive gory deaths and some clever twists and turns oddly aren't enough to make you overlook that.It doesn't help also that the characters aren't really interesting apart from two key players looking very similar to James Caan and Brad Dourif in their younger years.Now there is one scene that was unexpectedly thrilling involving a little boy.You will find yourself rooting for this boy.It's a mystery in itself that this boy suddenly was so curious that he decided to investigate in the first place.But it shows that Jess Franco is able to create tense scenes.Too bad it is the only one in the whole film that is filled with real tension.With some tighter plotting and direction Bloody Moon could have become a real classic.Now it is an unremarkable hybrid of slasher and giallo that will bore you to death.