Killer's Moon

Drugs, psychopathic criminals, underage sex - it's all going on in this low-budget British shocker. One of the schoolgirls is played by Jane Haydon, sister of horror legend Linda (most famous perhaps for her role as Angel Blake in 'Blood on Satan's Claw').

A busload of stranded girls spend the night in an unfinished hotel 'in the wilds of nowhere', where nearby asylum inmates, tanked up with LSD as part of their experimental therapy, escape and cause horrific carnage.

The escaped inmates' atrocities are very much in the style of the ultra-violence on display in 'The Clockwork Orange', where this film takes a lot of its cues - especially main escapee Mr. Trubshawe (David Jackson - possibly most famous for playing Gan early on in BBC TV space opera Blake's 7). Apart from the subject matter being distinctly unsavoury, there is a lack of pace to the proceedings.

Some of dialogue is alarming. "See - you're better," one girl assures her friend who has just been raped, when she accepts a cup of coffee.

With all this going on, events are surprisingly slow and turgid. Never quite aspiring to the disturbing levels of 'A Clockwork Orange', this is ultimately an average rip-off. My score is 5 out of 10.

Four mental patients -- who, due to unauthorized experiments, believe they are living in a dream and have shed all moral imperatives -- escape and find their way to the nearest bus-load of stranded schoolgirls.

What makes this film interesting for me, besides the ethical questions (can the killers be held accountable if they think they are dreaming), is the music. Along with a jazzy version of "Three Blind Mice", we have some music that is dreamlike (appropriately) and also quite moody and dark (also appropriate). It was, for me, the difference between the movie being bad and good.

Due to its (fake) animal cruelty and dismissive attitude towards rape, the film has been called "the most tasteless movie in British cinema history." While that is surely an exaggeration, I do think these elements helped give it the cult following it apparently now has. I can see it being mocked by people in a loving way.

Four criminal psychopaths undergoing LSD therapy (!) that escaped from a lunatic asylum. A group of stranded schoolgirls lodged in a mansion/castle. The four psychos will make their way to the girls through a string of murders. When they meet the girls, there will be a massacre - rape and murder.

"Killer's Moon", story wise, is the exploitation buff's dream, but there's no real nudity (just some bits of flesh), sex is more suggested than shown, and there's violence (not very explicit) but no gore. But this isn't really important because the story is violent and sleazy.

"Killer's Moon" may not be a great film but I've quite enjoyed it - besides having a good story, it's ironic, involuntarily funny and bizarre (suffice it to mention the three-legged dog!).

Recommended for those who love the 70s exploitation films.

This movie does what is currently the norm in slasher/horror films of current day. It promises a gutter trash plot and delivers none of it.

Four psychos, or pouncy overacting stage actors, I'm not sure which, escape from a mental hospital and wreck havoc on the land. Convienently, A bus load of nubile teenage girls is passing through the area and not surprisingly the bus breaks down. Now, The fun begins, right? Sorry, Not in this movie. The loonies, who are high on experimental LSD treatment, tend to annoy the girls more than terrorize them. There are a few nude scenes by the various actresses but they seem more thrown in as an afterthought, or a way to convince somebody to see this movie because the plot or acting surely won't do it. Basically, A bad movie with bad special effects, bad lighting, and bad acting. Case in point, One of the girls, in her nightgown of course, flees from her attacker and runs all the way to the lake, where she gets the back of her nightgown caught on a nail and the nightgown rips down the front in a perfect tear! Explain that one if you can.

A staggeringly dull and inept horror film, which amazingly enjoyed a national UK cinema release during 1978. Standards must have been lower then.

The inane premise has a busload of schoolgirls meandering bafflingly through the wilds of the Lake District en route to Scotland (why aren't they going up the motorway?) They and their teachers are terrorised by four psychopaths who escaped while being given experimental drug therapy at a cottage hospital (!). You would expect the fells to be knee-deep in police searching for such obviously dangerous characters, but not one is seen until the end, when a patrol car trundles into view.

Even allowing for such illogicalities, the potential is there for crude shocks but director Birkinshaw blows it entirely. Potentially suspenseful scenes are completely bungled and little dramatic use is made of the Lake District setting. The clumsy dialogue and sub-Clockwork Orange posturings of the psychopaths make parts of the film more laughable than terrifying. However, the "National Health Service psychiatrist line" is hilarious and few other horror films feature a moving eulogy to a three-legged dog!