Sob a Lua de Sangue

A very weak Australian slasher. I had also the chance to watch it on USA Network, in fact, it was played very often. For coming out in the late 80's BLOOD MOON doesn't offers anything you haven't seen. The box cover fooled me as it seemed to be a straight slasher. I consider this as a soap opera with slasher elements.

An unknown prowler wanders the territory of a private a school for women and the school next to it of men. This prowler kills people from both schools using a barb wire.

There's a subplot of romance and some conflicts between teachers. Nothing interesting from this movie to be saved.

Almost no gore, scary scenes, annoying characters, and a lame killer. Don't expect nothing from this movie. BLOODMOON is boring even for the gorehounds. Only die hard fans of the genre could watch it completely.

3/10.

Not to be confused with Bloody Moon, Jesus Franco's gore feast of 1980; this Australian lensed slasher imitates the popular ‘killer on campus' plotline that's so frequently used by its US counterparts. It's fairly amusing just how much Alec Mills tries to make this as American as he possibly can, but thankfully he refrains from asking the cast to perform unconvincing accents. As a matter of fact, the characters that are actually supposed to be from the States still speak in flawless Aus! Hmmm!

In the small town of Coopers Bay, there are two Hi-schools situated right next door to each other. There's Winchester, an all boys comprehensive and St Elizabeth's, a girl's only Catholic faculty. They are separated by woodland where pupils from both can meet and engage in things that they'd rather their teachers didn't witness! An unseen killer begins murdering the youngsters as they fornicate, strangling them with a length of barbed wire before removing their eyes and burying them under the soil. Mary, the daughter of a Hollywood movie actress, becomes involved when the killer targets her and Kevin, her boyfriend. But who is this twisted psychopath and why does he want to kill all the kids?

Blood Moon opens with a terrific score courtesy of Brian May and some superb cinematography. The dense woods in which the kids are pursued is brilliantly lighted and I was immediately rather impressed by the general production. After a couple of murders, were introduced to a predictable troupe of troublesome teens and our obvious final girl. There's an interesting subplot that sprouts as one of the local poor kids falls for Mary, the daughter of an actress. The rich Winchester boys hate the local working class, so it's almost like a homage to Romeo and Juliet or West side story but without the Rock and Roll (Instead we get ‘reach for the earplugs' Heavy Metal!). Shakespeare and the slasher genre, what a combination! I bet the poor author would turn in his grave!

There's one really gruesome – if not graphic – murder, involving a desk, a young girl's head and a deranged killer! But aside from that, there's hardly any gore and most of the killings are left to our imagination (boo!). The performances are fairly poor throughout, although Leon Lissek gives a decidedly nasty portrayal. Although it mostly keeps things directly by the book, there are a few twists that you probably won't guess and we also get some background on the reasons for the killer's insanity.

British born Alec Mills' lackadaisical direction left a lot to be desired and he failed to generate as much suspense as was needed. He's better when he works as a camera man as he did on Return of the jedi and various James Bond movies through the seventies and eighties. It's a fairly slow-moving story, but when the killer is revealed things begin to perk up right up until it ends rather suddenly leaving one or two unanswered questions. Like what happened to Kevin? Did he survive? Even though the bodies start piling up toward the finale, the story certainly could have benefited from a few more excursions into the well-lighted woodland with the killer and his length of deadly barbed wire. As it stands, there was too little horror and an excessive amount of teen frolics that didn't really do the movie any favours.

You can ignore most of the bad reviews that slate Blood Moon; it really isn't all that bad. Its just that its not particularly memorable, the sort of film that you'll watch once and forget about immediately after. Perfect for some late-night slicing shenanigans on the TV, but hardly worth the effort of hunting down. As far as Australian slashers go, it manages not to feel as cack-handed as Houseboat Horror, To Become One or the over-rated Cut, but then that's still not much of a worthy compliment. Oh and make sure to place them earplugs back in as soon as you see the end credits. The last songs a killer: `Blood moon is rising, stay home tonight' and `Blood Moon arising over building and over hill, take care if you will!' You get the picture!

By reputation "Bloodmoon" doesn't seem to stand up so well, nonetheless it just seemed to draw me in (well captivating poster artwork helps a lot too) and since it just got a local DVD release (thanks to the 2008 documentary "Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!") it was easy to get a hold of. It turned out to be competently stylish, but a generically penned (if sexually charged) Aussie slasher that after the opening sequence it seems to find itself in soapy TV material. This aspect is rather distracting and stodgy, before it finally goes on to build a head of steam for the last half hour of outrageous acts and jarring suspense. While not particularly successful as a whole, as it can be sloppy it still kept me watching. Something about the choice of locations constructs an effective small coastal town atmosphere (very similar to that of 1981 quirky Australian slasher "Dead Kids") and it's lit with moody visual shadings by director Alec Mills. The stalk and slash scenes are actually well executed and framed, especially in the latter half with a couple twisted acts of uncontrollable violence… but when the focus (during some long periods) is on the dramas / antics of the locals and a group of neighbouring boarding schools (girls and boys -- who are on heat with constant flashes of female nudity) the suspense is truly forgotten about and its kept grounded with an authentic flavour but the cheesy handling doesn't help and so did the lack of any development of recurring characters / side-stories. The patchy story doesn't really offer any surprises (well maybe one moment --- a death towards the end) and the revelation of the killer midway though shouldn't really come as a surprise. Actually I thought it was better off unmasking the killer, because it was obvious but their choice of weapon a piece of barb wire would leave an unpleasant mark. The performances are surefooted with the likes of Christine Amor (immensely dominating), Leon Lissek (unusually picture-perfect), Ian Williams and Helen Thomson. Australian music composer Brian May has crafted out some stunning scores, but on this occasion it isn't one of his best in what is a vibrant, but heavy-handed arrangement. When it was being ominous it worked, but for those softer and playful cues it doesn't come off. It just lacked the fineness. Nothing sensational, but a better than labelled slasher.

BLOODMOON had major airplay on the USA NETWORK on Friday nights during some years. After 1997 I haven't seen this slasher but I can remember about it.

It's night, full moon, a killer with a barb wire terrorizes a girls school. Great premise for a slasher! The murders are so so as the killer has only a way to kill the ladies. Anyway this is pure slasher fun, much in the style of HOUSE ON THE SORORITY ROW. The plot tries to be somewhat complex, but fails on being interesting and turns to be dumb. You discover who the killer is after 30 minutes of the movie. Slasher fans do not care about it! Don't expect too much from this slasher, just watch it and have some fun. It gets boring at some point, but it's worth a watch.

I recommend it only for slasher fans, watch it at your own risk.

3/10 -Terrible but tries to stand out of the garbage

Compared to other serial killer stories, this one is above average ; when "Friday the thirteenth "and stuff like that consists of killing teenagers one by one, teenagers we hardly know before they get slain.

Here,there is a decent screenplay and chiefly , the screenwriters did create characters ;even though we guess who the killer is long before the end ,his behavior makes sense .If the youngsters are rather bland and conventional, the adult characters have some substance : the nun (the ending sees her play the part of the sister of "vertigo" ), the nymphomaniac headmistress and her impotent husband,the biology teacher , the policeman .

The rivalry between the wealthy students who" will become doctors and lawyers and the prole ones" is not fully exploited and it's too bad;but good scenes such as the maleficent relationship between the teacher and his wife, the two girls who try to see the tests before the exam so as to get only As make up for it.

Pretty good entertainment in this Australian thriller.