Bloody Moon (1983)

Miguel (Alexander Waechter), a man afflicted with a particularly unrealistic facial scar, is sent to an asylum for rape and murder. With little evidence that he is cured, he is released five years later and immediately resumes his hobby of peering and leering at highly made-up women bedecked – barely – in stunning early 1980's attire. One reason for his behaviour appears to be his forbidden love for his sister Manuela (Nadja Gerganoff), who is happy to parade herself around him in suggested poses and revealing clothes but is appalled at continuing their forbidden relationship.Various characters come and go, sinister suggestions of stalking young girls is accompanied by Gerhard Heinz's mostly magnificent score (Pink Floyd were originally approached), and improbable and brightly coloured murders take place.Euro sleaze, eurotrash, eurotica or euro-horror: there are plenty of labels for allegedly exploitation films such as 'Bloody Moon', but a lot of them are unfairly maligned by the lazy definition. A lot of films directed by Spanish Director Jess Franco are far better than their reputations suggest. This, however, fits squarely within that category (Franco himself has labelled it s**t). It is Franco's contribution to the slasher genre.The first half is remarkably tame. For the most part, watching this is something of a chore, with much of the running time seemingly made up from scenes spliced in from other films. Stunning locations and pretty girls and boys aside, this is something of a chore, especially when the characters display such unstinting stupidity, often on the promise of sex.Yet it is worth continuing. The murders increase in frequency and bizarre gratuity (beheadings, stabbings and a knife protruding somewhat improbably from a nipple). The character of Angela (Olivia Pascal) staggers from witnessing one obscene set-piece after another and understandably is the scream-queen of this particular project. The scenes she witnesses actually gather together the somewhat isolated moments from earlier on and give them a coherency I wasn't expecting.In the end, against my earlier misgivings, 'Bloody Moon' ends up with a satisfying bloodbath filled with imaginative moments and a fairly convincing twist. Not Franco's best film, then, but somewhere in the middle.

I think if it wasn't for the fame that being a "video nasty" brought it, "Bloody Moon" wouldn't be enjoying anything like the longevity it currently has. Set in a Spanish language school for girls (how original), the story sees our heroine Angela in peril as her friend begin to die around her, and nobody believes her. Suspects are all over the place, one gory murder follows another until the truth is revealed. The thin plot is a threadbare mechanism with only enough substance to it to drive the most basic of story events, and all attempts to generate mystery and tension fall completely flat. A lot of this is due to the English language soundtrack which has the most inept dubbing I've seen for a long time. There's an excess of "sexy" giggling and gossiping that goes with every scene of the female cast members, unless they are being stalked or terrorised, in which case it changes to an excess of screaming and wailing. None of the vocal performances match what the actresses appear to be saying in the slightest. Trying to work out whodunnit is hampered by the appalling direction, in which red herring characters pop up and down every few moments before and after a murder scene, making you wonder if anything you are seeing is by design or just random. Truly awful film-making is here in abundance, in such scenes as the one where Inga is merrily driven to a saw mill and tied up, gabbling the entire time, or the one in which Angela sees a shadow on the wall, walks backwards (??) towards it and stabs the figure hysterically and then runs off, or the one where a snake dangles into view and is snipped to death by hedge cutters, or the one where a huge foam rock bounces out of nowhere to menace Angela, or all the time we spend watching the girls in their language class and nothing actually happens, or the one with Inga (again - she's particularly bad) bouncing on her bed pretending to be having sex, with a dead body in her wardrobe that it would be impossible for her not to notice, and many, many more. The only strength the film could possibly claim to have is the graphic gore, but these scenes are also pretty poorly done. Some work well for being crudely violent (the sawmill decapitation and the knife through breast killing), but the death by neck- clamp is blatantly out of focus, and most of the others are amateurishly accomplished. If you only want to see a lot of boobs and blood, plus some of the worst 80's knitwear ever put on celluloid, then treat yourself. Otherwise, this is almost laughably terrible. Even the soundtrack, which underscores the drama with lots of deep "bloop-bloop" noises is unforgivable. The 2 stars are for the saw mill murder as it has become almost iconic, and at least the film has enough energy not to be boring.

"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!

The plot line, a group of young girls residing at a language school in Spain become the target to a series of bloody thristy murders to a unknown killer, could it be the deformed man who've murdered before or someone else. Bloody Moon could have been a whole let better, I'm not saying it's bad, but simply average. There are a couple of genuinely tense scenes and cinematography is good and it is one gory little movie- the film's most (in)famous moment comes when a girl lets herself get tied up by, unbeknownst to her, the killer, "I'm game for anything!" she squeals, before being messily decapitated by a huge buzzsaw. (I bet she wasn't game for that!). But the bad things about this movie is the acting isn't very strong, probably due to the fact the dubbing is terrible, the film is also so dark at times you can't even see what's going on. All in all Bloody Moon is probably worth seeing.