The rapidly declining fortunes of British horror in the latter half of the 1970s resulted in some very peculiar films, but few can hold a candle to the unbridled insanity of this crackpot offering. Try this on for starters... A busload of schoolgirls gets stranded at a bed and breakfast, which means they can't keep singing "Greensleeves" over and over on the road. A couple camping out in the woods for the night is interrupted by the aforementioned three-legged dog in a neckerchief warning them of impending danger. And at the local insane asylum located in the middle of town(!), four inmates have escaped while under the chemical treatment of LSD, which doctors feel will help them live out their lives as if they're in a dream. Oh, and the escapees are all dressed an awful lot like the Droogs from A Clockwork Orange. One by one they hack and slash their way through the local populace, with the girls splitting up over and over again to fall prey to the maniacs. Who will survive? And will that dog get to inflict some payback on the maniac who chopped off his leg?
Released at the dawn of the slasher craze in 1978, this film skews in a very different direction despite the requisite body count scenes. Much of its oddness can be attributed to the bizarre combination of talents behind the camera, starting with director Alan Birkinshaw. This New Zealand-born furniture company owner began working in British TV and went on to helm features for 21st Century Film Corporation, the notorious spin-off of sorts from Cannon Films in the late '80s who cashed in on several Edgar Allan Poe and Agatha Christie properties. (For example, he directed that mind-boggling Oliver Reed version of House of Usher.)
While Birkinshaw would seem a natural for a straight-ahead horror film, the real curveball here is screenplay co-written with his sister, feminist writer Fay Weldon, who's uncredited on the final film. Most famous for her novel The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (adapted into both a TV miniseries and a very odd feature film, She-Devil), she drew the ire of women's rights groups in the late '90s when she asserted in an interview that being raped "isn't the worst thing that can happen to a woman if you're safe, alive and unmarked after the event." Strangely, that sentiment is also expressed in this film in a more ridiculous form when one of the schoolgirls is assaulted in a kitchen, only to be advised by her classmate: ""Look, you were only raped. As long as you don't tell anyone about it, you'll be all right."
Certainly never dull and perhaps best enjoyed as a spoof (albeit partially unintentionally), Killer's Moon was a VHS staple throughout the '80s and eventually slid its way to DVD in America under the Redemption Films banner, complete with copious extras and a reasonably upgrade, uncut anamorphic transfer. Rather incredibly, it was also selected as the first British title in the Redemption catalog to make the leap to Blu-Ray under their deal with Kino Lorber, whose packaging touts this as "an important film in the evolution of 'video nasties' (especially violent films that brought about stricter censorship in the UK in the early 1980s)." That's a pretty debatable claim considering the film was never prosecuted or included in the initial list of runners-up, but it was seized a handful of times during raids so perhaps that still counts. In any case, it never had any significant censorship issues in its native country or abroad, which is a bit surprising considering the normally volatile mixture of sex and violence that sent the British film censors into a frothing frenzy. Perhaps the surrealism of it all put them off, or they were just too busy laughing at the last line of dialogue.
As for the Kino edition, it looks a few notches better than the previous Redemption one (which was interlaced) and does fairly well by the material considering much of it was shot day for night and heavily tinted with oppressive shades of blue throughout 80% of the running time. The negative isn't in pristine condition as evidenced by infrequent specks and damage marks, but overall it's pleasant enough though nowhere near the crisp, clear quality found in the best catalog titles.
The most valuable of the extras is the commentary track with Birkinshaw and one of the stars, Joanne Good (who made her debut here and became something of a British TV staple), which lays out the screenplay process for the film, the ins and outs of getting neophyte actresses to disrobe in front of the camera, and the strange saga of top-billed Anthony Forrest, who was expected to become a big star until fortune took an unexpected turn. Also included are supplemental video interviews with Birkshaw (whose anecdotes about his first film, a silly sex comedy, must be heard to be believed) and Good, the unabashedly trashy X-certificate trailer (a much tamer general release one appeared on the earlier DVD), a gallery of photos and promotional artwork), and trailers for a quintet of their noteworthy Jean Rollin releases on Blu-Ray including Shiver of the Vampires and Fascination.
For more information about Killer's Moon, visit Kino Lorber. To order Killer's Moon, go to TCM Shopping.
by Nathaniel Thompson
