BLOODY MOON Regionfree DVD Review
Huh? A Jess Franco film that is neither a porno nor in one of IMDB's "worst ever" lists?
What's this?
"Bloody Moon" is a German thriller-cum-slasher from the early eighties which has a bit of a reputation for containing a VERY graphic decapitation, using a giant stonecutting-saw. Its original German title "Die Säge Des Todes" even leaves the plot for what it is and just refers to this single scene.
Of course this moment had to be cut (haha!) in many countries but that only added to the film's notoriety.
So we have a few gory kills, a cast made up mostly of German seventies softporn actors providing the "necessary unnecessary nudity", and helming it all is director Jess Franco who probably holds the world record for making the largest amount of bad movies ever.
Add to this a soundtrack by Pink Floyd... no wait.
That was scrapped, believe it or not.
Must be a crap movie, right?
...Well, it's a slasher cash-in flick so yes, but...
Let's see after the break.
The Story:
Beautiful young Angela moves into the campus of a language school in Spain for foreign students, but is immediately stalked by a hideously scarred stranger. What makes this especially disconcerting is that five years ago a girl was brutally murdered in the appartment Angela now uses, and that the killer has recently been released from a mental institution.
Then she finds the stabbed body of one of her fellow students, but when help arrives the corpse has disappeared. Even though nobody believes her, Angela starts to investigate. Soon even more brutal killings follow, and as the stalking intensifies Angela realises she may be next...
The Movie:
How much you will get out of this movie is largely due to which expectations you have going in. If you want a coherent thriller with a story which makes sense, don't bother. Watching this twice produces many moments where you'd go "but..." or "hang on" or "why?". The behavior of both the killer and his victims is so out of touch with reality that watching these people becomes wacky fun in itself.
The best example of this is the girl who loses her head under the stonecutter. She truly qualifies for a Darwin Award, irritating everyone with a lenghty monologue on how angry she is with the world, while she willingly allows the masked killer to tie her to the cutting slab. Still thinking she is on a very daring date and about to have sex, she just keeps talking and talking, throwing lines about like "This is kinky, isnt it?" and "You can take off your mask now..." while the maniac is testing the sawblade. Only when he starts the machine does she say "Hey, wait a minute...".
But go in expecting a stupid slasher and fun things start to happen. The Spanish setting is more lush than usual in this genre, the young women are very pretty in a European way and people wear the most outrageous (and often translucent) outifts. All of which gives the movie a holiday vibe even though it supposedly takes place at a school, and this effect is strengthened because we see everyone partying every night instead of studying. Nudity is not as rampant as rumored but limited to (granted, a lot of) topless shots and some very skimpy underwear.
When the kills start to happen the gory special effects turn out to be surprisingly good, even containing some moments where you wonder how they did it. And while for most of the running time this is a silly knock-off of "Halloween", at the end it suddenly changes gears and goes deep into Dario Argento-like giallo territory with a blood-soaked finale of primary colors and corpses. It doesn't elevate the movie into classic status or anything, but it certainly keeps things interesting until the credits start to run.
Though it has an infamous director at the helm, Jess Franco doesn't commit any crimes here. I'd even go as far to call parts of the film good. The lengthy stonecutter sequence is worth its reputation, not so much for its gory moments but for the way tension is being built. The setup is barmy beyond words but is framed by a little boy who accidentally witnesses the murder, tries (but fails) to prevent it and ends up being chased by the killer afterwards. You feel far more sympathy for this child than for the dumb trollop in the machine, and this makes the whole sequence work better than expected.
That cannot be said about the acting, the quality of which is somewhere between porn and commercials. It's there but congratulations to anyone who can put a value on it. It fits the silly story and oddly colorful surroundings though, so maybe this is some intentional meta-thing?
Conclusion:
"Bloody Moon" is not a movie which I'd call great, it is too shallow and obvious for that. But it's definitely well-made (rather than well-written or well-acted) and basically achieves its goals. Most important of all, it is NOT boring.
It's silly fun with a copious amount of pretty girls and some surprisingly effective moments of gore. By now you'll have figured out if this is to your taste or not.
About the DVD:
Severin (a funny name when said out loud while watching the front cover) has released "Bloody Moon" as a regionfree disc, so this can be played anywhere in the world as long as your setup accepts an NTSC-signal. Bless all distributors who release discs regionfree, regional coding is a stupid and outdated security concept which only hurts the wrong people. But I digress.
Video is very good for a film this age (and this genre, and this director, and..). Colors are colors and blacks are blacks. The image is sharp yet shows no sign of having been digitally tampered with. Very impressive!
Next is sound and there we hit a major "ouch". The original german soundtrack is nowhere to be found, which is a shame as the English dub is quite bad. I know by now I shouldn't chide small distributors of genre materials for not containing subs or extra soundtracks, but man...
It sure is inherently funny to see a film take place at a language school and be so badly dubbed at the same time, the more so because the credits and titles are still in German.
Then there are the extras: the trailer and a very informative 18-minute interview with director Jess Franco about the making of this movie. Franco is his usual self, a virtual treasuretrove of anecdotes who harbors no illusions about the quality of his movies. He is not particularly fond of "Bloody Moon" and seems delighted to share some of its sordid history.
Funny facts abound: the non-involvement of Pink Floyd (a devious lure for talent to join the production), the non-nudity of main actress Olivia Pascal (who didn't want to do sex scenes anymore because she just got married) or the non-sense of the Spanish title "Colegialas Violadas" (which means "Raped Schoolgirls" even though there isn't a single rape in the whole movie).
All in all this disc has a lovely transfer, a bad soundtrack and even though there aren't many extras, the ones that are there are good, especially the Jess Franco interview is seriously fun.
In short: If you can put up with the dub (or even think it is an essential part of the goofy fun this movie provides) there is no reason for avoiding this disc.
