KILLER'S MOON – Was nice to revisit this mouldy item of Brit-grot, memorable for its strung out villains who move like quasi-Shakespearian droogs. I'd forgotten, though, just how wonky a proposition 'Killer's Moon' actually is. For the uninformed, it's about a girl's school singing troupe who get lost in the Lake District and hole up in a deserted hotel. Unfortunately for them, a quartet of dangerous forensic patients have escaped from a surreptitious treatment program nearby - “they've been subjected to LSD and dream therapy” and are quite keen on using their new found freedom to do some rape and murder etc etc. Some campers on a really obvious sound stage wonder what all this has to do with a three legged dog. It's really hard to know what to make of 'Killer's Moon' as it's just so 'off' on so many levels. The overall feel is of an utterly threadbare attempt at mild smut with sub-gothic trimmings which has lapsed somehow into a kind of inexplicable surrealism. It's not clear whether this strangeness is intended or otherwise. There's a grim sleaziness to the proceedings, never very explicit but present in tone, with the drooling murderers doing things like pouring sultanas over naked breasts after they've gone around ripping schoolgirl's nighties off. A big deal is made about that three legged dog, but I'm lost as to why exactly. Scenes are clunky, but suddenly punctured by overly knowing dialogue which seems to be either mocking the film itself or its supposed audience - “don't worry, you've only been raped. If you don't tell anyone about it, I won't. And maybe if we get through this, we'll live to be wives and mothers” says one girl to another. Fay Weldon was the director's sister and apparently had a hand in some of the writing, a possible reason for all this pithiness, but also maybe the source of the film's quasi-philosophical meanderings about dreams and reality an' shit. Finally, the soundtrack is totally skronked, and drifts from spooky radiophonics to gothic library music before morphing flippantly into nursery rhyme. Yep, it's a weird one for sure, a film which almost feels like it spends half of its time between quotation marks and the other half scratching its head (you might do the same). Anyone expecting to be rocked by a lightning pace and a zillion thrills will be disappointed, but 'Killer's Moon' is recommended for lovers of seventies Brit exploitation who aren't looking for easy answers
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