BLOODY MOON

(A.k.a. DIE SAGE DES TODES)

Okay, a little cheat here. The synopsis below is a modified version of the one I originally wrote for Italian Shock's R2 DVD release, some time ago …

The opening pre-credits scene of this dodgy German/Spanish co-production sees disfigured Miguel (Alexander Waechter) getting lucky at a fancy dress disco with a young lady. Taking her back to an empty bedroom, the two get it on - until she removes his mask and freaks out at the Dick Smith-for-beginners make-up before her.

Miguel, ever the sensitive type, responds by reaching for the nearest pair of scissors and ramming them repeatedly into the unfortunate babe's stomach.

Above the girl's blood-spattered face, the title DIE SAGE DES TODES flashes in yellow.

Two years later, Miguel's sister Manuela (Nadja Gerganoff) picks him up from the asylum - look out for director Jess Franco in a cameo as the doctor - and takes him home to their aunt's luxury Spanish villa. Their aunt just happens to be a rich Countess with a huge estate ripe for inheriting ... strange, then, that moments later she has been burned to death in her bed!

The villa is situated on the estate, neighboured to a Spanish language school which appears to be available exclusively to pretty, sexually proactive female teens.

It's not long after Miguel arrives on the estate that strange things start to happen. Students from the language school go missing, Spanish-training language tapes are tampered with to include murderous threats, and - would you credit it? - young women are chased, scared, impaled, lacerated, slashed and decapitated!

Miguel - a psycho from the opening frames, and later revealed to be both infatuated with lead student Angela (Olivia Pascal) and incestuously linked to his sister, is of course the prime suspect as the murders ensue.

But with a total lack of evidence (didn't they have forensics in the 80s?!?!), it would appear that the law aren't worth calling in ... and in true Euroshlock fashion, once the murderer's identity is revealed their nearest and dearest would rather sort out the mess themselves than unnecessarily involve the police!

BLOODY MOON is rubbish. It's pacing is clunky, the dialogue is jawdroppingly stupid and the characters are so thin that it hardly matters when the acting is so incredibly wooden. The disco soundtrack is irritating, while the English dubbing makes no attempt at being in synch with the lips of it's European cast. Even the FX are strictly bargain-basement, the only realistic one being the genuine - and thoroughly unnecessary - beheading of a live snake.

But, as I said in my previous review of the Italian Shock DVD, all of these qualities conspire to make BLOODY MOON a guilty pleasure. It's seedy, it's sleazy and it wallows in moments of incest, chain saw murder and blades being forced through breasts (just don't dwell too much on the continuity errors that follow this particular slaying). In many ways, given its mean-spirited tone and general ineptitude, it remains the archetypal "video nasty".

In so much as the last statement may be true, it's fair to say that a large part of BLOODY MOON's appeal lies in nostalgia. If you're coming to it fresh, you'll no doubt be faced with a plodding and predictable exercise in sub-standard slasher clichés - the splatter highpoint of which is a patently fake-looking decapitation by buzzsaw that was gory in it's time, but which audiences raised on the likes of HOSTEL PART 2 will no doubt simply shrug off.

Everyone else can rejoice though: BLOODY MOON finally arrives uncut on UK DVD (the screener disc included the snake kill in it's entirety). In fact, this is reportedly the longest version yet made available, including footage previously unseen. What that footage consists of, I'm not sure (I sold my Italian Shock DVD two or three years ago, and my VHS was flogged in 2000!). Although here and there I thought I noticed the odd second or two that was unfamiliar - most notably during Ava's murder.

The print used is a very clean and bright one boasting strong colours and reasonably sharp detail. It's a marked improvement on the Italian Shock transfer. Certain scenes that used to be overly dark - Pascal alone in her apartment, for example - are now like watching them for the first time (adding to the confusion when trying to spot the "unseen" footage!), such is the detail on offer. The film is presented in anamorphic 1.78:1.

The English dubbed 2.0 audio track provides a clear and consistent playback.

An animated main menu leads to static sub-menus, including a scene-selection menu allowing access to BLOODY MOON via 16 chapters.

Extras are limited to an interview with Franco, and a trailer.

The interview, entitled "Franco Moon", is just under 19 minutes long. It's in English but, due to Franco's broken delivery, burned-in English subtitles are also provided. Franco chain-smokes and shakes throughout, while he recalls how the producers lied through their teeth to get him to direct their film (they promised him Pink Floyd for the soundtrack!).

He tells how they wanted a horror film with no less than 50 fear moments, and how the original Spanish title was RAPED COLLEGE GIRLS. As Franco points out though, no-one is raped in the film!

The last couple of minutes of this interview move on to cover Franco's LINDA, which suggests this featurette was originally intended for Tartan UK's abandoned BLOODY MOON/LINDA double-bill DVD.

The trailer runs just over 90 seconds and is an enjoyable full-frame romp with English audio and voiceover. The trailer actually boasts louder audio than the main feature, and carries the title BLOODY MOON (as stated earlier in the review, the film itself opens with the title DIE SAGE DES TODES).

Not for everyone, but the old video nasty die-hards like myself have never seen BLOODY MOON looking better. Great stuff.

Review by Stuart Willis