Oh what horror...Now don't be fooled into thinking I'm saying that this low brow FRIDAY THE 13TH wannabe is scary, no far from it. I'm talking about the hilariously atrocious acting that I had to sit through for an hour and twenty minutes to write this review. Watch out for Marlo the shopkeeper (Mary Lou Wittman), her excessive and somewhat unconvincing 'down south' accent is worth the rental price alone!
In the pre-credits we're shown a woman - Elaine (Cheryl Black) - getting on with her lover Vic (Bob Wagner). This fact is emphasised by the music that accompanies the scene which, sounds like it would feel more at home in a seventies porno movie. As the randy couple begin to dress down for the occasion, there's a frantic knock on the door. All of a sudden it flies open and in bursts a rather miserable looking chap. We then find out he's Elaine's husband, Frank. He punches Vic, grabs him around the throat and begins to strangle him. Quick thinking Elaine smashes him over the head with a glass bottle (presumably with some super human strength because it knocks him flying!) and helps Vic to his feet. In the commotion a paraffin lamp falls on the floor and before long the cabin's up in flames...with Frank left lying in it. Fast forward a year and Elaine is back on Lover's Island with her new husband...you've got it, Vic! They've just finished rebuilding the cabins after the tragic 'accident' that occurred 12 months earlier completely destroyed them. Their first customers - three flirtatious sorority sisters with their newly wed husbands in toe - arrive, and all seems to be going accordingly. But before long feelings of content switch to those of fear when a severely mutilated corpse is found on the beach. Stranded and without any form of contact with the outside world, the group must pit their wits against the Island's resident psychopath!
HONEYMOON HORROR is the only period slasher I can think of that manages to look at least five years older than it actually is. The whole flick (especially Bob Wagner's haircut) looks suspiciously seventies! Hmmm. All the genre cliches are present and correct, including the lunatic with heavy breath, the comical lard ass sheriff and of course the aforementioned sorority sisters who make perfect victim material for a deranged killer! Director Preston even pulls off one pretty suspenseful scene. Towards the end, Elaine hears someone trying to open her back door while she's in the kitchen of her cabin - unbeknown to her it's the killer. She turns to open it, leaving you thinking will she or wont she! I wont spoil that short moment of tension by telling you the outcome, simply because that's about as good as it gets, sadly the rest of the flick is pretty much of a disappointment. For a start there's the diabolical acting. It's almost comical how the cast calmly drink coffee whilst they're randomly being picked off and dispatched one by one by the maniacal assassin. Its no surprise, that absolutely NONE of these actors went on to do anything worth mentioning since 1981 when this little 'beauty' was unleashed on to the unsuspecting public! And then there's the incredibly inept sheriff and his goofy deputy. The director tries to add a touch of humour here and there by showing us these two buffoons pulling silly shenanigans whilst accompanying every scene with music that would make Benny Hill blush. But instead of generating any sort of amusement he merely creates two annoying characters that I'd rather not see on my TV screen. He also tries to be clever by not letting us see the killer right until the end and giving us a few would be suspects, so we can play whodunit. But even this doesn't work because (and i say this trying my best not to give too much away.)he shows us a whole heap of clues throughout that point straight at the real murderer's identity. So sadly that's another bad move on the director's part.
I'd like to say that HONEYMOON HORROR is a good reminder of a vintage year for slasher movies - 1981. But sadly it's probably one of the better examples of what killed of the genre. Avoid
