Moon in Scorpio

Newlyweds Allen (John Philip Law) and Linda (Britt Ekland) spend their honeymoon sailing to Mexico on a boat. Along for the trip are two of Allen's old Vietnam buddies - Burt (William Smith) and Mark (Lewis Van Bergen) - and their respective girlfriends. The bad news is one of these folks is a psycho who just escaped from a mental asylum and has been going around stabbing folks. I wasn't quite sure where to put this review, but I guess the "horror" thread works due to the multiple throat slashing. This VHS was purchased solely for the great cover art and that is easily the best thing about this flick. Director Gary Graver took a break from porn to make this thriller. He assembled a decent cast, but doesn't know what the heck to do with them. The story is told via flashback (Linda talking to a doctor played by Robert Quarry) and you'll get confused right away as the asylum breakout is shown before Linda is discovered and telling her story. This results in a total mess that comes off feeling like two movies edited into one at points.

Despite numerous bad reviews I still for some reason decided to watch 'Moon in Scorpio'. I should have listened to those reviews...

'Moon in Scorpio' is another movie where I didn't care one bit about any of the characters. It was also hard to tell who the protagonist or antagonist is. The incoherent script is really bad, the dialogue is bad, and it was very badly acted, as well.

'Moon in Scorpio' is all over the place with too much going on that wasn't interesting at all. In fact, the film was slow and boring. The events of the fateful nights aboard a yacht is revealed through retellings of Linda (Britt Ekland), who is in police custody. Ekland was unconvincing and I couldn't really make out whether she was making up a story, or actually telling the truth. Truth is, I couldn't care less. This was a complete waste of time and a film I'd like to forget, but probably will remember for how bad it is. It also has an abrupt ending without motivation for what happened. Ugh...!

Would I watch it again? No.

This is what I get for being stubborn and bumptious. Every single review I read was negative and clearly warning the rest of world not to waste any time or energy on this lousy horror flick. And yet, what do I do? I refuse to listen to these reviews (despite often coming from knowledgeable fellow users whose opinions I always trust) because I cannot believe that a film with: a) such an awesome cover image, b) mysterious sounding title and c) terrific cast is really that bad.

Rest assured; - it is that bad! The cover image is definitely awesome, but horror fanatics know (or should know...) better than to fall for that. The title never gets explained even though several characters literally ask what it means. And the cast, well, I'm really fond of the work of Britt Ekland ("The Wicker Man") and John Philip Law ("Danger: Diabolik") but both their performances are poor. The respectable names in the supportive cast, like William Smith and Robert Quarry, don't contribute any quality, neither.

"Moon in Scorpio" is what happens when the producers and the makers have completely opposite ideas. The producers wanted a straightforward slasher movie with an escaped asylum patient and set on a yacht, but director Gary Graver claimed he wanted a spiritual and mysterious horror film. I personally don't believe Graver, because he was also the director of adult movies with titles like "Driving Miss Daisy Crazy Again" and "Three Men and a Hooker". I wish the producers had hired a different crew instead, because the murders are still rather cool and bloody, and a yacht in the open sea is always a good setting for a horror film.

The film is downright pathetic, really. The Vietnam flashbacks look as if they were filmed in someone's backyard, Ekland's additional voiceover is pointless and irritant, the editing is utmost amateurish, and the plotting is often absurd. Newlyweds going on honeymoon together with his former army buddies? Such a marriage wouldn't last a week even if they didn't get killed.

Well, the video box was nice. The color is primarily blue, a dusk or night scene of a ship with tattered sails, clouds suggesting the form of a skull, and the shadowy shape of a giant scorpion rippling in the water. The movie's title on the front and back covers and both spines is embossed. The ship on the front cover, and a detail of the scorpion on the back cover are similarly raised.

According to the director's website, Moon in Scorpio is a "supernatural thriller set on the high seas with a vampire and astrological plot involving several decadent characters was re-edited many times by the producers." The producers must have reedited it, because it was not supernatural at all, nor was there a vampire. The plot didn't seem astrological, though one of the characters says about four times that the "Moon is in Scorpio" which she explains as being a time of fear, retribution, etc.

Reediting might also be to blame for the movie's structure. It begins (and ends) with a shot of a ship bobbing with its sails down. From there, someone kills a doctor, and then kills someone in the hospital's parking garage, stealing his car. Then, the hospital hires someone to find the killer. He winds up on the ship where he gets killed by the only woman they find on board. The woman is hospitalized and she tells her story of how she came to be the only person left on the ship.

She and her husband are going on their honeymoon. They are joining two other couples on a ship. The three men had been in Vietnam together. There are some stock footage clips of Vietnam, and we also see them there. At one point, one of them seems to struggle with a gristly skeleton in water. Perhaps that was part of the supernatural plot that got dropped?

A man in the harbor gets killed by someone dressed in black, by an odd spiked weapon. Later, people on the ship get killed by an odd spiked weapon worn on a hand or by a spear-gun and pushed overboard. At no point do people know there is a killer on-board, until there is only the killer and the survivor left. Throughout this back-story, the survivor breaks in as a narrator, often repeating things we just saw and heard.

The ending is quite bad, as a hospital official ushers the survivor out, suggesting she might be able to get married again sometime to have the kids she wants. The ending might also have suffered as a result of reediting.

Not recommended, unless a director's cut comes out in which case this might deserve a second look, maybe.

Whilst this movie awful, it is a superb vehicle for showing off Britt Ekland's horrendous acting, which is far more frightening than any of the murders. Terrible, but unfortunately no where near the worst movie I've seen.