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Killer's Moon

  • 1978
  • Not Rated
  • 1h 33m
IMDb RATING
4.8/10
929
YOUR RATING
Killer's Moon (1978)
Slasher HorrorCrimeDramaHorror

Four mental patients - who, due to unauthorized experiments, believe they're living in a dream and have shed all moral imperatives - escape and find their way to the nearest bus-load of stra... Read allFour mental patients - who, due to unauthorized experiments, believe they're living in a dream and have shed all moral imperatives - escape and find their way to the nearest bus-load of stranded schoolgirls.Four mental patients - who, due to unauthorized experiments, believe they're living in a dream and have shed all moral imperatives - escape and find their way to the nearest bus-load of stranded schoolgirls.

  • Director
    • Alan Birkinshaw
  • Writers
    • Alan Birkinshaw
    • Fay Weldon
  • Stars
    • Anthony Forrest
    • Tom Marshall
    • Georgina Kean
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    4.8/10
    929
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Alan Birkinshaw
    • Writers
      • Alan Birkinshaw
      • Fay Weldon
    • Stars
      • Anthony Forrest
      • Tom Marshall
      • Georgina Kean
    • 38User reviews
    • 41Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Videos1

    Trailer
    Trailer 2:33
    Trailer

    Photos76

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    Top Cast25

    Edit
    Anthony Forrest
    Anthony Forrest
    • Pete
    Tom Marshall
    Tom Marshall
    • Mike
    Georgina Kean
    Georgina Kean
    • Agatha
    Alison Elliott
    Alison Elliott
    • Sandy
    Jane Hayden
    • Julie
    Nigel Gregory
    Nigel Gregory
    • Mr. Smith
    David Jackson
    • Mr. Trubshaw
    Paul Rattee
    • Mr. Muldoon
    Peter Spraggon
    Peter Spraggon
    • Mr. Jones
    Joanne Good
    Joanne Good
    • Mary
    • (as Jo-Anne Good)
    Jayne Lester
    • Elizabeth
    Lisa Vanderpump
    Lisa Vanderpump
    • Anne
    Debbie Martyn
    • Deirdre
    Christine Winter
    • Carol
    • (as Christina Jones)
    Lynne Morgan
    • Sue
    Jean Reeve
    • Mrs. Hargreaves
    Elizabeth Counsell
    Elizabeth Counsell
    • Miss Lilac
    Charles Stewart
    • Bert
    • Director
      • Alan Birkinshaw
    • Writers
      • Alan Birkinshaw
      • Fay Weldon
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews38

    4.8929
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    10

    Featured reviews

    5parry_na

    "Was my performance lacking? It usually is."

    Drugs, psychopathic criminals, underage sex - it's all going on in this low-budget British shocker. One of the schoolgirls is played by Jane Haydon, sister of horror legend Linda (most famous perhaps for her role as Angel Blake in 'Blood on Satan's Claw').

    A busload of stranded girls spend the night in an unfinished hotel 'in the wilds of nowhere', where nearby asylum inmates, tanked up with LSD as part of their experimental therapy, escape and cause horrific carnage.

    The escaped inmates' atrocities are very much in the style of the ultra-violence on display in 'The Clockwork Orange', where this film takes a lot of its cues - especially main escapee Mr. Trubshawe (David Jackson - possibly most famous for playing Gan early on in BBC TV space opera Blake's 7). Apart from the subject matter being distinctly unsavoury, there is a lack of pace to the proceedings.

    Some of dialogue is alarming. "See - you're better," one girl assures her friend who has just been raped, when she accepts a cup of coffee.

    With all this going on, events are surprisingly slow and turgid. Never quite aspiring to the disturbing levels of 'A Clockwork Orange', this is ultimately an average rip-off. My score is 5 out of 10.
    heedarmy

    No shocks, not even crude ones

    A staggeringly dull and inept horror film, which amazingly enjoyed a national UK cinema release during 1978. Standards must have been lower then.

    The inane premise has a busload of schoolgirls meandering bafflingly through the wilds of the Lake District en route to Scotland (why aren't they going up the motorway?) They and their teachers are terrorised by four psychopaths who escaped while being given experimental drug therapy at a cottage hospital (!). You would expect the fells to be knee-deep in police searching for such obviously dangerous characters, but not one is seen until the end, when a patrol car trundles into view.

    Even allowing for such illogicalities, the potential is there for crude shocks but director Birkinshaw blows it entirely. Potentially suspenseful scenes are completely bungled and little dramatic use is made of the Lake District setting. The clumsy dialogue and sub-Clockwork Orange posturings of the psychopaths make parts of the film more laughable than terrifying. However, the "National Health Service psychiatrist line" is hilarious and few other horror films feature a moving eulogy to a three-legged dog!
    3ofumalow

    A recipe for fun...burnt in the oven

    As sleazy horrorsploitation ideas go, you can hardly imagine any better than "Inmates escape sanitorium. where they are undergoing 'LSD therapy,' and thus think they're dreaming everything when they attack a girls' choir and their minders whose bus breaks down in the English countryside."

    The thing that is most impressive about "Killer's Moon," however, is that it's so ineptly made there is almost no lurid camp value--and, needless to say, no suspense or terror. The acting is highly variable, from competent under the circumstances to laughably bad. But no one is helped by the terrible, plodding dialogue--which, incredibly, author Fay Weldon (who contributed to the script because her brother was the director) later bragged about, feeling in retrospect it was a mistake to gift her excellent writing to such an otherwise poor film. Well, she certainly sank to the occasion, even if obviously her ego survived the experience. It's the crap dialogue that provides the rare unintentional laugh here.

    The violence here is for the most part laughably mild (in fact mostly off-screen), the behaviors psychologically ridiculous, the continuity gaps mile-wide, and the pacing deadly. I really hoped for some guilty pleasure with this one, but it is just a slog.
    6gavin6942

    A Must-See British Horror

    Four mental patients -- who, due to unauthorized experiments, believe they are living in a dream and have shed all moral imperatives -- escape and find their way to the nearest bus-load of stranded schoolgirls.

    What makes this film interesting for me, besides the ethical questions (can the killers be held accountable if they think they are dreaming), is the music. Along with a jazzy version of "Three Blind Mice", we have some music that is dreamlike (appropriately) and also quite moody and dark (also appropriate). It was, for me, the difference between the movie being bad and good.

    Due to its (fake) animal cruelty and dismissive attitude towards rape, the film has been called "the most tasteless movie in British cinema history." While that is surely an exaggeration, I do think these elements helped give it the cult following it apparently now has. I can see it being mocked by people in a loving way.
    lazarillo

    Sleazy, but not in a good way

    This is an interesting piece of sleaze from that morally upright island off the northwest coast of Europe. I first saw it on a double bill with "House on Straw Hill" and I have no idea why the latter got branded a "video nasty" in Britain but this one didn't. Three homicidal maniacs who are fed LSD and believe they're dreaming terrorize a broken-down bus full of schoolgirls in the Lake District. You might ask yourself several questions: Why would anyone feed homicidal maniacs LSD (not to mention dress them in bowler hats like the droogs in "A Clockwork Orange")? Why would LSD make someone think they're dreaming? (Do the lecherous sleazeballs who made this have no firsthand experience with drug abuse?) If the characters think they're dreaming, why do they talk to each other? Finally, and most importantly, why would being doped up on LSD make homicidal maniacs any more frightening than they already are?

    Some people found the fact that the victims are schoolgirls quite offensive. Well, it would be if the buxom, overage East End strippers they cast in this movie, dressed in schoolgirl outfits, and handed out teddy bears to were remotely believable as schoolgirls. What is more offensive is the cavalier attitude the movie has toward rape. One girl tells another not to be upset because she was "only raped" by the maniacs (if she'd been murdered THEN she could complain). The movie shows such empathy for its characters that one major character simply disappears halfway through and her dead body shows up as an after-thought in the closing credits. And if this movie isn't enough of a geek show, there's a three-legged dog wandering around, and, oh never mind. I'm trying to find something good to say about this movie--well, if you fall asleep and dream (or you are given a strong dose of LSD) you can imagine that you're watching "Breakfast at Manchester Morgue" or one of the other good horror movies made in the Lake District.

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    Related interests

    Roger Jackson in Scream (1996)
    Slasher Horror
    James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Sharon Angela, Max Casella, Dan Grimaldi, Joe Perrino, Donna Pescow, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Tony Sirico, and Michael Drayer in The Sopranos (1999)
    Crime
    Naomie Harris, Mahershala Ali, Janelle Monáe, André Holland, Herman Caheej McGloun, Edson Jean, Alex R. Hibbert, and Tanisha Cidel in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama
    Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby (1968)
    Horror

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Hannah, the three-legged dog used in this movie, was cast from a local dog agency, and she had lost her leg after saving her master in a robbery at the pub that she lived in.
    • Goofs
      After the Doberman enters the tent, Pete produces a length of gauze about 2 feet long to dress its wounds. When the dog later hobbles off into the woods, it is bound up with several yards of bandage.
    • Quotes

      Agatha: Look, you were only raped, as long as you don't tell anyone about it you'll be alright. You pretend it never happened, I pretend I never saw it and if we ever get out of this alive, well, maybe we'll both live to be wives and mothers.

    • Soundtracks
      The Beginning
      Words and Music by Jayne Lester

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    FAQ13

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • December 10, 1978 (United Kingdom)
    • Country of origin
      • United Kingdom
    • Official site
      • Streaming on "O.B.E.Y.C.O.N.S.U.M.E." YouTube Channel
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Killer's moon
    • Filming locations
      • Armathwaite Hall Hotel, Bassenthwaite Lake, Keswick, Lake District, Cumbria, England, UK(the hotel)
    • Production company
      • Rothernorth
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Budget
      • £170,000 (estimated)
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

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    • Runtime
      • 1h 33m(93 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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