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.

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.

My review was written in January 1988 after watching the movie on TWE video cassette.

"Moon in Scorpio" is a ridiculous attempt at a thriller, combining three sets of separate footage (plus stock footage) into an indigestible whole. TWE quietly released the pic to video stores last year.

Original intent undoubtedly was to fashion yet another unwanted film about a Vietnam vet suffering oodles of angst over his war guilt. Accompanied by horrendously phony reenactment footage of war atrocities in a California forest area plus poor stock footage, John Phillip Law is the sufferer.

Gary Graver, who has several differnet careers as cinematographer, director and Adult filmmaker, is credited with the principal footage and it is very dreary. Perhaps he was aiming at his late mentor Orson Welles' "Lady from Shanghai" or unfinished "The Deep" in the central motif of a group of scabrous individuals traped on a yacht together, as part of a wedding gift to Law and his bride Britt Ekland.

In any event, Fred Olen Ray and finally Alan Amiel were brought in to try and save the picture. Result is a lot of extraneous footage, some of it lamely building a cover story involving an escaped lunatic who slashes various people to death including most of the cast of Graver's film; round-table discussions by shrink Robert Quarry (playing Dr. Horda, his character name from Ray Danton's 1972 film "The Deathmaster") and his associates James Booth and Donna Kei Ben; or idiotic voice-over by Ekland matched with additional footage of her interviewed by Quarry. End result is risible, with exposition spoon fed and reinforced repetitiously to the viewer, who is assumed to be brain-dead.

Technical credits are poor, and the cast is awful, particularly hammy Ekland, and, in undoubtedly his worst performance, William Smith. Graver's starlet (from his "Party Camp" pic) April Wayne is embarrassing.

Definitely the worst film I have seen. Although i haven't seen 'Manos hands of fate' or 'Gigli' yet, I can say for sure that this film belongs down with them. It seems like the director has tried to make every scene dramatic and creepy, resulting in no build-ups or pauses, no sense of flow in the story, just a 1½ hour boring/embarrassing goo of silly murder scenes and pointless dialogues. Finally, I don't think there's reason why it's called 'Moon In Scorpio'. There's one really stupid scene (which is supposed to be thoughtful), where Gary Graver squeezes in the title in Britt Eklands dialogue, but it makes no sense at all...

1/10 for some 'so bad it's good'-scenes

Moon in scorpio is an 80s slasher about some people going on a honeymoon on a boat.

It has decent acting. There's one actress i've seen in other movies her name is Britt Ekland known from the wicker man, one of the James Bond movies and the hills have eyes, one of my personal favourite horror movies.

The characters are wierd and bad, it almost doesn't seem like they've ever met before.

In the first fourty minutes of the movie almost nothing happens. I think they chould have done something more those foury minutes.

The mystery is really easy to solve and you probably won't be suprised at all who's killing people.

Some of the scenes in the movie should have been cut and maby it whould be better.

Overall Moon in scorpio deserves a 3,4 out of 10 i whould maby rate it a little bit higher, but that's probably because i love bad movies. So i enjoyed it even with all the flawes in it, i can't really say that i recommend it, but if you are one of those people like me who loves wierd slashers i recommend you should watch it.