If you judged every director on only the one title, then your DVD shelf would be a very lonely place. Coppola, Spielberg, Stone, hell even Scorsese - they have all made slight 'miscalculations' throughout their respective careers. Keeping that in mind though, the last film that I saw from Gary Graver was the abysmal 'slasher' Trick or Treats, which in all honesty made Plan 9 from Outer Space look intellectual. Taking that into account I must admit that I didn't expect much from Moon in Scorpio. But with notorious exploitation titan Fred Olen Ray on board as co-producer, there's no way of ever knowing exactly what to expect. In all honesty the bizarre casting decision of putting Britt Eckland's name above the title was more than enough to get my initial curiosities aroused.
Keeping things hackneyed, we begin with the oldest of all slasher clichés. Yep you guessed it; an unseen nut-nut makes a break from the least secure mental hospital imaginable, killing an unfortunate orderly on the way. Once outside the complex, the psycho makes short work of a cheery pharmaceutical salesman and then flees the scene in the dead guy's car. For some inexplicable reason, the head psychiatrist doesn't bother informing the Police that they have a murderous maniac on the loose. Instead he calls in Private Detective Richard Vargas who is described by one shrink as being, "Almost crazy enough to be a patient here himself." Next we fast-forward two weeks and Vargas is seen boarding an abandoned-looking boat that is adrift in the middle of the sea. Once on board he finds Linda (Britt Eckland) sprawled across the floor in a heap. Whilst attempting to wake her up, she stabs him in the stomach with a bizarre spear like device. The (unconvincingly) hysterical Linda is then dragged off of the boat by two orderlies who don't seem at all concerned by the fact that Vargas has just been fatally impaled on the huge spike.
A few days later, Linda is fit to be interviewed by the head psychiatrist and he asks her what exactly happened out in the middle of the sea. We soon learn that she had been on a honeymoon with her husband, two of his war buddies and their girlfriends. The plan was to sail too Acapulco and spend a couple of weeks lapping up the sun on the beaches. Unfortunately along with the suitcases and sangria, the gang had inadvertently brought along a maniacal killer who had his own reasons to want to be stranded in the ocean with the holidaymakers. For the rest of the runtime, we see through flashbacks exactly what happened aboard the cursed death ship. Just who was responsible for these viscous murders?
According to many reports that I've read over the web, Moon in Scorpio was continually re-edited by the distributors and was eventually released without any of the supernatural elements that had been originally intended from the script. The IMDb mentions a vampire and astrological plot points, which sounds intriguing, but couldn't be further from the contents of the version that was eventually released direct to video. The only available VHS print is typical slasher by the numbers fare, and contains no trace of the rumored paranormal ingredients. Perhaps one day a Director's Cut DVD will solve the riddle of the missing plot points. Unfortunately whether you can blame the edit-happy distributors or not, Scorpio is a lackadaisical entry that lacks suspense, creativity and effort from any of the big name cast members. Eckland was laughable as she struggled to look even slightly motivated, whilst hard man character actor William Smith was totally wasted in an undemanding role.
The film's structure is also totally inept. The flashback narration seems to run illogically beside what we are seeing on the screen and we are never given a credible conclusion as to the killer's motives. At a guess, I'd say that the maniac became a vampire post-death in the scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor. At one point in the runtime there's a slight hint as a character drinks her partner's blood after he accidentally cuts his finger whilst dicing carrots. There's also a sub-plot involving a link between the three male cast members, who fought in Vietnam together. But these few scenes, which amusingly look more like they were filmed in a park down the road from Gary Graver's house than anywhere near 'Nam, never amount to anything either. If you don't manage to work out the unseen killer's identity by the half hour mark then you shouldn't be watching anything that's not PG-13 rated. And the anemic showdown between the survivor and the killer couldn't have been any less entertaining if it were filmed in slow motion.
Perhaps one day we will be able to see what Graver really intended with Moon in Scorpio. But as it stands I'm afraid that there is very little to recommend. Don't bother hunting this one down.
Keeping things hackneyed, we begin with the oldest of all slasher clichés. Yep you guessed it; an unseen nut-nut makes a break from the least secure mental hospital imaginable, killing an unfortunate orderly on the way. Once outside the complex, the psycho makes short work of a cheery pharmaceutical salesman and then flees the scene in the dead guy's car. For some inexplicable reason, the head psychiatrist doesn't bother informing the Police that they have a murderous maniac on the loose. Instead he calls in Private Detective Richard Vargas who is described by one shrink as being, "Almost crazy enough to be a patient here himself." Next we fast-forward two weeks and Vargas is seen boarding an abandoned-looking boat that is adrift in the middle of the sea. Once on board he finds Linda (Britt Eckland) sprawled across the floor in a heap. Whilst attempting to wake her up, she stabs him in the stomach with a bizarre spear like device. The (unconvincingly) hysterical Linda is then dragged off of the boat by two orderlies who don't seem at all concerned by the fact that Vargas has just been fatally impaled on the huge spike.
A few days later, Linda is fit to be interviewed by the head psychiatrist and he asks her what exactly happened out in the middle of the sea. We soon learn that she had been on a honeymoon with her husband, two of his war buddies and their girlfriends. The plan was to sail too Acapulco and spend a couple of weeks lapping up the sun on the beaches. Unfortunately along with the suitcases and sangria, the gang had inadvertently brought along a maniacal killer who had his own reasons to want to be stranded in the ocean with the holidaymakers. For the rest of the runtime, we see through flashbacks exactly what happened aboard the cursed death ship. Just who was responsible for these viscous murders?
According to many reports that I've read over the web, Moon in Scorpio was continually re-edited by the distributors and was eventually released without any of the supernatural elements that had been originally intended from the script. The IMDb mentions a vampire and astrological plot points, which sounds intriguing, but couldn't be further from the contents of the version that was eventually released direct to video. The only available VHS print is typical slasher by the numbers fare, and contains no trace of the rumored paranormal ingredients. Perhaps one day a Director's Cut DVD will solve the riddle of the missing plot points. Unfortunately whether you can blame the edit-happy distributors or not, Scorpio is a lackadaisical entry that lacks suspense, creativity and effort from any of the big name cast members. Eckland was laughable as she struggled to look even slightly motivated, whilst hard man character actor William Smith was totally wasted in an undemanding role.
The film's structure is also totally inept. The flashback narration seems to run illogically beside what we are seeing on the screen and we are never given a credible conclusion as to the killer's motives. At a guess, I'd say that the maniac became a vampire post-death in the scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor. At one point in the runtime there's a slight hint as a character drinks her partner's blood after he accidentally cuts his finger whilst dicing carrots. There's also a sub-plot involving a link between the three male cast members, who fought in Vietnam together. But these few scenes, which amusingly look more like they were filmed in a park down the road from Gary Graver's house than anywhere near 'Nam, never amount to anything either. If you don't manage to work out the unseen killer's identity by the half hour mark then you shouldn't be watching anything that's not PG-13 rated. And the anemic showdown between the survivor and the killer couldn't have been any less entertaining if it were filmed in slow motion.
Perhaps one day we will be able to see what Graver really intended with Moon in Scorpio. But as it stands I'm afraid that there is very little to recommend. Don't bother hunting this one down.