Bloody Moon (1981)

Girls are killed at a language-school in Spain.

Director:

Jesús Franco

Writer:

Erich Tomek (screenplay) (as Rayo Casablanca)

Stars:

Olivia Pascal, Christoph Moosbrugger, Nadja Gerganoff

Cast

Cast overview:
Olivia Pascal	...	Angela
Christoph Moosbrugger	...	Alvaro
Nadja Gerganoff	...	Manuela
Jasmin Losensky	...	Inga
Corinna Drews	...	Laura (as Corinna Gillwald)
Ann-Beate Engelke	...	Eva
Peter Exacoustos	...	Antonio
María Rubio	...	Countess Maria Gonzales
Antonia García	...	Elvira
Beatriz Sancho Nieto	...	Rita
Alexander Waechter	...	Miguel

Storyline

Miguel, a young man with a horribly disfigured face, goes on a rampage at a masquerade party and rapes a girl. He then brutally hacks up the young woman with a pair of scissors. Miguel is institutionalized at a mental asylum for five years. Afterward, he is released into the care of his sister, Manuela. Along with their wheelchair bound mother, they operate a boarding school for young woman, called Europe's International Youth-Club Boarding School of Languages, on the Spanish resort of Costa Del Sol. Miguel is intrigued by Angela, a long-haired brunette, whom he first saw on the train ride from the sanitarium. The creepy Miguel follows her around. Miguel meets with Manuela to request that they resume their incestuous relationship. She reminds him that it was this relationship that made him emotionally unstable five years earlier. She says they cannot because nobody understands them: "Only if we could get rid of everyone, then things could go back to the way they were." Then Angela's ...

---

Plot Keywords:

mysterious killer | psychopathic killer | boarding school | decapitation | mental patient | 

---

Taglines:

Don't Panic... It only happens once in a... Bloody Moon

---

Genres:

Horror | Mystery | Thriller

---

Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Spain West Germany

Language:

German Spanish

Release Date:

17 April 1981 (Spain)

Also Known As:

Bloody Moon

Filming Locations:

Alicante, Comunidad Valenciana, Spain

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lisa-Film, Metro Film, Rapid Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The producers originally wanted to shoot this film in Germany.

---

Goofs

(at around 38 mins) Angela is wearing a gray nightshirt when she finds Eva dead on her bed and immediately runs screaming out of the bungalow at which point Angela is suddenly wearing a sweater with a colorful forest pattern instead of the nightshirt.

---

Quotes

Manuela: No, Miguel. I'm your sister. We shouldn't start again. Don't you see that people wouldn't let us love each other. It's that... don't you see... it's everybody that's around us, staring at us and judging us.
[gasps]
Manuela: I'm so afraid. Miguel, I'm terribly frightened. If we could just get rid of everyone around us. Then things could be as they were.

---

Alternate Versions

Despite the ultra-fake special effects the UK cinema and 1993 video releases had 1 min 20 secs of violence removed by the BBFC, owing to the films inclusion on the original DPP list of video nasties. These included shots of a woman being tied up and decapitated by a circular saw, Eva being stabbed through the breast and shots of her bloody body, a woman being strangled with fireside tongs, the opening scissor murder and the decapitation of a live snake with garden shears. The later Vipco DVD release featured the same cut print, and the cuts were fully waived for the 2008 Severin DVD release.

---

Connections

Referenced in Video Violence 2 (1988)

User Reviews

Gory Jess Franco Slasher

"Bloody Moon" aka. "Die Säge Des Todes" (literal translation: "The Saw Of Death") of 1981 is a gory slasher from exploitation's most prolific filmmaker - Jess Franco. I personally am a big Jess Franco fan, and it must be said that his repertoire of 180+ films ranges from brilliant ("Venus In Furs", "Count Dracula",...) to poor ("Sadomania"). "Bloody Moon" is not one of his truly great movies, but it is definitely a highly entertaining and gruesome flick that should not be missed by fans of gory European Horror exploitation. For Franco standards, this film does not feature a lot of sleaze, but even more gruesome brutality and graphic gore in exchange.

The movie takes place in a language school in Spain, where a bunch of hot German girls are enjoy the sun, alcohol and sex more than practicing the Spanish language. A maniac is loose in the little Iberian paradise, however. A maniac who enjoys murdering pretty young girls in most atrocious ways...

The movie begins a bit slow, but it gets really nasty and brutal later, and actually becomes quite suspenseful. The performances are, of course, not top-notch, but they're not terrible either, and actually quite good regarding what can be expected from young actresses most of whom never appeared in another movie. Furthermore, I found some of the performances amazingly convincing. Sexy Olivia Pascal fits very well in the leading role, for example. Director Franco also once again has a cameo appearance in the beginning of the movie. The eerie score composed by Gerhard Heinz, who has also composed the scores for a bunch of mainstream productions, is probably the greatest aspect of the film, and makes the whole thing a lot more atmospheric.

All said, "Bloody Moon" is a brutal little slasher that I recommend to my fellow Eurohorror buffs, especially Jess Franco fans should not miss it!