While the packaging for Killer's Moon plays up on the sex and violence that the film contains, the simple fact of the matter is that this picture is pretty goofy stuff despite a couple of moments of inspired nastiness.

The movie follows a busload of British schoolgirls on their way to perform as a choir group somewhere out in the remote and serene English countryside. Their bus breaks down and they bunk down at a nearby lodge for the night. Meanwhile, a dopey looking guy is in a tent making out with an attractive and well endowed woman. Their session is interrupted when a three legged Doberman sporting a giant diamond studded collar runs into the tent. After examining the dog, the dopey looking guy decides that some sinister fiend must have lopped the poor pooch's leg off on purpose. Stick with it, it starts to make some sense in a little while, honest.

Bringing everything together is a group of four nut-jobs who have just escaped from a nearby insane asylum where they were undergoing some sort of insane dream therapy program. Well, the program must have sucked because these four guys are nuttier than fruitcakes and since finish the treatment they think that everything happening around them must be part of the collective dream(s) they're all experiencing. At any rate, dressed in clothing incredibly similar to that worn by the Droogs in A Clockwork Orange, one of them rapes the attractive and well endowed woman from the tent scene and then they head towards the bed and breakfast where the singing schoolgirls are hanging out. With the plot now in motion, the schoolgirls now in peril and the rape crazy maniacs now on the prowl, the rest of the film winds up a strange mix of Straw Dogs and Delinquent Schoolgirls.

Let's get one thing straight - Killer's Moon really takes a bit of time to get moving and those who want instant gratification from their horror films might not find this one quick enough for their liking - at least not to start with. In the first half hour of the film, very little of interest happens. Sure, the attractive and well endowed woman shows off her sweater puppies and a three legged doggie diva pops in for a visit but nothing remotely horrific occurs in the first half of the picture. That said, once the lunatics are out doing their thing, the movie definitely picks up in terms of pacing and shock value. A few inspired gore scenes and a couple of unpleasant rape scenes bombard us with the requisite amount of required exploitative content while this incredibly bizarre streak of black comedy runs rampant throughout the picture.

It's hard to take any of this too seriously, as the film is just way too goofy for its own good, but Killer's Moon is at least zany enough in its last half to work, even if it's hard to explain exactly how. The completely unnecessary blue tint applied to the later part of the picture gives everything a strange tone but it's the slapstick style comedy and humor that come out of nowhere that really make this film as strange as it is. It leaves you wondering if you're supposed to be frightened by what's happening or amused by it, and the shifts in tone are frequent enough that you kind of get the feeling it's the later, the strange instrumental score in the background of most of this chaos only reinforcing that feeling. That said, the three legged dog in the diamond studded collar steals the show during her random appearances, highlighted by one of the best (and by best I mean completely ridiculous) animal attack sequences ever shot. Interesting that this ridiculous film, often associated with the 'Video Nasty' craze, was slapped with an X certificate by the BBFC when it was first released back in 1978. There was far stronger stuff available then and the sex and violence in the film seems nothing but comical by today's standards, particularly when you take note of the background music used in the picture.

Video:

Kino offers up the film in AVC encoded 1080p high definition in the film's original aspect ratio of 1.85.1 in a transfer that the packaging states is taken from the original negative. Things look a little rough when the movie starts, there's a fair bit of damage noticeable but soon enough it starts to clear up a bit even if it never goes away entirely. Detail and texture are improved over the past DVD release that came out a couple of years back and colors look bolder and more natural without any oversaturation evident. Skin tones look nice and natural and there are no issues with noise reduction, compression artifacts or edge enhancement. Some might be put off that more work wasn't done to clean this one up for Blu-ray, and there's some legitimacy to that gripe, but