The Slayer - Will's Review

The movie opens with a kill!

Awesome! Straight to the action!  Except... No; No, it was a dream. It turns out that if there's one thing this movie can not be accused of, it's 'cutting straight to the action'


The pacing is terrible - the small cast (four main cast, and I believe only one other person in the entire movie) and isolated location mean that there is a LOT of time to kill. Thankfully the acting was passable, or the length of time we had to spend in the group's company would have been unbearable! That said, one thing I did like about the group is that they were all adults, not teens, which is rare.

The plot (such as it is) revolves around a surrealist painter (Kay) who isn't doing so well in the mental health department, her husband decides to take her for a break, along with her brother and his wife, to a borrowed house on an otherwise uninhabited island, with no means of contacting the outside world.

This variant on the 'isolated cabin' isn't the only thematic horror stalwart on display though; when people do (eventually) start dying, Kay becomes convinced that her dreams are to blame, and makes an effort to stay awake (this is before NOES by the way).

The deaths (5 if you count the one in the opening dream) are all fairly well executed (although one wouldn't work AT ALL as depicted), and the lighting is atmospheric. Really, with a better ending and a few more characters to improve the pacing, this could have been a fairly good movie.

The Slayer (the creature that haunts Kay's dreams) is never actually glimpsed during the killings, and when it is seen, it is only by Kay - it's possible that Kay herself may be directly responsible for the deaths, which would have been a great ending - that the heroin was in-fact the killer but didn't know it!

Unfortunately, that isn't the ending we get.

Some people would argue that what follows (highlight the white strips to read it) is a big spoiler, as it's basically the end of the movie. I however, feel that it is an overused device, and one that should be stated as the tag-line of every movie that uses it, so that I would know not to bother with that movie. (that said, it virtually was the tagline - I read the description on the box and more-or-less guessed how the film would end).

The entire movie was Kay's dream.  

I. Hate. "it was all a dream" endings!!! They are lazy, usually (as here) serve oh to save the writer from coming up with a real ending, and they waste the viewers time; we spent 90mins of our lives watching something that didn't happen (even within the fictional universe of the movie) Pah!

The is a little more to the ending than that - a little extra that I guess is supposed to be some kind of 'twist' - but it doesn't work.

Body Count: 5
Boob Count: 1 pair
Most Memorable Death: Hook Line and stinker.

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The Slayer - Lisa's Review

*** SPOILERS ***

A familiar feel to this weeks movie.... A woman has recurring dreams, which start to appear to come true and the horrid series of events can only continue while she sleeps.  If she stays awake, everyone will be fine... Hmmm sound familiar?  From a little reading however, it seems doubtful Wes Craven found his inspiration for 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' from this little movie, although the premis is so eerily similar.

Thankfully in this movie, we aren't following a group of teenagers for a change, but instead a young woman (Kay) who obviously has some mental issues (she's the one with the dreams), her husband, her brother and his wife.  They go to an island as a means of Kay getting away from things for a while, as they become increasingly worried when she starts to paint everything she see's in dreams and becomes obsessed with her dreams.  However, when they get there it becomes clear very quickly that the surrounding and buildings are the same as those which appear in Kays dreams and in her paintings.   She becomes more and more unstable and hysterical.


As expected, people start to die and when Kays sister-in-law starts to feel there may be some truth to what Kay has been saying, she is quickly reprimanded by Kays brother.  It has been made very clear from the off that Kay has issues.  Her brother is also shown to be not the most supportive of siblings, pointing out how much of a fruit loop she is and how she supposedly killed a kitten she was given as a present one christmas as a child.

So we've off'd Kays husband by way of a dropped trap door... which so wouldn't have worked that way (I hate it when its not believable), but he does die convincingly so kudos for that.  The brother follows with a fishing hook to the face, being pulled out to see.  The sister-in-law is impaled by a pitchfork while investigating the rather eerie boat-house looking for her husband.  Good death there, again very believable.

We are left awaiting the ending and there is a twist.  I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it, but it was pretty obvious for the most part.  One aspect was a bit confusing and unexpected, but the idea was pretty run of the mill.

So, this movie is quite similar to 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' in principal, but it didn't hold my interest in the same way.  The movie is very well shot and looks fantastic in places.  The locations are delightfully eerie.  The lighting is great.  Even the acting here isn't too bad (although our lead actress does over-egg the pudding in places), one thing cannot be got away from however... it is sooooooo slow.  The pacing is terrible.  I hate it when a movie takes 5 minutes to portray something that should have been over in 30 seconds.  Why should a walk across a room take 2 minutes?  It just takes too long to get anywhere.  I am not the worlds most patient person so a slow movie is torture to me, unless there's a strong storyline, but here its too obvious to attempt suspense.

The eventual reveal of 'The Slayer' is a bit of an anticlimax too.  The make-up isn't too bad, I just didn't feel freaked out enough... maybe I've been watching too many of these.

In conclusion, you could do much worse than watch this movie.  Its not bad, but its not fantastic either, but a lot of that will be down to my hatred of slow scenes and uneven pacing, maybe another reviewer would be more positive.

I doubt you will see anything here you haven't seen before.

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WEEK 64: The Slayer

Alternate Titles : Nightmare Island

Year: 1981

Reviews / Author Comments due: 11/08/2012

DPP Status: Removed from list April 1985

BBFC Status: Passed uncut in 2001, Rated 18

IMDB: LINK

Wikipedia: LINK

DVD: LINK

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