Luna sangrienta

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

Despite numerous bad reviews I still for some reason decided to watch 'Moon in Scorpio'. I should have listened to those reviews...

'Moon in Scorpio' is another movie where I didn't care one bit about any of the characters. It was also hard to tell who the protagonist or antagonist is. The incoherent script is really bad, the dialogue is bad, and it was very badly acted, as well.

'Moon in Scorpio' is all over the place with too much going on that wasn't interesting at all. In fact, the film was slow and boring. The events of the fateful nights aboard a yacht is revealed through retellings of Linda (Britt Ekland), who is in police custody. Ekland was unconvincing and I couldn't really make out whether she was making up a story, or actually telling the truth. Truth is, I couldn't care less. This was a complete waste of time and a film I'd like to forget, but probably will remember for how bad it is. It also has an abrupt ending without motivation for what happened. Ugh...!

Would I watch it again? No.

A dangerous lunatic escapes from a hospital, killing a doctor and a salesman in the process. Worried about a potential scandal, the hospital hires private investigator Richard Vargas (Don Scribner, who looks like Christian Bale) to find the missing patient. The investigation leads to a yacht where the only passenger, a catatonic woman (Britt Ekland), stabs Vargas in the stomach.

A few days later, the woman, Linda -- now in hospital and a little more lucid -- explains to Dr. Khorda (Robert Quarry) the events leading up the disappearance of her fellow passengers: her newlywed husband Allen (John Phillip Law), his wartime buddies Burt (William Smith) and Mark (Louis Van Bergen), and their girlfriends Claire (Jillian Kesner) and Isabel (April Wayne).

When a film clearly isn't working, at what point do you call it a day, cut your losses, and shelve the whole thing? In the case of Moon In Scorpio, not soon enough. Not happy with their movie, the producers tried to salvage something from director Gray Gravers original cut by re-editing it, turning it from what was apparently originally intended to be a supernatural horror into a cheesy slasher. It didn't help: the film is still incredibly bad.

The direction is about what you might expect from a porn film-maker like Graver, but one would hope for more than porn-level acting from the cast: sadly, the usually reliable Smith is seriously off-form, and both Law and Ekland prove that it was looks and not talent that got them noticed in the first place. Kesner and Wayne were obviously hired for their bodies and a willingness to flash their boobs when asked.

Whoever re-edited this garbage had an unenviable task, but failed to rise to the occasion, the final film an incoherent mess that should have been consigned to the trash. Ekland provides a voiceover to try and help explain matters, but it doesn't help any: half the time, the actress is merely describing exactly what is happening on screen ("Alan tried to strangle me"... WE KNOW!).

Perhaps if the killings had been more creative and gorier, the film might have been bearable, but the deaths are unimaginative, repetitive, and not all that splattery (I've had bloodier paper cuts than some of them). The killer's spiky glove weapon with retractable barbs is certainly unique, but isn't put to good use.

1.5/10, rounded up to 2 for the gratuitous bare breasts, and the wholly unconvincing Vietnam war scenes -- dense jungle has never looked so much like the local park.

"Moon in Scorpio" is one of the worst slasher flicks I have ever seen.Everything in this picture is by-the-numbers,and even undemanding horror fans who only ask for competent gore will be disappointed,as the numerous murders(mostly stabbings and throat slashings)are practically anemic.Shot on a very low budget,the production values are almost nonexistent and the story moves at a snail's pace.This is truly bad horror film full of meaningless scenes which do nothing to the plot.The acting is completely awful and the direction by Gary Graver is even worse.An absolute trash-avoid it like the plague.My rating:2/10(for some nice murders).