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‘Bloody Moon’ (Die Sages des Todes-1981) was once on the official Director of Public Prosecutions Video Nasties List, as first made public in June 1983. It can be considered a typical slasher film; it contains a deranged killer stalking and disposing of victims in a particularly gory manner; it features several scantily clad girls (who you just know are going to meet a nasty end) as well as featuring the suitably named ‘Survivor Girl’ or ‘Final Girl’. In the case of ‘Bloody Moon’, Final Girl is Angela (Olivia Pascal) a beautiful language student who it is clearly dangerous to know, as soon enough all her friends start to be disposed of, each one in a more gruesome fashion than before. This review will look at three ways in which ‘Bloody Moon’ includes and conforms to the conventions of Slasher movies; the slasher movie prologue; the violence and gore directed at the women in the killings; and of course the concept of the ‘Final Girl’.
Starting at the beginning then, slasher films often tend to have a prologue which is really about introducing the audience to the killer and an initial victim who won’t ever see the light of day again. In the case of ‘Scream’(1999) the prologue sees poor Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) and her boyfriend hacked to pieces while ‘Halloween’(1978) introduces us to a very young Michael Myers (Will Sandin) who murders his sister just after her sexual escapades. In ‘Bloody Moon’ the prologue introduced the audience to Manuela (Nadja Gerganoff) and the facially disfigured Miguel (Alexander Waechter), siblings who have an unhealthy interest in each other. Following a very brief exchange between the two the scene cuts to a party where Miguel steals the mask of another partygoer and promptly manages to have sex with a woman who mistakes the masked Miguel for her boyfriend. On discovering his identity, she screams, and this enrages Miguel who promptly butchers her. This prologue is interesting for several reasons, the first being that we are given an indication of Miguel’s somewhat unhinged state prior to the first killing. His incestuous feelings for his sister are pointed out to the audience even before he picks up a weapon. Worryingly his mental state also seems linked to his sister which suggests that she is somehow indirectly responsible for his actions, that is to say, the movie implies that a certain degree of the man’s blame is subconsciously appropriated on the woman. Incidentally a little later in the film when Miguel is released to his sister’s care the psychiatric doctor played by Jesus Franco himself, tells her that keeping Miguel sane is “all up to you”. She is expected to provide the safe and warm environment that will keep him stable. A second point to make about the prologue is that it introduces the viewer to the level of violence that will remain for the duration of the movie. The young woman is effectively diced and in quite a shocking way. This sets the tone for the way in which the female body will be maimed, mutilated and therefore exploited, over the remaining 80 or so minutes. Another more important point however is the implication in the mind of the viewer that Miguel will be the killer involved in the later murders (whether this is true or not, I will not divulge!). The prologue of ‘Bloody Moon’ then fulfils expected conventions but also gives us a potential red herring.
Moving now to the ways in which violence is directed at women, typically in a slasher movie the killer never communicates with the victims, preferring to skulk in the shadows instead. The killings are usually elaborate (think Scream’s electric garage door) and always brutal. The killer in slasher films often uses manually manipulated weapons and guns are almost never a feature in these films. ‘Bloody Moon’ has become almost notorious as a cult slasher for the inventive ways it depicts victims being killed. It also has a high body count, with six females and three males (including one child!) being killed in duration of ninety minutes. Eva (Ann-Beate Engelke) is the first victim after the prologue and is stabbed whilst undressed from behind so that the blade emerges from and pierces her breast. Although this is by far the least gory killing in the film it is the one which is the most disturbing. Not only is the woman disfigured but she is disfigured at an anatomical part which embodies her femininity. It is hard not to view this scene without feeling there are underlying themes of misogyny. Bizarrely there is not much blood left on the crime scene when her body conveniently disappears while Angela goes for help. On her return to the room there is no blood either on the bed, the floor, or the furniture. Despite trying to convince the other girls their friend is dead, no one tries to look for Eva, even if only for the reason of proving to Angela that she was having a bad dream. The death scene which most viewers of ‘Bloody Moon’ remember is that of Inga ((Jasmin Losensky). This is the infamous rotating saw scene complete with spurting blood and a decapitated mannequin head. Inga is tied down during what she believes is a kinky game. She is partially clothed and like Eva meets her death in a disrobed state which leaves her physically vulnerable. Unlike Eva, Inga was expecting to have a sexual encounter and this undertone during the scene further stresses the idea that female slasher movie victims are usually marked out for their promiscuity and liberal sexual nature. Another death scene worth noting is the one where Laura (Corinna Gillwald) meets her untimely end. Laura is completely clothed and, on her way, to meet friends therefore unlike the deaths of the previous two sexual connotations are not prevalent here. However, Laura’s death is particularly nasty. She is strangled with red hot pokers and the camera lingers on the thick blood slowly oozing out of her mouth. The hiss of the poker coupled with the visceral visuals make this quite unpleasant to watch. The female body it seems is quite clearly brutalized in all the killings.
Having looked at the violence directed at the female body, I would like to discuss a more positive and optimistic convention, which is the idea of the Final Girl. Final Girl (a phrase coined by Carol J.Clover) is the last one standing, the character who has somehow managed to escape the clutches of the killer. In her book entitled ‘Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film’, Clover suggests that although the prologue posits the viewer with the perspective of the killer, the introduction of Final Girl causes a shift in identification towards her and her point of view. When the viewer is first introduced to Angela it is not actually clear that she is going to be Final Girl and it takes a while for the viewer to determine who will survive. The viewer ascertains this by assessing the personality traits of the female characters and how they fit with established slasher movie roles. Slasher movie convention places Final Girl as being a much more virginal character than her friends and peers. In ‘Bloody Moon’ Angela does not have any sexual encounters and in contrast all her friends seem to be obsessed with carnal desires. Inga, Laura and Eva all try to coax Angela to have a little fun with Antonio (Peter Exacoustos) but naturally as Final Girl she is unrelenting. Their sexuality seems almost cartoon-ish as they seem so over the top in their lust and have no qualms about venturing off with strangers. Although Angela conforms to this one specific trait of Final Girl, she is not a typical Final Girl. She is not the same type of Final Girl as say Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee-Curtis) of the Halloween movies or even Sydney (Neve Campbell) of the Scream series. Those Final Girls are far more inquisitive and investigative. Those Final Girls are also quite curious, trying to piece parts of the puzzle together. Angela is not like that at all and can be categorized more as damsel in distress figure. She is not investigative although she later does become vigilant (but not intelligent as it does not occur to her to call the police at any point!). Clover has argued that a necessary part of the slasher movie process is for a Final Girl to experience terror (as opposed to a Final Boy) because viewers would find themselves disassociating from a film that showed the terrorized subject to be a man. This is interesting because it suggests that society has a subconscious acceptance of the woman as a victim at the hands of a psychopath but not a man in a similar situation. Angela is most definitely terrorised as she finds her friend’s corpses littered all over her apartment. Clover also suggests that in some way the terror has a purpose, making Final Girl a stronger and more assertive human being. Whether Angela as Final Girl actually makes it to the very end is for you to find out. After all being Final Girl is no guarantee that you make it out of the film alive.
To conclude one can state that ‘Bloody Moon’ is unquestionably a formulaic slasher movie. However, it should be noted that it is an entertaining slasher. The dialogue dubbing and hilariously simple score are so bad they make it good. ‘Bloody Moon’ becomes a slasher with comedic properties as well as gory ones. It’s also clearly paying homage to horror movies that came before it (the resonances of the first ‘Halloween’ will not be lost on horror fans). Franco also manages to make this a slasher with a giallo-esque blend to it which it places away from more base slasher films which do not have a multi-genre or self-reflexive nature. Perhaps not a film for fans of more chilling and psychologically frightening horrors but this is definitely a film for those who like their slasher movies with theatrical props and laugh out loud moments.
Country: West Germany
Budget: £
Length: 90mins
Pub/2009
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