Horror Movie Review: The Slayer (1982)

A non-prosecuted video nasty, and for good reason, The Slayer aka Nightmare Island was directed by J. S. Cardone who wrote it with William R. Ewing. It stars Sarah Kendall, Frederick Flynn, Carol Kottenbrook and Alan McRae.

Artist Kay has been plagued by nightmares since she was a young child. They come; they go but when they cause her to sink into depression. Her latest bouts of nightmares have been so severe that they have had a detrimental effect on her work. Which, in turn is putting more pressure on Kay and her marriage with David.

He thinks a getaway would be good. A week on a remote island alongside Kay’s brother, Eric and his wife, Brooke.

Once on the island, they find it’s tiny and it’s basically deserted. A once thriving town reduced to a handful of derelict buildings. One of which, an abandoned theatre gets the attention of Kay as she dreamt about it. She comes to realise that this is the place she has been having nightmares about all her life and something bad is going to happen if they stay. Of course, the others just think she’s making it up/not thinking straight. After all, it is the 80s.

Is she right? Is this island dangerous or is it all in her head?

The Slayer tries to tell a story based in reality, but also works at leaving so many elements vague, that you’re never quite sure what is going on. As an unseen killer begins to strike, everything seems to point towards the film being a generic slasher. It certainly plays out like that as characters hear a noise, wander off into the dark alone and wind up dead.

It starts to resemble a ‘whodunit’ more than anything and then you get an ending that is so unexpected, it’s almost funny. No spoilers here but it almost makes the slog of the rest of the movie worth it.

Almost…

Up until its final minute and some sporadic moments here and there, The Slayer is a flavourless and unexciting slasher horror. It moves at a snail’s pace and quickly runs out of ideas.

Here’s ten minutes of one character walking around slowly until they wind up dead at the hands of something unseen. Did you enjoy that? Well, how about the exact same thing with a different character straight after but this time they don’t die. How interesting was that? So, let’s do it again later in the movie but this time both characters die. Each sequence, excruciatingly slow.

This actually happens, yet it’s not the most egregious example of just how slow-moving The Slayer is. That comes from the final 20 minutes where one person remains and you’re expecting a frantic and frenzied act. Instead, you’re left watching them close windows, doors, barricade everything and then sit around smoking. It would be funny if it wasn’t so boring.

It’s all of this that buries the good stuff about The Sayer. Namely; a cool location, solid acting, some good gore and that insane final minute.

Links