Die Säge des Todes aka Bloody Moon (Jess Franco, 1981)
"Miguel, I'm your sister, don't look at me like that!"
A not-so-fantastic entry into Franco's Euro-sleaze canon, mostly due to the pesky, interfering German Producers. Franco was hired to produce a gory slasher, as those pictures were very popular around the early 1980s. You know the type of film... attractive young teens get semi-naked and slaughtered in a bloody manner. The genre has come full circle now with 'torture porn' movies, some of them being re-makes of the very films that spawned the slaughter- sorry genre in the first place.
Bloody Moon opens hilariously at an 80s disco. Miguel is a lunatic who has some corned beef attached to his face. He brutally kills a young lady. Some time later, and for no damn reason whatsoever, he is released, and placed in an area of Spain where lots of lovely, lovely Fräuleins are studying at a language school. Blood lust ensues... except, well, it doesn't. After the opening, nothing happens! We see the lead Olivier Pascal screaming, becoming paranoid etc... but nothing really happens until after an hour. This is Bloody Moon's downfall... it becomes a yawn-fest, not the slash-fest it ought to be.
Franco's mistake was to try and be more suspenseful, but, without the gore, movies like this are worthless. Occasional nudity, incest, hilariously bad 1980s fashion & American dubbing aren't enough to keep one's interest. Up to the hour mark, the film is dreary, and even includes a bizarre, real, acyual snake-chopping scene! Why!?
I must say, though, the Picture quality -save for a few gory scenes found on a cutting room floor and re-inserted- is amazing! I can't believe crap like this has been so well stored! Must be the Germans.
This fully uncut version is released by Severin films. Good job! There's a very insightful interview with Jess (in English), where he tells stories of a bad production, and how he tried to cobble everything together to make some kind of sense. Tried, but failed. Bloody moon is bloody awful.
