The Slayer

1982 "She searched through the dark corridors of the unknown only to find ... The Slayer"
The Slayer
5.2| 1h20m| R| en| More Info
Released: 08 October 1982 Released
Producted By: The International Picture Show Company
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Siblings, Eric & his surreal artist sister Kay, her doctor husband David, her sister-in-law Brooke along with pilot Marsh become stranded on a rugged isle face off against a supernatural beast drawn to Kay who dreams of its killings.

... View More
Stream Online

The movie is currently not available onine

Director

Producted By

The International Picture Show Company

Trailers & Images

Reviews

Woodyanders Troubled and neurotic artist Kay (a fine and sympathetic performance by striking redhead Sarah Kendall) suffers from frightening recurring nightmares about gruesome murders that begin to come true after she decides to spend a vacation on a barren island with her protective husband David (well played by Frederick Flynn), her jerky brother David (a nicely irritating turn by Alan McRae), and David's wife Brooke (a solid portrayal by Carol Kottenbrook).Director J.S. Cardone, who also co-wrote the compact script with Bill Ewing, relates the engrossing story at a steady pace, ably crafts a supremely spooky and unsettling atmosphere, takes time to develop the characters, maintains an appropriately gloomy tone throughout, delivers several strong moments of graphic gore, and ends things on a haunting grim note. The remote island setting projects a potently unnerving feeling of isolation and vulnerability. Karen Grossman's polished cinematography makes neat use of a smooth gliding camera. Robert Folk's lush orchestral score hits the shivery spot. A worthwhile fright film.
Mark Turner I've noted before that the eighties were a high time for low budget horror films, equaled only by the ton of horror movies released to the drive-in market of the early sixties. But with the drive-ins in decline the outlet that took advantage of this were the mom and pop video stores across the country. In need of product for their shelves all sorts of movies were being made and horror was one of the main staples. Some were good and some were bad but most landed somewhere in between. THE SLAYER falls into this category but leans to better than expected.Kay (Sarah Kendall) is an artist plagued by terrifying images in her sleep. In an effort to relieve the stress of an upcoming gallery showing her husband David (Alan McRae), brother Eric (Frederick Flynn) and sister in law Brooke (Carol Kottenbrook) have arranged a short vacation. The location is a secluded island owned by one of Eric's friends. It's the off season and no one else is on the island. With the pantry and fridge stocked, the four set off for a quiet time away from phones and worries.But once they hit the island the fears Kay has had come up again. Various items on the island are scenes she has painted in recent months, even though she's never been to this island. The rest of the group tells her she's imagining things and they find the house and settle in. Then things begin to happen. Eventually the members of this group begin to be killed one by one. Is someone else on the island, perhaps the pilot who brought them there? Or maybe someone else, someone who has been stalking Kay? Then again maybe it is the terrifying creature she only catches glimpses of in her dreams.The movie is well made and for a group of actors who were basically unknowns they to a good job here. Kendall is particularly good with a haunted look to her that makes the character of Kay, a woman who is afraid of sleep for fear of her dreams, quite believable. Of the four main actors Kottenbrook comes off as the most skilled and her shift from perturbed at their vacation location to concern for her sister in law is well played.What makes the movie work most of all though is the way it's plotted out. We don't take too much time in exposition setting up the story but it does give us enough background to inform us. The pacing works well here too without providing an immediate murder to keep us watching but playing out the suspense enough to make us ponder whether or not Kay is insane or being pursued by a potentially supernatural force.Of course the first thing horror fans will note is her fear of sleeping. Some might think that this makes the film a rip off of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET films. But check the date of release and you'll find that this movie predates the first film of that series by 2 years.Arrow Video does their usual bang up job here offering a restoration of the film from 4k scan of the original negative. Extras are fairly limited but include new interviews with the cast and crew, the original theatrical trailer, a reversible sleeve with artwork by Justin Osbourn and a booklet featuring new liner notes by writer Lee Gambin for those who pick up the first printing of the disc.A few companies have seen the success that Arrow Video has had by reclaiming these lost video store gems and are trying to compete with them now. But no one has equaled the amount of affection that Arrow has for these titles. Until they do Arrow will be the company to look for when choosing movies from this category and time period.
metalrage666 The Slayer is unfortunately another 80's horror movie that was once loved when I was a teenager, but has sadly now been added to the pile of - How on earth could I have ever enjoyed this. I guess though that a redeeming quality 70's and 80's horror movies had, was that they weren't all full of idiotic teenagers who love to turn on each other at a moments notice. With that said, there is still not much about The Slayer, that in recent viewings, makes any actual sense.Struggling artist Kay and her husband, along with her brother and his wife, all decide to take a vacation to a remote island. For most of her life Kay has had this recurring nightmare of a hideous figure, The Slayer, who's hunting her. As she got older and the dreams became worse, she turned her back on a promising career as a successful, albeit commercial artist, and started to paint more surreal images of what she sees in her dreams. Of course there's little market for this kind of thing at the time and they all feel that this trip to the island will clear her head and perhaps put her back on a more structured path.The only way to the island is by a small charter flight that can only land along the beach. On arrival, the island is a windswept and dismal looking place with only Kay's brother seeing any positive of being there. As soon as they start walking to the house they have arranged, Kay feels that they're being watched and after walking past some ruins of an old theatre, she's convinced that she seen these images before in her dreams and has painted the area before, even though she's never physically been there.Things take a turn for the worse on the first night with the pilot warning them that a major storm will hit the island and that if they stay they'll be cut off. Of course they decide to stay, which never made that much sense to me, remember this is 1982 so no Internet, mobile phones or satellite phones, so if you got into trouble you were pretty much screwed.In any case, we see a random old fisherman brutally killed by something we only ever see a shadow of for seemingly no reason except this guy is in the wrong place at the wrong time. The next three murders of Kay's husband, brother and sister-in-law are again all committed by something we never see, but Kay ends up finding all the bodies and she realises that what's been haunting her dreams may be all too real. She decides to bunker down for the night in the house in the hopes of help finding her, and all she manages to do is kill the pilot who's come back looking for them all. The annoying thing about that is that the pilot never once bothered to call out or announce his presence, he just tries to force his way in so naturally an already distraught Kay defends herself and kills him with a flare gun. As the house starts to catch on fire, The Slayer turns up at the door, (the ONLY time he's seen through the whole movie), stands there snarling like an idiot, Kay Screams and wakes up in bed. To make a stupid scenario even worse, Kay has reverted back to a young girl and we're led to believe that her whole life has been one long dream or premonition and it's now going to all play out for real.Unfortunately so many 80's horror movies were like this, where not a lot of what happened had to make any sense, and the audience was left to come to their own conclusions. While this kind of annoyance gets overlooked when you're a teenager and all you cared about was who's going to get killed and how, on viewing this kind of thing now it just gets in the way of being able to properly enjoy it. The Slayer could have been so much better had the ridiculous ending been scrapped altogether and we were at least given some glimpses of the beast before the big reveal at the end. If Kay was indeed conjuring up this creature, instead of just lying there squealing like a stuck pig, it would've made more sense to have her face down her demon. As I said, too many 80's horrors were not made to make any real sense and we're left with what is. The Slayer is enjoyable enough if you can look past the stupidity.
Red-Barracuda The Slayer is one of the tamer films to make the notorious video nasty list. It's a slasher movie with a supernatural angle. It essentially concerns two couples who go holidaying on a deserted island. Immediately after arrival people begin being killed off by a mysterious assailant.The movie does try to be a little original with the idea of sleep being a catalyst for the murderous mayhem, however, despite this, The Slayer is no more than a reasonably solid film. Like most slasher flicks the murder set-pieces are the main draw. While there are some other good macabre details such as the severed head scene. Unfortunately, the moments between the gore and suspense aren't especially interesting meaning that it drags at times. Bizarrely enough, in the closing moments we see the monster that is responsible for the killings but only for a few brief seconds. This seems like a bit of a waste, seeing as the creature was quite well put together. While the twist ending at the end was silly but memorable.At the end of the day The Slayer is a fairly undistinguished and average video nasty. But at the very least it does try to build up atmosphere and it does try to do something different with the stalk and slash genre.