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The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

A bus with eight young female choir singers and a pair of uptight, matronly chaperons on board breaks down on a country road, prompting the ladies to walk until they can find shelter. They eventually stumble upon a huge, unoccupied hotel and settle down for the night, but a quartet of recently-escaped psychos decked out like Droogs for God knows what reason are on the loose and show up there to terrorize them. Also thrown into the mix are a hotel keeper and her slutty daughter, a gamekeeper and his wife, two male campers and a, uh, three-legged dog. There's ONE potentially novel angle present in this cheap "thriller:" the killers were all subjected to an experimental drug back at the nut-house prior to escaping. The drug puts them in an alternate state of conscience where they believe everything that's going on is only a dream so they can indulge in their darkest fantasies guilt-free. Why this angle was introduced in the first place is anyone's guess as it's poorly handled and proves to be utterly pointless. The escapees are already deranged so it's not outside the realm of plausibility they'd indulge in these activities regardless, so why even bother with the drug scapegoat? It would have been far more interesting had this detailed the effect of the drug on NORMAL people.I really wanted to like this one and expected to get at least something out of it considering many of the reviews here are positive. The initial set-up is serviceable (albeit overused), but the incompetent direction, terrible screenplay and a deadly slow pace quickly turn it into a repetitive bore. It falls into that uneasy gray area of B entertainment where it's too poorly-made to take seriously, too silly to ever be disturbing and far too tame to be a guilty pleasure. There are some mildly bloody moments, like an axe to the head and a knife through the throat, but the killings nearly all take place off screen and we just get to see the body afterward. The goriest moment is actually a throwaway WTF bit where one of the nuts chops off a cat's tail with a cleaver (!) Likewise, a few of the actresses go topless and there are a few rape scenes, but these moments are too brief, too tame and too poorly done to please sleaze hounds. You can see the same exact material handled far more compellingly and convincingly in dozens of other films of this type.Another problem I had was that there are so many pointless characters wandering around that not even the director can keep track of all of them. People go off to do things and disappear for such long stretches of time you complete forget about them by the time it returns to them. Others are at one location one minute and somewhere completely different the next. None of the choir girls are given even the slightest glimpse of personality or individuality and the director refuses to ever settle on a protagonist to give us a focal point to ground the action. I can't really comment on the acting because even Laurence Olivier would have a hard time selling some of these lines. During the film's most jaw- dropping moment, one of the girls nonchalantly tells her recently- violated friend, "You were only raped. As long as you don't tell anyone about it you'll be alright. Pretend it never happened."The final nail in the coffin is the laughably lazy visual presentation, which is so bad they can't even pull off something as simple as night convincingly! The exteriors set during the night were shot in the day with dark filters, but the sky ALWAYS looks sunny and bright. The indoor footage is perhaps even worse because they don't even bother with giving it a darker look or even closing the curtains so there's always bright light flooding in through doors and windows during the "night." For numerous scenes supposedly taking place inside a tent, they hang up a huge tarp behind a few of the actors that not only is five times bigger than it should be but not even the same color as the tent show in long shots! These scenes have clearly been filmed somewhere on a stage with ridiculously unconvincing matte backdrops, which had me wondering why they didn't just set up a few spotlights and use the nice Lake District locations already at their disposal.

Four drugged-up mad dog lunatics undergoing experimental LSD treatment escape from an asylum and terrorize a bus load of nubile schoolgirls staying at a remote hotel in the Lake District. Writer/director Alan Birkinshaw cheerfully wallows in the grungy celluloid gutter with this gloriously ludicrous chunk of bottom-of-the-barrel rubbish: Besides the expected handy helpings of good old-fashioned raw and grisly ultra violence (the nutters are all dressed in white outfits just like the Droogs in "A Clockwork Orange"), we also have a few sadistic and appalling rape set pieces, a pleasing smattering of yummy female nudity, a handful of fetching young birds running about in flimsy nightgowns, a three-legged dog emerging as a most unlikely hero (!), nice touches of inspired pitch-black sarcastic humor, effectively bleak use of the dreary English countryside, a reasonable amount of tension, and, best of all, lots of hilariously terrible dialogue (immortal line department: "Look, you were only raped. As long as you don't tell anyone about it, you'll be alright. You pretend it never happened, I'll pretend I never saw it. If we get out of this alive, maybe we'll both live to be wives and mothers"). The competent cast struggle valiantly with the tacky material, with especially solid work from Anthony Forrest as the cynical Pete, Tom Marshall as the likable Mike, Joanne Good as the whiny Mary, Jane Hayden as the traumatized Julie, Alison Elliott as the sweet Sandy, and Georgina Kean as the catty Agatha. Moreover, David Jackson, Nigel Gregory, Paul Rattree, and Peter Spraggon are genuinely creepy and convincing as the dangerously unstable wackos. Arthur Lewis's rough'n'grainy cinematography gives the picture an appropriately grubby look while the shuddery jazz-tinged score by Derek Warne and John Shakespeare hits the spine-tickling spot. This flick starts out kind of slow and dull, but fortunately kicks into deliciously lurid high gear once the maniacs show up and embark on a bloodthirsty spree. A hugely entertaining slice of lovably low-grade schlock.

I have just seen the new release on DVD of Killer's Moon and considering it was made some 30 years ago, well, it has certainly stood the test of time. The story follows four criminal psychopaths being treated (forcefully) in a government experiment, using dream therapy – combination of lycergic acid (LSD) and psychiatric chitter chatter; "let all your evil thoughts come out in your dreams and then you will be cured" – who escape from their institution into the wilds of the lake district. And when they escape, naturally, they assume they are still in a dream and so have to carry out their evil thoughts. Sounds pretty good so far. Then you add a bus load of school girls, whose bus breaks down, also in the bleak lake district, and add to the mix a couple of virile young lads who happen to be camping in the hills and a three legged doberman. It's all there. The 'innocent' girls wear white nighties for most of the movie whilst running around in the woods hotly pursued by the maniacs. The maniacs also wear white. Director Birkinshaw said in an interview that it was because they were innocent too! Well, why not? Then to top it all, you add some appropriate dialog by famous novelist Fay Weldon (sister of Birkinshaw) and the whole thing turns into a cult. Director Birkinshaw said in another interview that the whole thing shouldn't be taken too seriously. "It isn't brain surgery, for heaven's sake! We were having fun making it, and if people are still watching it and talking about it and being frightened by it some thirty years later, well, it has to have something going for it!" Birkinshaw isn't wrong. Killer's Moon is a wholly watchable, occasionally frightening, sometimes amusing, movie made by an award winning director who has been working ever since in mainstream television and movies.

Now come on. Killer's Moon occupies a special spot in my heart for a number of reasons. Firstly, I was ten years old when it came out, and being mad for the horror flick, I remember wishing I was just that little bit bigger: big enough to blag my way into an "X" so I could see for myself what all this lurid stuff was really about! Happily, being a glandular freak, it wasn't too much longer before I was able to enjoy an illicit euroslash treat down the local fleapit whilst supposedly going to see "Empire Strikes Back". Hah! So years later I've caught up with Killer's Moon (around about 1985 as it goes) and y'know what? It has never disappointed me since. It's got its charming little flaws: so what? So it's not a highly polished, taught, edge-of-the-seat number: so what? The Hollywood machine, in the years since 1978, has learned to squeeze out dozens of highly polished, taught, edge-of-the-seat numbers - most of which are excrement. You tell me in all honesty that "The Ring 2" or "Cursed" are better efforts than Killer's Moon and I'll eat the dog's remaining legs.What Killer's Moon does for me is takes me back to reading 2000ad, watching "Crown Court" and catching trailers for "Food of the Gods/Squirm (from Friday)" and wishing I was grown up enough to see them. Now I am grown up enough to see them, they are every bit as good as I expected.So, away with your effete whining. Honestly, some of you moan it's sick, others moan it's not graphic enough, others moan that it's inept. What it's got is a lot of heart and soul (and half naked ladies). Killer's Moon is the "Eddie the Eagle" of genre cinema: you kind of know it's rubbish, but it leaves you with a warm glow, cheering it on.Killer's Moon will always make my top five, and I'm never wrong about anything, so put that in your collective pipes and smoke it!