Die Säge des Todes

Plot synopsis:
A woman is seen rolled in a wheelchair at night. Miguel, a man with a heavily scarred face, hands around a dance outside. As a young couple enjoys some time together, Miguel steals the boy's mask and shirt and puts them on. He leads another dancing girl to believe that he is Ralph, and they go to her room, where they lie on the bed for some kissing. The girl takes away the mask, sees Miguel's face and kicks him away. Miguel grabs a pair of scissors and stabs the girl repeatedly in the stomach.Some time later, when Manuela drives to a clinic to pick up her brother Miguel, a doctor tells her to not remind Miguel of the incident. On a train, a seemingly irate Miguel eyes a young woman named Angela as she stands in her compartment.Alvaro arrives at the International Youth-Club Boarding School of Languages. He goes to see Manuela, whose aunt, Countess Maria Gonzales, states her belief that she is being plotting against and that Manuela only wants money. That night, as Maria lies in bed, someone shines a light in her face, the moves a flaming torch towards her. The countess screams and burns.Angela arrives at the school a little later then her friends, and she mentions the "awful experience" on the train. She is staying in Room 13 where (it is rumored) a girl was once killed with a pair of scissors. Angela unpacks, plays some music and prepares to shower. When she wipes the steamy bathroom mirror, she sees Miguel reflected and recognizes him as the guy from the train. At the estate, Manuela rolls her aunt around in a wheelchair.Angela goes outside, sees Miguel and walks faster. She is cared by her friend Inga, and then both go to see Laura, Eva and the flirtatious gardener, Antonio. Miguel goes to see his sister, and he proclaims his love to Manuela; the two kiss and touch. Manuela stops him, saying that it could be like it was before if they could get rid of the people who would judge them.After a night of dancing at the local disco, Antonio walks Angela home and asks her to play tennis with him tomorrow. Angela reads in bed and the lights in her room are turned off. "Who's there?" asks Angela. A person appears in her room with a knife. Angela looks around, finds nothing and goes back to bed. Before the killer can attack, Eva appears at the window; when she is let inside she asks to borrow a pullover. Angela gives her the clothing. As Eva changes, she is stabbed through the back with a knife. Angela finds Eva's body on the bed, screams and runs outside, finding Antonio. She tells him about Eva, but the corpse is gone when they return to the room. Inga and Alvaro also arrive at the room.The next day in the Spanish class that Alvaro teaches, the class is listening to tapes of Spanish dialect. On Angela's tape, the voice suddenly changes and threatens to cut her with a hacksaw. Seeing Miguel at the window, she screams, but he is gone when Alvaro's is there and the tape is back to its Spanish lessons.
Angela finds bloody clothes and a bloody show in Eva's place, and decides to look for her friend. At the dock, Angela sees Antonio arguing with Manuela, Later, a boulder rolls down a hill, nearly crushing Angela. She tells Laura that she cannot find Eva. Angela then talks to Antonio, who says he did not even know Eva. Manuela talks to her aunt and notices one of her snakes is missing. After agreeing to look for Eva, Antonio sees a snake and chops off its head with garden shears. Angela turns to see bloody and open shears, and runs. Antonio tries to stop her, but Alvaro calls out to him and tells him to stop bothering his students.Laura and her friends go into Room 13, where Inga, reportedly with someone named Ralph, is feigning a sexual act inside. She does not sees a dead Eva hanging in the closet. The girls finally sees Inga through the window, and they laugh at her. Angela, out walking, sees Inga drive back in a yellow car (similar to one Manuela drove). A person wearing a mask takes Inga somewhere (she has accompanied the person willingly), and she is tied with rope. The person turns on a saw and Inga slowly moves towards it. A young boy, seeing the couple arrive, walks inside, turns off the machine and runs. The saw is turned back on and Inga's head is sawed off. The killer gets in his car, chases the boy and runs him down.Manuela rolls the countess in her wheelchair. Angela goes to her room and packs. After seeing Antonio at the front door and Miguel at the window, the barricades herself in her room and sits and waits with a knife. As she looks around the room, Angela sees a shadow and stabs someone. After she lets Laura inside, she realizes that she only stabbed a dummy. Laura offers to stay for the night, and goes to the disco club to get some drinks. When Laura returns, the killer clamps large thongs around her neck and strangles her.Angela receives a phone call where the caller says: "prepare yourself to die!" Angela then finds the severed hand of Inga's on the bed and a lifeless Eva behind the curtain and Laura's hanging corpse outside. She is grabbed by the killer. Miguel runs in and the two of them struggle. Angela runs away. Later, she sees a figure in the dark, which turns out to be Alvaro. Alvaro gets in his car and drives away. Miguel, having been hit on the head by the killer, stands up and walks out the door of Room 13.Angela runs to Manuela's place and asks for help by screaming: "all my friends are dead". Manuela takes her to a room and gives her something to drink. Angela says that she did not get a good look at the killer's face but notes that the murder's eyes seemed familiar.Miguel is outside when Alvaro arrives at his place. Manuela and Alvaro discuss the killings that he has done, and Miguel hears them talk of blaming the murders on him. Manuela talks of how Miguel thinks she loves him, and she mentions his "repulsive face". Manuela tells Alvaro that she has already been paid and she tells him to kill Angela and get out. Miguel goes to a room, and eventually believing that Angela is his sister, chokes the girl until she shoves a spike through his neck. Angela runs downstairs, sees Alvaro and Manuela struggling and goes to a room and screams when she sees the countess... dead and crispy having been long dead (shades of the Norman Bates mother discovery in 'Psycho'). Alvaro runs into the room, grabs Angela and holds a knife to her, but Manuela arrives with a power saw and saws Alvaro's stomach wide open. She puts the saw to Angela's throat and tells her to remember that she has save her life. Angela nods and runs away from the mansion.Manuela then goes to her room and talks to her dead brother, but Miguel sits up and chokes Manuela until she is dead. As the police arrive and Antonio embraces Angela, Miguel collapses, holding onto his dead sister's hand.

Tags: comedy, cruelty, murder, cult, violence, plot twist, revenge, sadist

Review:
This movie is basically the infamous Jess Franco having a go at the American-style slasher films that were big in the early 80's, and what's most remarkable about it is how unremarkable it is.
The best thing I can say about this movie it is it is so over-the-top with its dumb victims, obvious red herrings, and ridiculously gory murders that it might have actually meant to be a parody of the slasher film.
okay, so this isn't as good as most Italian Gialli, but to be fair, it is head and shoulders above 90% of American slashers of the early-mid 80's.Jess Franco certainly delivers the goods with this one, with lots of bloody stabbings (including a girl stabbed in the back, the knife protruding through her nipple), strangulations, a hedge trimer attack, and an awesome band saw decapitation.
"Bloody Moon" is a great slasher film from the master of exploitation Jesus Franco.The plot is obviously inspired by "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th".The acting is pretty average,but there is plenty of gore to satisfy fans of splatter.There is for example very bloody power saw decapitation plus some other killings which involve chainsaws,razorblades and knives.The music score is pretty appalling and the film's theme tune is incredibly annoying.Overall,the film is moderately entertaining,so if you're a Franco fan give this one a look.
Here is the plot:"Bloody Moon" takes place in a Spanish language school,where pretty female students are murdered by an unidentified stalker in a variety of grisly ways..
"Die Säge Des Todes" (literal translation: "The Saw Of Death") of 1981 is a gory slasher from exploitation's most prolific filmmaker - Jess Franco.
"Bloody Moon" is not one of his truly great movies, but it is definitely a highly entertaining and gruesome flick that should not be missed by fans of gory European Horror exploitation.
For Franco standards, this film does not feature a lot of sleaze, but even more gruesome brutality and graphic gore in exchange.The movie takes place in a language school in Spain, where a bunch of hot German girls are enjoy the sun, alcohol and sex more than practicing the Spanish language.
A maniac who enjoys murdering pretty young girls in most atrocious ways...The movie begins a bit slow, but it gets really nasty and brutal later, and actually becomes quite suspenseful.
The eerie score composed by Gerhard Heinz, who has also composed the scores for a bunch of mainstream productions, is probably the greatest aspect of the film, and makes the whole thing a lot more atmospheric.All said, "Bloody Moon" is a brutal little slasher that I recommend to my fellow Eurohorror buffs, especially Jess Franco fans should not miss it!.
There are plenty of disturbing moments like the infamous saw decapitation.The masked killer concept started two years before the movie when John Carpenter's "Halloween" stormed the genre.The opening sequence gave me the creeps the first time and I think it's the most frightening moment in the movie.There's plenty of gore but not in great quality.
Clearly shocked, the girl struggles off the hulking and clearly disappointed soon-to-become killer, sparking him to retaliate by stabbing her repeatedly with a large pair of scissors Five years later Miguel is released from an asylum (keeping things in tradition, of course), although the doctor doesn't seem all that convinced that he's recovered, but frees him anyway.
Next up the unseen psycho (with a stocking over his head) begins to murder her buddies while at the same time terrorising her with somewhat leisurely threats that include:  I'm gonna cut you in two like a piece of wood with a hacksaw (!)' Before long Angela is being constantly stalked by the wacko and it's our job to guess whom it is!
But any credibility is desultory, mainly ruined by the endless jerky zoom shots or the comical dubbing that makes Godfrey Ho and Joseph Lai's Ninja films look like theatrical masterpieces.There are long spaces when not a lot happens aside from watching the humorous females struggle to look convincing, and at times things feel like they're moving far too slowly.
nothing new in this slasher movie from the 80's but every slasher fan should have this in their collection.lots of pretty girls getting killed in a variety of inventive and gruesome ways.i am not going to describe how the ladies get killed because other people on IMDb have already did that.there are quite a few good and gory graphic killings in bloody moon.so if you are like me and love gory slasher movies and not mainstream garbage like scream go and find this movie.just make sure you get a version that is uncut because there is nothing worse than buying a horror movie and all the gory killings have been cut out.so slasher fans go buy this now.
A derivative but strangely appealing slasher flick from that auteur of Spanish sleaze and zoom lens-inspired madness, Jess Franco, which opens with a masked killer murdering a young girl and being sent to an asylum for the crime - just to prove that Franco's copying HALLOWEEN a little bit too much, we even see POV shots from the killer looking through the eyeholes in his mask!
The plot is pretty ludicrous, with a really dumb script - the English dubbing reaches new levels of absurdity with some of the trite dialogue that the girls constantly spew.The acting isn't much better, and it's obvious that Franco picks his actresses for their looks rather than their acting ability.
The identity of the killer is pretty easy to guess, especially seeing that the red herring is so obvious in this case - could it be the mysteriously scarred man who was previously convicted of murder, who constantly lurks around the school watching the girls?
BLOODY MOON is just about a series of young, sometimes naked girls being offed gorily by a perverted murderer, and that's exactly what Franco delivers.
Unfortunately, when she spurns his advances Miguel picks up a pair of scissors and brutally and fatally attacks the girl.This opening sequence, while setting the scene and Miguel's character doesn't feel realistic or believable and that is a big drawback to the story and the movie.Then after just five years in a mental asylum, he is released into his sister's custody.
The big stone cutting saw sequence is actually let down by how fake the decapitated head is; it's pretty close to being laughable.If you like gory murder mysteries then you may like this though I wouldn't recommend rushing out to purchase a copy, however, if the chance comes up to watch it you could do worse..
Starting a new school-year, the staff of an all-girls language school in Spain come to find that the savage killings of the campus' students lead back to the deformed killer supposedly wandering the grounds and must find a way of stopping his rampage.This here is quite the fun and enjoyably sleazy slasher opus.
The way this one manages to exploit it's slasher leanings, from the opening shot of the killer wandering through the party in a mask while a girl mistakes him for her boyfriend to the tragic past of the brother and the ingenuity of many of the set-pieces here are straight from the playbook of the modern slasher movement at the time, and the decision to feature so much of the film through the killer's eye-view in order to distort their identity is a rather impressive series of call-backs to that scene.
As well, the rather suspenseful stalking and tormenting here comes into play straight from those elements as well with the taunting on the headphones while she's in class, the suddenly disappearing bodies of his victims and the quick-shot scenes that show her supposedly being targeted by the killer off in the shadows including dodging a boulder pushed off a cliff and avoiding a poisonous snake hanging from a tree, which when combined with the spectacular series of chases and brawling found in the final half it makes for a stand-out slasher effort.
That final half, where the killer runs rampant against the girls resulting in utterly brutal and graphic set-pieces as the sequence in the abandoned mill, her being barricaded in her room with all the furniture stacked up against the walls before finding the bodies scattered throughout the house that becomes quite thrilling overall as the action picks up and the thrilling scenes makes for a wholly enjoyable sequence.
Alongside this, the film also goes for the usual sleaze route here with copious amounts of nudity featured here that goes for not only the strange notion of the girls' night-time habit of flashing the moon, the incestuous relationship subplot and the cheesy feature of the lecherous school- teacher screwing everyone which all provides this one generous amount of trashy, sleazy fun.
Taken within the confines of the genre, however, I suppose "Bloody Moon" delivers an interesting blend, as a gaillo/slasher hybrid, but the film's dreadful B-movie script and zero believability place it somewhere between camp and outright refuse.
In other words, a typical slasher film.Miguel (Alexander Waechter) was just released from a psychiatric facility following a brutal murder in the past.
Bloody Moon is a rare combination of American style slasher and giallo a la Jess Franco.The director most famous for his exploitation films.As far as I can recall the only other film I have seen from him is Venus in Furs.It could very well be that I have seen more titles from him without realizing.He seems to have made quite a few.But one thing I know for sure he is without doubt one of the worst directors I have come across that surprisingly is still very active in the industry.And that can be explained because he has made some films that are in a league of their own .Mostly because he mixes up the genres in a way that is rarely done.What does that mean for Bloody Moon?A slow pace and severe lack of tension and thrills that make it a real task to stay interested.The excessive gory deaths and some clever twists and turns oddly aren't enough to make you overlook that.It doesn't help also that the characters aren't really interesting apart from two key players looking very similar to James Caan and Brad Dourif in their younger years.Now there is one scene that was unexpectedly thrilling involving a little boy.You will find yourself rooting for this boy.It's a mystery in itself that this boy suddenly was so curious that he decided to investigate in the first place.But it shows that Jess Franco is able to create tense scenes.Too bad it is the only one in the whole film that is filled with real tension.With some tighter plotting and direction Bloody Moon could have become a real classic.Now it is an unremarkable hybrid of slasher and giallo that will bore you to death..
Angela knows they are being killed and even witnesses a murder, but no-one believes her.When going into a horror film directed by exploitation legend Jess Franco, you know what you're in for.
Bloody Moon (1981) ** (out of 4) Original title: Die Sage des TodesSpanish director Jess Franco wasn't shy from jumping into a genre, which was proving popular at the time he did his jumping.
This time out the director jumps into the slasher genre after films like Halloween and Friday the 13th had proved to be money-making gold.
Although technically poor, ineptly scripted and badly acted, this American style slasher from Spanish horror auteur Jess Franco is actually pretty entertaining, thanks to plenty of two of the most important ingredients of the genre: gratuitous gore and female nudity.The silly plot sees Miguel (Alexander Waechter), a disfigured killer, released into the care of his sister Manuela (Nadja Gerganoff) after five years of rehabilitation, and returning to the exact place where he killed his victim: a language school at which every student appears to be an attractive female twenty-something.
Is Miguel carrying on from where he left off, or has someone else taken over as the school's resident murderer?Franco directs with his usual lack of finesse, but includes plenty of sleaze 'n' cheese to ensure that, this time, I didn't doze off halfway through his film.
There are some excellent 80s disco moments for fans of dodgy dance scenes (the best being a roller disco/rock 'n' roll scene accompanied by the worst song ever); a smattering of incestual behaviour between Miguel and Manuela; several red herrings and multiple suspects to throw viewers off the scent; and a spot of real-life animal death (a poor snake loses his head to a pair of shears).And let's not forget about the gore, which is fairly frequent and always pretty vicious: Miguel's brutal scissor attack occurs only minutes into the film, and this is followed by several other bloody scenes that helped Bloody Moon secure a place on the notorious BBFC Video Nasties list.
Gorehounds will not be disappointed by the film's two nastiest deaths: a knife attack which sees the blade exit the victim via her breast, and the graphic beheading of a another girl using a massive rotary stone-saw.The film is also good for some great unintentional laughs, and I defy anyone to keep a straight face as the film's heroine, Spanish student Angela (Olivia Pascal), narrowly escapes being crushed by a huge, cuboid polystyrene rock, and is scared witless as a door is opened painfully slowly by....
Legendary European exploitation master Jess Franco makes his own contribution to the slasher film boom of the early 1980s with "Bloody Moon", a silly and trashy affair.
"Bloody Moon" is one of the Franco's more marketable films, and is certainly a worthwhile slasher as well.**SPOILERS**After being released from a mental asylum, Miguel, (Alexander Waechter) is moved with his sister Manuela, (Nadja Gerganoff) to the Boarding School for young women on the Spanish resort of Costa Del Sol where she works.
When bodies start piling up at the school, the remaining people investigate and find a possible serial killer on campus and are forced to evade the maniac.The Good News: One of the weirder entries in the early 80s slasher films, this one certainly has a lot going for it.
Die Säge des Todes - probably best known under the title BLOODY MOON - is Jess Franco's response and share to the popular trend of teen slasher films.
The "final girl", a student named Angela(..played by the gorgeous Olivia Pascal)attempts to warn others about a friend murdered in her bungalow(..the place where a scar-faced Miguel, played by Alexander Waechter, viciously stabbed a girl to death with a pair of scissors).
I think when one watches this, comparing it to Franco films of the past, they'll realize this isn't typical of his output..is that a bad thing?Miguel is released from an asylum and rejoins his sister Manuela(Nadja Gerganoff).
One reason for his behaviour appears to be his forbidden love for his sister Manuela (Nadja Gerganoff), who is happy to parade herself around him in suggested poses and revealing clothes but is appalled at continuing their forbidden relationship.Various characters come and go, sinister suggestions of stalking young girls is accompanied by Gerhard Heinz's mostly magnificent score (Pink Floyd were originally approached), and improbable and brightly coloured murders take place.Euro sleaze, eurotrash, eurotica or euro-horror: there are plenty of labels for allegedly exploitation films such as 'Bloody Moon', but a lot of them are unfairly maligned by the lazy definition.
A lot of films directed by Spanish Director Jess Franco are far better than their reputations suggest.
Set in a Spanish language school for girls (how original), the story sees our heroine Angela in peril as her friend begin to die around her, and nobody believes her.
Truly awful film-making is here in abundance, in such scenes as the one where Inga is merrily driven to a saw mill and tied up, gabbling the entire time, or the one in which Angela sees a shadow on the wall, walks backwards (??) towards it and stabs the figure hysterically and then runs off, or the one where a snake dangles into view and is snipped to death by hedge cutters, or the one where a huge foam rock bounces out of nowhere to menace Angela, or all the time we spend watching the girls in their language class and nothing actually happens, or the one with Inga (again - she's particularly bad) bouncing on her bed pretending to be having sex, with a dead body in her wardrobe that it would be impossible for her not to notice, and many, many more.
Bloody Moon sees prolific sleaze director Jess Franco take advantage of the slasher movement that was becoming increasingly popular in the United States around the time that this film was released.
Bloody Moon appears on the Nasty list along with Devil Hunter and Women Behind Bars, and while the gore isn't as bloodthirsty as some slasher flicks; Franco still makes sure that the film deserves its place on the list.
The film pretty much plays out in a familiar slasher fashion for most of its duration.While Jess Franco isn't the greatest director of all time (as shown here), one thing he has to be admired for is his ability to make his own entry into any popular sub-genre and make it sleazier than most.
While Bloody Moon isn't exactly original, Jess Franco makes sure that his slasher is sicker than most by way of the incestuous relationship at the film's centre.
There are a couple of genuinely tense scenes and cinematography is good and it is one gory little movie- the film's most (in)famous moment comes when a girl lets herself get tied up by, unbeknownst to her, the killer, "I'm game for anything!" she squeals, before being messily decapitated by a huge buzzsaw.
But the bad things about this movie is the acting isn't very strong, probably due to the fact the dubbing is terrible, the film is also so dark at times you can't even see what's going on.