Moonstalker

Plot synopsis:
A family's mountain vacation is interrupted by the arrival of a disheveled man hauling a trailer behind an ancient Cadillac. Pop, as he calls himself, tells the family a tall tale about the son he lost to illness. The family feels sorry for him and befriends him . . . not knowing the danger that is soon to come to them. In reality, his son Bernie is crazy, deranged and dangerous and kept straight-jacketed and chained up in Pop's trailer. Pop lets Bernie out only to stalk and harm campers while Pop helps himself to their belongings.
Not far away, a group of young people are preparing for two weeks of wilderness training. The camp is run by Regis, and his crazy girlfriend, Marcie, who tells them that P.J., a new camper has disappeared. We find out that the P.J., is dead.
Meanwhile, the police are trying to piece together what happened to the tourist family when an old cop, Taylor, shows up. He recognizes Pop, remembering how Bernie went on a murderous rampage years ago. Unable to convince the others, he heads for the wilderness camp on his own. By the time he arrives, it is too late. Bernie has already done his dirty work. As Taylor hunts for Bernie, it is a heart-stopping and frightening game of kill or be killed. As the end comes near, a bizarre twist happens that will keep you on the edge of your seat!

Tags: murder

Review:
A fun low-budget horror film.
It's a shame that this film is not currently available on any video format because it is actually an enjoyable piece of '80's horror.
The night winter forest locations look great and the cast appears to be having a fun time making the film.
The gore effects are primitive but serviceable, and there are moments of genuine emotional connection between the characters that was rare for the genre at that post-"Halloween" time.
Watching this film brings one back to a more innocent time when real effort was put into the exploitation genre..
This 1988 thriller (filmed entirely in Nevada) might be one of the most touching horror films of all times.
The emotional story comes with Pop, a man driven from his home and his wife when unspeakable tragedy occurs.
His son Bernie will never be the same.
Bernie, who's character frankly re-defines the horror movie slasher, stops just about every couple in the film from engaging in nudity and fornication.
Yes, this movie has all the highs and emotional lows of an edited for TV USA up-all-night.
Thank you for slashers of high moral fabric like Bernie, who helps rid our state parks of fornicators and forest fire..
Frustrating but bearable backwoods slasher time-waster.
In terms of set up Moonstalker has everything there, dumb but somewhat likable cast, threatening killer with sad, chilling back story, snowy woodland setting, lots of death, it should be a winner and almost is.
But the almost that the film falls into is a giant gap, wide enough to be well, a bit crap.
The problem is that up to around the hour mark, the deaths are mostly off screen or bloodless and don't have enough in the way of set-up to make an impact despite being tame.
The effect is of a tease and after a while it just gets really irritating, I don't necessarily care about bloodless or off screen kills so long as the presentation is germane to the film, but here gore was clearly necessary and for the most part just not really present.
Sad thing is, when the film gets to the final block it warms up miraculously, slings a bit of bloodshed, mean spirit and even tension, fairly solid stuff that comes off multiple clicks higher than the rest of it.
Still, there are little perks to the film as a whole.
For one it pulls a fairly ballsy turn out of the first block and the heroine only gets introduced halfway through or so, plus it has no issues with randomly offing characters, making for some element of surprise, especially when more likable characters get nixed.
For another there's a great bit of counter-intuitive costume design as the killer switches from creepy potato sack mask and neck chain get up into some gear nicked from a cop, immediately going from mildly unsettling to a down-market Psycho Cop riff.
I think the characters are maybe the best thing here though, in a lot of these films the characters are nothing more than sacks of meat for the offing, but here a lot of them are actually pretty fun to spend time around.
Which isn't to say that ultimately they aren't sacks of meat for the offing, but you know what I mean.
Then there's Regis (John Marzilli), running his wilderness survival training camp with drill sergeant demeanour and raising smiles along the way.
And towards the end, (sadly too late) we get a police officer who knows the score, played with fevered intensity by a Neil Kinsella.
Its a fun bunch of people and I reckon the film would have been a lot better had it dropped the height of the body count and just hung around with them, gotten into their personalities and interactions.
Sadly 'twas not to be, and so things are about two thirds 4/10 level frustration and one third low 6/10 chintzy fun.
Feck it, I'll give a generous 5/10, its better than a poke in the eye with a wet stick so those who just have to watch it (you know who you are) won't have serious problems..
Put the bag back over your head, Bernie!.
"Moonstalker" aptly illustrates how and why the teen slasher ingloriously died at the end of the 1980s.
It starts with the opening credits music being yet another blatant rip-off of John Carpenter's iconic score for "Halloween".
By the time "Moonstalker" got released, "Halloween" was more than a decade old, and literally the entire world had seen it, so find something new already!
A middle-aged father (and heavy beer can consumer) insists on spending a primitive "back-to-nature" vacation with his reluctant family in a rusty old camper, so they install themselves at the edge of a wide backwoods area.
The bickering family runs into an ogre named Pop, and he's hiding his psychopathic and bloodthirsty son Bernie in a caravan, tied up with chains and wearing a bag over his head.
Pop occasionally lets Bernie out, for example to feast on dim-witted camper families, but then Pop unexpectedly dies from a heart-attack and Bernie suddenly finds himself unchained with the world at his feet!
From then onward "Moonstalker" plays on familiar slasher turf, as Bernie heads straight towards a nearby camping site where a bunch of young summer camp counselors are having their annual initiation weekend.
Freed from his dominant father, Bernie makes the terrible (albeit understandable) mistake of switching his strait-jacket and potato bag mask for a lumberjack shirt, a cowboy hat and a shiny pair of sunglasses.
I reckon it's a far more comfortable outfit for him, but he does instantly lose all the charisma and scary effect of a savage backwoods killer, especially because the mask made him somewhat a look-alike of Jason Voorhees in "Friday the 13th part 2".
The first few murders are dull and bloodless, but "Moonstalker" eventually meets the 80s gore quota thanks to several amputations, axe-murders and even a knife in someone's forehead.
The sadistic campfire moment near the finale (you'll know it when you see it) is a delightful little horror detail, but it sadly doesn't rescue the film from sheer mediocrity..
Weekend at Bernie's..
In a straight-jacket, hood, chains and brandishing an axe, Moonstalker's crazed killer Bernie makes for a memorably imposing maniac, which is why it's a shame when he swaps this distinctive garb for a cowboy hat, dark glasses and and a plaid shirt.
But even though he loses a lot of his mystique with this change of outfit, the drooling psycho remains as mean as ever, killing off most of the film's cast before the closing credits.
Along the way there's quite a bit of hokey gore (rubbery body parts and splashes of blood), just a little female nudity (one of the girls strips off to take a shower with a young man), and, with the film taking place at a wilderness counselor's camp on a snowy mountain, lots of sitting around camp fires (in the film's most macabre moment, even the dead enjoy a sing-song around a roaring fire).It's certainly no classic, but as low-budget late '80s slashers go, you could definitely do a lot worse than Moonstalker: the film is never boring, the sub-zero setting is a nice change from the traditional summer camp, the characters are likeable (the girls are all very pretty, which helps), and no-one is safe, which makes it one of the less predictable examples of the genre.
Only the score really disappoints: it's a third-rate rip-off of John Carpenter's iconic music for Halloween..
The film started out with a family and then we are introduced to "Pop".
The family ends up hanging out with Pop the night they met him and Pop tells us the story of what happened with his son - but not the full story.
Pop acts weird, the family leaves him, Pop goes inside his camper and we meet his son Bernie.
Bernie is tied down with a chain, in a straight-jacket and special mask.
Pop lets Bernie go to kill the people so they can steal their stuff.
Bernie kills the family, Pop falls over and dies of ?
(fright they said in the film but I thought maybe a heart-attack?) -- anyway Pop is dead and the killer Bernie is on the loose.Next we are introduced to the main characters of the film.
The main characters are part of some wilderness camp thing going on.
Bernie makes his way to them and kills most all of them.
Cops are also in the campgrounds investigating the murder of the family and Pop. And that's about it - minus the ending where the killer Bernie stole the cop's jacket and vehicle then drives way leaving it open for a part 2 or to simply show viewers he's still alive.It's an okay time waster film, not grand but a watchable slasher.
It has a few story flaws that most viewers will notice quickly but is a "B" slasher - and we all know what to expect of most of them.Another reviewer mentioned the music of the film is similar to that of the classic Halloween 1978 - and that is true!!
This film is not nearly as good as Halloween '78 but an alright watch.5/10.
IT IS So Sad. Even though this was shot with film i think it stinks a little bit more than flicks like Blood Lake, There's Nothing Out There & .
They both don't try very hard to sound sarcastic when they're saying stuff like "My friends are going to be so jealous!" Hey, whats with the killer only wearing his mask in the beginning?
My favorite part about this movie is the sound effect they use when the killer is using the axe.
Slasher the shoulda, coulda, woulda been better.
Not to be confused with MOONSTRUCK (1988), I was yelling "Snap out of it" and slapping myself in the face by the time this regional horror flick was done.
An old man keeps his mentally unstable son Bernie (Blake Gibbons) locked up in a trailer, only unleashing him when pop wants some tourists killed for new appliances.
Unfortunately, hauling the newly acquired microwave causes ol' dad to die of a heart attack and Bernie is on his own.
Naturally, he heads home and begins offing winter camp counselors in training that are near his abode.
You won't get much from this Nevada lensed slasher from writer-director Michael O'Rourke until the last half hour, where it turns surprisingly bloody as Bernie chops everyone with an ax.
There is a pretty cool looking image of Bernie chained up in a straight jacket with a hood on, but that gets abandoned early on when he removes it and dresses in a cowboy hat (making him look like Powers Boothe for some odd reason).
As far as I can tell you, in spite of earlier comments posted by other commentors, this film IS currently available on DVD.
I thought so.This film was indeed well worth 98 cents.
For slasher film mavens only..
A bad to alright 80's slasher.
This movie is a bad to alright rip off of Friday the 13th.
The movie is about a killer named Bernie who kills people around a camp councilor training camp.
He kills people because the camp councilor training camp is on land that was owned by his father, and when the police came to forcefully take his fathers land they accidentally killed his mother (Another F13th take off).
The intro is seeing Bernie killing his first victims.
Then we are introduced to a family going camping in the same woods, soon after they arrive they are joined by a strange old man who likes talking about his son.
Later we learn that his son is Bernie and that he has him locked up in the back of his caravan after having broken him out of a mental institute.
He sets Bernie after the family so they can take their stuff and then the chase is on.This Movie is only recommended to those who enjoy B grade 80's Slashers..
Actually, an obscure slasher that deserves a chance..
This is a clear example of how the slasher genre died in 1989.
You will think about "Friday the 13th" and "The Burning" while watching this because of obvious references to both movies (family reasons to kill, the "story" of a deranged killer in the woods named Bernie, etc.).
Bernie is one weird guy; not because of the killings, but his twisted behavior against sex!
He's a serial killer with a high moral.
I watched it first on "USA Up All Night" back in the late 90's.
Something interesting I found about "Moonstalker" is that you can't predict who will survive until the last 20 minutes.
I don't know if it's something good but being a slasher, it's something that you rarely see.
The shower death scene is my favorite.I can't recommend this even to slasher fans but I know that A LOT of people like me enjoy watching horrible bad slasher flicks.
Actually, "Moonstalker" is a recommended slasher obscurity.
The forest at night is creepy because of the winter season.
Check this one out slasher gorehounds..
I had been searching for this slasher film for a while.
The film is not as bad as some say, I did enjoy it.There is a blond woman that really reminded me of Linnea Quigley, even my wife thought so!
The first thirty minutes I found a little boring as we are treated to a whiny family listening to an old man talking about his son 'Bernie'.
Bernie turns out to be around and soon finds a group of counselors in the middle of nowhere and the mayhem begins.
The first several murders are pretty bloodless, but later on we are treated to some limbs chopped off, a knife through someone's head, and a fairly well done hanging.
For those who watch these for the T&A, two of the girls take showers, but I think the DVD I got had the scenes blown-up so that we couldn't see boobs (you can tell the images were blown-up).7 stars out of 10.
"Moonstalker" is one of those well forgotten camp slasher movies from the 1980's and considering it came out in 1989, it was already stated that this formula had gone well stale by this point and this movie does nothing to rise above the dreck, although it does have a certain charm to it.
The opening shot with the POV angle and the happy campers by the fire really did set the tone and mood for this flick, but it ended rather disappointingly, as the deaths were off screen and showed no imagination or thrills.What really bugs me about this is the lack of focus, because after the opening deaths we get a family who I thought were gonna be the main characters of this movie, but then they are quickly dispatched, when an old man pulls up near them and tells them about what happened to his son and then we see him in his camper wrapped in a strait jacket and his face covered.
Now I thought that this was an interesting angle to the storyline, but again that falls flat, as he quickly heads to another campsite where a group are on some sort of wilderness training or something.
But that was way too late into the movie to suddenly introduce the main cast and even they were just as terrible as the previous cast members.There just doesn't seem to be any effort put into this whatsoever, I know that Slashers aren't known for developing characters, but this is ridiculous, for a start there were just way too many to keep track off and the supposedly main ones were forgettable, even the final girl was awful, then there's the death scenes, or should I say lack off, despite 23 deaths, none stood out, mostly off screen which I hate.
However I did like the setting and the dark atmosphere was rather creepy and the killer was pretty menacing at first, but once he took of the mask, it just kind of fell apart.So all in all, see this only if you're a fan of 80's campsite slashers or if you're a fan of bad movies, but otherwise not a highly recommended effort and stay well clear..
Fun slasher flick.
A family of tourists vacationing in the woods and a group of young camp counselors training in the same forest both find themselves being terrorized by a vicious unhinged psycho (a creepy portrayal by Blake Gibbons).
O'Rourke keeps the familiar, but still enjoyable and effective story moving along at a steady pace, makes nice use of the wintry sylvan locations, builds a good deal of tension, elicits acceptable acting from the decent no-name cast (Alex Wexler in particular contributes an amusing turn as obnoxious horndog Bobby), takes time to develop the colorful and generally engaging characters, brings an admirable pull-no-punches approach to the subject matter (there's a really high body count and certain characters one expects to survive don't), delivers a satisfying smattering of gore, and adds a few neat quirky touches (the kinky S&M couple are an absolute hoot!).
Michael Goi's polished cinematography makes cool use of a prowling hand-held camera for the killer's POV shots.
As you watch this you'll notice that the father Pops keeps his son in a trailer connected to the back of his car.
Soon Bernie(Blake Gibbons)is set free.
Pop lets him out to cause trauma of the campers and takes their belongings.
Soon Bernie is out killing camp training students and camp instructors.
A twisted ending soon prevails.So when you watch this remember Michael Myers from the series Halloween and Jason Voorhees from the Friday The 13th series.
Young adults and adults only should watch this.The ending is a shocker.
Bernie wasn't caught.
I guess a good movie should have a good enough sequel.
Like Halloween and Friday The 13th.