The Slayer (1982)

 I think the main problem hindering JD Cardone's The Slayer (1982) is the title of the film and how it has been shoehorned into the slasher genre. So most folks go into this believing it will be some massacre of folks on an island by some psychopath with an ax to grind.

While I consider it a fantasy and monster movie, with nightmare logic even included in the storytelling, I think Cardone's film is done a disservice with that title. Now I'm a slasher fan, always will be, but in the 80s critics flat-out rejected almost any film remotely linked to the genre, so maybe it would have been better labeled just a scary movie on an island with a sinister presence terrorizing two couples vacationing. Whatever the case, the horror genre, regardless of whatever subgenre a film within might be considered, wasn't exactly a critical darling, although an exception or two would come and go.

In saying that, of the four murders in the film, three of them are quite slasher in nature. The pitchfork sure got a workout in the early 80s, let me tell you. As much as the pitchfork murder remains perhaps the most memorable of "The Prowler" (1981), since I have been returning to the slasher genre this year, with lots available on Shudder and Tubi, I have noticed more and more that besides the oft-used butcher knife, ax, and hatchet, that damned pitchfork got its rub in horror, also. One victim in "The Slayer" tries to get out of a room, bashing in a window in order to hopefully escape since she was trapped, unable to flee when a pitchfork protrudes from her chest after the creature of the film methodically approached her from behind (seemingly unconcerned about her getting away). Farming equipment always offered tools of availability if a killer was in need of a weapon.

The main character is Kay (red-headed Sarah Kendall, who looks practically a mess throughout the entire film as if she was already on the verge of entering basket case territory), a sketch artist whose work was enduring criticism for its lack of realism. It seems when she dreams, what she dreams serves as premonitions of experiences to come, artistically rendered to canvas/paper. She dreams of an abandoned house and the front of the vacation house her brother is able to secure for a trip. Her brother, a commercials director named Eric (Frederick Flynn), is able to hire a plane for the trip to the uninhabited island. So Kay and her husband, David (Alan McRae), with Eric and his wife, Brooke (Carol Kottenbrook) go the island. While the other three are in good spirits, taking in the lovely scenery (Cardone was able to shoot on an island near Savannah, GA), including plenty of beach and idyllic water, and a stocked and well furnished vacation home (complete with an upper floor and plenty of rooms), Kay never seems comfortable, as if she is preparing for something horrible at any moment.

And, sure enough, because this is called "The Slayer", there are horrific murders. While one victim is "hooked" in the face by the creature, and a fisherman is conked on the head with a boat oar, I think most will consider the showcase kill a victim's head caught in an attic door, eventually severing his head. Now, the best special effect sequence I would personally give to Kay finding a decapitated head in her bed after kissing the victim's lips (which not only kiss back but bleed, with even the dead eyes slightly moving). There is also a body hanging upside down in the skeletal remains of that house Kay saw in her dreams without a head she discovers adding to the overall horror of "The Slayer".

This is a compact 88 or so minutes. I will say I thought the middle of the film does sort of lag a bit. I could tell my mind was on the verge of malaise where my attention was about to wane, but I think all the looking for David when he "goes missing" and Kay's histrionics remaining a drag on the rest of the group did contribute to that. But I loved the location -- an island vacation estate surrounded by water with no real help or assistance from the outside that is immediate -- and despite being such picturesque setting, the horror of what emerges (out of the nightmare of Kay?) puts quite the damper on any excitement and bliss shared among the bunch. You do get to see the creature at the end, with Cardone just revealing it briefly. Its hairy clawed hands reaching around Kay's mouth at the beginning of the film sets the stage for what was to come. For most of the film, though, the killer could be an actual person as you don't really see the monster at all in frame.

And in the film, Kay actually mistakes a plane pilot for the creature, with some potent tragic results, including a major fire through the use of a flare gun that sets off the vacation home. The twist with the little girl waking up to parents on Christmas morning, as daddy gives Kay a cat (Eric told Brooke she killed that cat, always complaining about her terrifying dreams as a child growing up), is a bit cute...Cardone playfully allows us to experience future events then carry us back to Kay as a child. Could what we just watched be a premonition of what is to come? Or is this just a nightmarish loop that leads Kay forward and back over and over? 

This is the best the film has ever looked. When I watched "The Slayer" last time, the quality of the film was quite dreck. But this must have been Arrow Video's great work because the print has never looked better. Being able to see everything in high quality can make a world of difference. Plus, the entirety of the film intact and uncut does also help. 3/5

The addition of the paintings, Kay's insistence that her dreams are real, and the old theater that was run down Kay is taken by (obviously). I guess some viewers might consider everything we see as unreal...or is it?