Moon in Scorpio (1987)

User Rating:

3.5/10   

Director:

Gary Graver

Writer:

Robert Aiken (writer)

Genre:

Horror

Plot:

Ex-soldiers on a yachting trip run into the ghosts of victims of a massacre. |

Plot Keywords:

Massacre | Yachting | Ghost | Murder | Independent Film

Cast

Britt Ekland	...	Linda
John Phillip Law	...	Allen
William Smith	...	Burt
Lewis Van Bergen	...	Mark (as Louis Van Bergen)
April Wayne	...	Isabel
Robert Quarry	...	Dr. Khorda
Jillian Kesner	...	Claire
Bruno Marcotulli	...	The Driver
Ken Smolka	...	Police Officer
Thomas Bloom	...	Soldier
James Booth	...	Dr. Torrence
Donna Kei Benz	...	Nurse Mitchell
Don Scribner	...	Richard Vargas

Runtime:

USA:90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:(Banned) | Germany:BPjM Restricted

not very good... possibly a victim of reediting by producers

Well, the video box was nice. The color is primarily blue, a dusk or night scene of a ship with tattered sails, clouds suggesting the form of a skull, and the shadowy shape of a giant scorpion rippling in the water. The movie's title on the front and back covers and both spines is embossed. The ship on the front cover, and a detail of the scorpion on the back cover are similarly raised.

According to the director's website, Moon in Scorpio is a "supernatural thriller set on the high seas with a vampire and astrological plot involving several decadent characters was re-edited many times by the producers." The producers must have reedited it, because it was not supernatural at all, nor was there a vampire. The plot didn't seem astrological, though one of the characters says about four times that the "Moon is in Scorpio" which she explains as being a time of fear, retribution, etc.

Reediting might also be to blame for the movie's structure. It begins (and ends) with a shot of a ship bobbing with its sails down. From there, someone kills a doctor, and then kills someone in the hospital's parking garage, stealing his car. Then, the hospital hires someone to find the killer. He winds up on the ship where he gets killed by the only woman they find on board. The woman is hospitalized and she tells her story of how she came to be the only person left on the ship.

She and her husband are going on their honeymoon. They are joining two other couples on a ship. The three men had been in Vietnam together. There are some stock footage clips of Vietnam, and we also see them there. At one point, one of them seems to struggle with a gristly skeleton in water. Perhaps that was part of the supernatural plot that got dropped?

A man in the harbor gets killed by someone dressed in black, by an odd spiked weapon. Later, people on the ship get killed by an odd spiked weapon worn on a hand or by a spear-gun and pushed overboard. At no point do people know there is a killer on-board, until there is only the killer and the survivor left. Throughout this back-story, the survivor breaks in as a narrator, often repeating things we just saw and heard.

The ending is quite bad, as a hospital official ushers the survivor out, suggesting she might be able to get married again sometime to have the kids she wants. The ending might also have suffered as a result of reediting.

Not recommended, unless a director's cut comes out in which case this might deserve a second look, maybe.