Feels about a decade too late
Recently purchased this as part of the Slasher Classic's Collection releases & giving that I'm such a big fan of 80's slashers - I've honestly never heard of this & after viewing it, well its hardly a lost gem. In-fact quite the opposite.The plot is a Vietnam vet with PTSD & his new wife are invited for their honeymoon aboard his friend's yacht along with 2 other couples to sail to a tropical island, but of course they don't make it as they are soon picked off one by one by mysterious gloved assailant with an unusual, pronged murder weapon.
Throughout the movie we get Britt Ekland narrating what happened (that's not a spoiler its literary at the start of the movie) & I hate when they do this as you already know she's going to survive, so that takes away any tension or suspense that the movie may have had. Not that this has any of that mind you as this was for the most part incredibly boring & very confusing at times with the way it skips back & forth between time-lines, along with the Nam flashbacks which didn't look authentic at all & come off as more amusing than anything, as well as the mis-match of bad acting on everyone's part with very clunky dialogue, even by Britt Ekland herself with her awful line readings & unable to show any sort of range or emotion, coming across as more hilarious than anything. All of the actors are like that in this, with some acting like they're in a different type of movie & some are just hamming it up for fun.
The cheapness of the production really shows here, with like I already said the War flashbacks which don't look real at all, even the uniforms were awful. Plus, none of this fits the aesthetic of the movie as none of it means anything by the end. The slasher elements don't really happen until the last 15/20 minutes of the film & they're not all that exciting with nobody making any noise when they die, as well as the mystery element doesn't work as its pretty much signposted throughout.
On the whole I'd say the movie's troubled production history is probably the most interesting aspect of this mess, as that original plot sounded way more interesting than this watered down mess.
score 3/10
acidburn-10 1 January 2021
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6430897/34785
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