The Slayer (film)
| The Slayer | |
|---|---|
Theatrical poster
|
|
| Directed by | J. S. Cardone |
| Produced by | William R. Ewing Eric Weston Anne Kimmel |
| Written by |
JS Cardone William R. Ewing |
| Starring | Sarah Kendall Frederick Flynn Carol Kottenbrook Alan McRae |
| Music by | Robert Folk |
| Cinematography | Karen Grossman |
| Edited by | M. Edward Salier |
| Distributed by |
21st Century Film Corporation International Picture Show Continental Video Inc. Marquis Video Planet Video Inc. |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
80 minutes 86 minutes (uncut) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
JS Cardone
The Slayer (also known as Nightmare Island) is a 1982 horror film directed by J. S. Cardone. Set on a small island near the Atlantic coast, the plot concerns two couples who upon visiting the island get trapped there due to an oncoming hurricane. As one of the women knows the island is dangerous from her plaguing nightmares, they begin to get killed by something unseen over the next three days. The film is notable for gaining notoriety and being classified in the United Kingdom as a video nasty in the 1980s.
The film is unique among slashers for its arthouse style ambiguity; part of the film is told out of chronological order, leaving it unclear as to which scene is the actual climax, and three mutually-exclusive interpretations of the films' events are offered, with the narrative providing evidence in favor of each.
Kay (Sarah Kendall) is an abstract artist who has been plagued since childhood by a series of disturbing dreams. The intensity and frequency of the dreams have fluctuated over the course of her life, as has their content; some of her dreams are simply of glimpses of desolate locations that leave her feeling dread upon awakening, while others feature the gruesome deaths of her friends and loved ones at the hands of a supernatural force. Recently, her dreams have become more frequent and disturbing than ever, resulting in a shift in the quality of her work. Afraid that the dreams are aggravated by stress, and fearful that her newfound success may be slipping away, Kay's family and friends plan a vacation for her to a small island off the coast of Georgia. Accompanying Kay are her husband David (Alan McRae), Kay's brother Eric (Frederick Flynn) who introduced her to David, and Eric's wife Brooke (Carol Kottenbrook).
As the couples' plane prepares to land, their pilot, Marsh (Michael Holmes), informs them that he's just received notification that an Atlantic hurricane has shifted course towards the island. Marsh hurriedly drops the couple off, telling them that he has to leave the island before he's stranded there. The couples discover that, against expectations, the island is deserted, and populated largely by derelict buildings and the ruins of a once-thriving resort town. Kay informs the rest of the quartet that the island is the place she has been dreaming about since childhood, and that they are all in danger if they stay there. Unnable to leave due to the hurricane, Brooke, David, and Eric try to assuage her fears.
Over the next three days, David, Eric, and Brooke are murdered one by one. With each subsequent killing, alternate possibilities as to the motive for their deaths are offered; Eric believes that Marsh never left the island and brought the couples there to kill them, a supposition that is granted some support when Marsh is later seen on the island. Kay believes that the island has allowed her dreams to cross over into reality, and that the creature from her nightmares is responsible - a theory supported by the fact that the deaths only occur when Kay is asleep. Additionally, it becomes apparent that Kay herself may be the killer, murdering in the throes of a somnambulistic trance out of repressed resentment towards her loved ones.
...
Wikipedia