The Slayer (1982)

So, how did you spend your time last week, when we were all told to stay indoors as gale force winds battered the country?  I found myself watching an obscure so called slasher movie at two in the afternoon.  Does watching such a film in daylight hours dissipate any of the fear and sense of menace it seeks to induce in the viewer?  A good question - it isn't just the fact that we associate these things with darkness and the 'witching hour', but at two in the afternoon we, as viewers, are in an entirely different frame of mind than we would be late at night, at the end of the day.  We're in no mood to entertain the supernatural or crazed serial killers in broad daylight, so tend to be less accepting of the film's shortcomings and less inclined to indulge its inherent absurdities.  That said, I think that my reaction to The Slayer (1982) would have been much the same whatever time of day or night I saw it.  The fact is that, despite being lumped in with the genre by critics and commentators on its original release, The Slayer isn't really a slasher movie in any conventional sense.  That said, the killings that it does include are gorily and effectively enough staged that, at one point, it found itself mixed up in the whole 'video nasties' nonsense.  The Slayer's set up certainly sounds like a slasher movie scenario: four people are trapped on an island by a storm and find themselves stalked and killed by an unseen assailant.

Unlike the typical slasher movie, though, the protagonists aren't teenagers, but rather two married couples - artist Kay, her doctor husband David, her brother Eric and his wife Brooke.  Kay is the key character around whom the plot turns.  She has been increasingly plagued by nightmares, during which she and her loved ones are stalked and killed by a mysterious assailant - but can never recall the details when she wakes.  She has taken to painting what vague memories she has of the dreams, disturbing images that her brother fears will derail her successful career.  The island trip is intended to be a vacation to help her relax before a new exhibition of her work.  Naturally, Kay has a sense of foreboding about the trip, feeling a vague sense of familiarity when they arrive on the island.  Inevitably, weird things start to happen and the various characters start to die, with David being the first victim, vanishing during the night and eventually turning up decapitated in a deserted building that Kay had painted from her dreams.  Clearly, with only four possible victims, the killings are going to have to be spaced out quite considerably, (indeed, a the bonus killing of a fisherman is thrown in to keep things going), resulting in a very slow pace.  Much slower than than in a regular slasher picture.  Moreover, while it does have a handful of jarring shock moments, the film focuses on suspenseful build ups to the killings rather than just rapid shocks.

What quickly becomes apparent is that, (unsurprisingly in view of Kay's sleeping problems), is that we can never be entirely sure whether what we are seeing is actually happening, or whether it is part of Kay's dreams, (which she fears are taking over her waking life).  The killing of the fisherman, for instance, cuts back immediately to Kay waking up with a start as she lies on the beach.  Likewise, while apparently we see David's killing - he is decapitated in a lift - we again cut back to Kay waking up in bed, realising he isn't there and telling her brother and Brooke that she has dreamed about his death. The script tries to throw some shade with regard to the killer's identity, with Eric convinced that the creepy pilot who flew them there never left the island as is behind it all.  But inevitably, it all moves toward the idea that the killer is either Kay, in some sort of dream-induced trance, or that the creature from her dreams has somehow taken physical form.  At the film's climax, with Kay the only one left alive, she is finally confronted by a skeletal creature - 'The Slayer' - as the house burns around her.  But guess what?  That's right - we then cut back to Kay as a child, waking up from a nightmare and an incident involving a cat previously described by Eric is re-enacted.  Implying, of course, that the whole thing has been some kind of premonition on the part of the young Kay, one she couldn't act upon, because she couldn't recall the details, just the sense of dread and horror.  

So, was 'The slayer' real, an entity escaped from Kay's dreams, a construct of her subconscious that she had created in the same way she had her abstract paintings?  Or was she the killer, acting in a somnambulant state without conscious recollection of her actions, rationalising them as dreams?  Is it significant that the killer always uses some kind of physical implement to kill, such as hooks and pitchforks - surely a supernatural entity wouldn't need to do this?  Or was everything we saw a dream? Is the film, in fact, about a woman trapped in a series of recurring dreams from which she can never wake up and even if she did, wouldn't be able to discern her waking existence from a dream?  The script, of course, offers us no definitive answers - this is a horror thriller with intellectual pretensions, rather than a slasher film.  Which is both its main weakness and its strength.  A weakness because it frustrates the expectations of the casual viewer expecting a slasher film, undoubtedly leaving them feeling cheated by the lack of resolution, a strength because it is what lifts it above the run of derivative early eighties slashers and makes it linger in the memory.  Interestingly, like more conventional slasher movies, the motivating trauma for the killings seemingly lie in a childhood trauma, but here the 'monster' created by this trauma (Kay's dreams) - 'The Slayer' - was also the initial cause of the trauma, reinforcing the idea of Kay being trapped in a cyclical nightmare.

As alluded to earlier, the film's Achilles heel is its poor pacing, with far too many long and talky scenes between the murders - we have to wait nearly half the film's running time before the first proper killing and then have to endure what seems an age of people walking around the island looking for the missing David.  WE then have to wait virtually until the end of the film before the next two murders and the very end for our glimpse of the monster.  Moreover, with only four main characters, the dialogue and their interactions quickly become repetitive, not helped by some variable performances from its low-key cast.  To be absolutely fair, the often languorous pace is clearly intended to invoke a dream-like atmosphere which, at times it succeeds in doing.  Also, while the set-pieces might be few and far between, they are very well executed.  There is an impressive sequence with Kay waking up and seeing David beside her in bed, apparently alive, only to find, as she kisses him, that it is his severed head, which provides a real jolt as it isn't clear until that point that it is another dream.  The killings are well staged, with a pitchfork stabbing in the back, the prongs of the fork bursting through the victim's chest, looking particularly realistic.

All-in-all, while I can't say that I found  The Slayer exactly thrilling or chilling, it was quite intriguing in the way it unfolded.  Bearing in mind that it was director J S Cardone's first feature, it is actually a pretty credible effort - despite what was clearly a low budget, it has a very slick, professional sheen with surprisingly high production values.  The island locations are well used and well photographed, creating a suitably isolated feel.  So, not a classic, nor really a slasher movie, The Slayer does at least represent an attempt to do something slightly different in a low budget horror film.  Interestingly, it precedes, by a few years, the similarly themed, but much better known and more successful Nightmare on Elm Street, where the same basic idea was fashioned into a more conventional slasher format, thereby guaranteeing a greater degree of success by fulfilling the expectations of multiplex horror fans.