Scott LeBrun The pretty Sarah Kendall plays Kay, a painter who goes on vacation with her husband David (Alan McRae), and her brother Eric (Frederick Flynn) and his wife Brooke (Carol Kottenbrook). The locale they choose is an island that is prone to stormy weather. Mysteriously, characters start perishing, and Kay believes that the culprit is some sort of phantom figure that she's been dreaming into existence.The filmmaking debut for screenwriter and director J.S. Cardone ("Shadowzone", "The Forsaken") is noteworthy for its "nightmares manifesting themselves in waking life" concept, utilized two years before Wes Cravens' much more famous "A Nightmare on Elm Street". Therefore, it's worthy of at least some respect for being a little ahead of the curve.The film itself isn't great, but it's certainly a fair example of its type. It will appeal to horror fans who prefer atmosphere, because "The Slayer" has plenty of that. Which is not to say that gore is nonexistent; there is some effective bloodshed. The pace is pretty slow, which may cause some viewers to have a hard time maintaining interest. The principal quartet of actors is rather nondescript, and, truth be told, it is a little difficult caring what happens to them. Kendall in particular is not much of an actress.Fans of the genre may be amused by Cardones' usage of its tropes, such as the weirdo character, a pilot named Marsh (Michael Holmes), who's handy with the warnings about the setting.To Cardones' credit, the title monster is BARELY seen at all until near the end of the picture, and when it finally gets a reveal, it's thankfully not a disappointment; it looks pretty cool.Excellent location work (on Tybee Island, Georgia) and Robert Folks' wonderful orchestral soundtrack are heavy assets, although some people may feel a little let down by the ending.Six out of 10.

GL84 Struggling with terrible dreams, a woman is talked into a vacation with her brother and several friends on a small island for a relaxing getaway realize that the nightmares revolve around a demonic entity that now been released into the world and must confront the creature to survive.This is one of the most underrated early-80s slashers out there. One of the best aspects of this one is the central storyline which is quite entertaining and offers up plenty of suspense. As this one concerns a thirty-something artist who has suffered from the same recurring nightmare since childhood where she is stalked and killed which form the basis for her new paintings and becomes increasingly obsessive about putting those images on canvas, the early setup here is quite involved yet still manages to give this a decent set-up. As her nightmares become more vivid, the more in danger they are all in by someone or something from her dreams, which is a clichéd one to be sure, but it makes for a fun time here due to the more adult setup rather than the more youthful approach at the time. That also gives this one some really great elements to play with, as there's a large amount of suspense and atmosphere coming from the film. The film has a storm sweep through the place, causing a really great tension as there was always a raging thunderstorm, and with the really interesting and creepy design for the house, the stalking scenes in here get somewhat chilling at times. From the beginning, the place has a completely suspenseful vibe and lets this one generate some solid moments here from the first one up in the attic when the group first arrives, the later one down in the basement where the killer strikes using a rather unconventional trap finally kill them off and some tense scenes around the house where the killer comes around to pick off the last remaining group-members for some rather fine stalking with the greatness of the chase throughout the house which ends this on a high note. It even has a few fun moments for the gorehounds which all combined make for a great viewing as this here has only a few small problems with it that are what keep it down somewhat. The main problem is that there's a double flaw in the way it's paced. The first one is that the middle segment of the film is remarkably dull and boring. The majority of the time is spent wandering around the house spouting off to whoever who will listen about what the dreams have just been going on, and it really manages to pad out the film with an aggravating, annoying subplot while also doing little to move it forward after what has already been said about it. That also has the factor of throwing up the notion that the film is barely over an hour long and still feels like an eternity, which shouldn't happen. A film of this length with the style of body count means that it should flow quickly and there's none of that in the film. Otherwise, these here are what keep the film down.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language, Brief Nudity and a mild sex scene.

Michael_Elliott The Slayer (1982) ** (out of 4)Kay (Sarah Kendall), her husband David (Alan McRae), her brother Eric (Frederick Flynn) and his wife Brooke (Carol Kottenbrook) decide to go on vacation because of Kay's strange dreams that are harming her life. She claims that her dreams tells her things and before long someone shows up and starts picking them off one by one.THE SLAYER is a mildly entertaining slasher movie that manages to have a few good moments scattered throughout its running time but at the same time there are certainly some flaws to be found with the picture. There were countless slash and dice movies throughout the 1980s and this here really isn't very popular and in fact it pretty much disappeared there for a while until Arrow Video remastered it and released and uncut version, which is what I'm reviewing here.The thing the film has going for it are the special effects. This isn't really a flat-out slasher but we basically have a group of people being stalked by someone or something. This leads to some pretty good killings including three of them that are quite graphic when it comes to the blood. Fans of this type of stuff will certainly enjoy the effects and wish that there were more of them. I'd also argue that there's one intense sequence where the first victim is wondering around looking for something.The performances aren't the greatest that you're going to see but I thought all four were good enough for this type of film and I'd argue that they were rather realistic when it came to the performances. They all seemed like actual siblings and friends and I thought this added to the picture. With all of that being said, THE SLAYER really doesn't have much of a story and sadly the majority of it is quite boring. This includes an extremely long sequence where one of the members goes missing and the rest walk around and walk around and walk around some more looking for him. This entire sequence was incredibly boring and just went on way too long.It's really too bad that THE SLAYER didn't have a few more slayings because there's no question that these were the best parts of the film.

td1026 I enjoyed The Slayer. The acting is not laughable like other genre efforts and the atmosphere is dark and creepy. The pacing is a little slow, but there are a few gory kill scenes scattered without to keep the viewer from dozing off. The film looks good; I love the landscape shots of beautiful coastal Georgia, which reminds me very much of my native Florida. The ending is definitely a twist! It comes out of left field and will leave you with an uncomfortable feeling Check this one out! Genre buffs will definitely not be disappointed. Anyone else probably isn't wasting the time to read reviews on such an obscure flick.