An old coot goes camping and makes the acquaintance of a vacationing family. Mom doesn’t like him, but dad assures her, “He’s just a harmless old guy!” (If you play a drinking game where you take a shot every time the father says a variation on this line, you’ll be drunk off your ass before the second act.) As it turns out, mom’s instincts were right. The old fart just busted his deranged son, Bernie out of the booby hatch and before long, he goes to town on the family with an axe. Only the daughter survives, and he chases her to a nearby camp where some counselors are taking a training course. It isn’t long before our axe-happy killer starts piling up counselor bodies like cordwood.
Moonstalker gives us a little bit of a Psycho situation where our heroes are killed off early on before we are introduced to another set of characters. It’s also interesting in that our killer, though quite mad, still has enough wits about him to steal the clothing and identity of one of his victims. Although he’s not quite as menacing while wearing oversized sunglasses and a cowboy hat (he kind of looks like Joe Don Baker) as he was when he was in his Slipknot mask and straitjacket, his appearance is at least different enough from the usual slasher fare to be memorable.
In fact, the movie is a little bit better than average the whole way down the line. I’m a fan of this sort of thing, so I appreciated some of the novel touches. It’s probably not novel enough to win over any non-slasher fanatics, but it’s also not too far off the beaten path that fans wanting more of the same will be disappointed.
For example, there’s the scene where the character of Marcie (Ingrid Vold, who has a Linnea Quigley-type quality to her) prepares for a lovemaking session with her boyfriend. In most of these movies, the girl would simply disrobe and hop in a sleeping bag. This is not the case with Moonstalker. Marcie’s boyfriend is a military fetishist, so that means she dresses up in a camouflage bikini, cracks a whip, and cranks Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” as a form of foreplay. You just don’t get that in your average Friday the 13th sequel.
The third act is a little plodding though. Despite the draggy pace, it does have a few cool bits like the campfire sing-along with a bunch of dead bodies. We also get a nice little twist at the end. It’s not enough to put it over the top or anything, but I kind of wish the set-up for a sequel happened. I wouldn’t have minded another go-round with Bernie.
AKA: Camper Stamper.
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