Moon in Scorpio (1987)

Triple arf! Remember Britt Ekland? Who used to be Rod Stewart’s girlfriend back in the seventies? Here she stars in her very own low-budget thriller  as a new bride who commits mayhem when her honeymoon cruise turns into a bloodbath. 

Under questioning by psychiatrists she takes us through a series of flashbacks.  We see how the groom, a veteran,  surprises his bride by inviting his old Viet Nam buddies to join them on their honeymoon.  We see Ekland express her misgivings.  Then we see  the newlyweds and two other couples take the yacht out onto the water, where an ominous atmosphere develops.  Eventually a mysterious killer starts picking them off, one by one, with a really nasty-looking multi-bladed weapon. The moon is in Scorpio, you see, and it’s an evil time, and blah blah blah.   Finally Britt is the sole survivor and must fight for her life. She slays and unmasks the killer and it’s—but I mustn’t spoil the ending.

Actually, Moon in Scorpio is unintentionally rather funny. I defy anyone to watch Britt Ekland numbly reciting her bad lines, with that deer-in-the-headlights look of hers, without laughing. And who could forget the mysterious killer in slippers? Or the amazingly amateurish simulation of a Viet Nam atrocity, which looks like it might have been filmed in one of the wilder parts of the UC Berkeley campus? 

The only member of the  cast who can act is James Booth as one of the psychiatrists, Dr. Torrance.   Too bad he has only three lines.

Text copyright Diana Blackwell, 2002.