Director: George Dugdale, Mark Ezra, Peter Litten.
Well, it's April Fools Day, technically, and Slaughter High was originally titled "April Fool's Day" and takes place on the titular day as well, so it seems like a fitting beginning. We'll follow up with other April Fool's films tomorrow, but for tonight(well, this morning) we'll focus on this little gem from the mid-eighties slasher craze. If memory serves, it's actually a rather fun little film with a lot of charm, but it's been a long time since I've checked it out.
Hey, we have a score from Harry Manfredini...and, wait, three directors? I seriously had no idea about that, and I usually know that kind of thing. Caroline Munro, I know, though...a scream queen in her own right with huge...tracts of land. Anyway, we have a pretty simple set up here: nerdy Marty is lured into a prank by Munro under false promises of locker room sex, and hilarity ensues. Marty, of course, is really exceptionally lame: I wonder if the prank would have been satisfying to this group of "cool" kids if Marty acted like a human being instead of a cast-off from Revenge of the Nerds. Anyway, Caroline convinces Marty to get into the shower, turns it on...gets him naked and the group of punks throw open the shower and take a picture of him naked, spray him with soap, rub him down with a sponge, and give a swirley...all on the guys birthday. Only Caroline shows even the slightest amount of remorse...the coach comes in and finds this all occurring and forces all the punks to go the gym and run laps...and, of course, our bullies blame Marty for this punishment. I was bullied in High School but never to this level of cruelty. The Coach gives it to 'em pretty good, though...except two of the punks have skipped the punishment to further torment Marty...and Marty hasn't figured out that Caroline led him into a trap. So he accepts a joint from his tormentors that makes him sick, and while he's throwing up, the ringleader screws with Marty's chemistry experiment that then blows up and hideously scars his face. Ha ha. April Fools.
I mean, I think even I would have picked on Marty. I'm not proud of that, but anyone THIS ridiculous would be way too easy of a target. Not that I would have ever gone as far as these assholes did...but, yeah. To be fair to the jerks, they clearly didn't really mean to create a situation that would hideously scar the guy...but, three pranks in a row is still pretty excessive any way to slice it...also, screenwriting wise, it's really a long way around. It's taken an absurdly long time to get to this accident that assuredly creates a super villain. Anyway, the jerks witness Marty's start of darkness and are understandably feeling kind of bad about it...at least to the point that Caroline Munro wakes up from a nightmare about it years later. Not sure if waking up is an improvement, though: she lives in one of the ugliest apartments I've ever seen, and apparently she's an actress. So, living nightmare.
Also, in a pretty clumsy transition: Caroline is going to her High School Reunion. Off she drives in her Voltswagon Beetle to her surprisingly secluded, countryside high school. Oh, no, wait, sorry: the beetle belongs to Skip or whatever...the ringleader captain of the team/class clown(somehow that combination occurred)...anyway. Seriously, this is one secluded high school...and apparently it's abandoned? How does a high school get abandoned? And did these characters not keep in touch with anyone outside their immediate group of friends? No one else? It gets dark and they don't go back to town, instead deciding to break into the dark, clearly abandoned high school.
At least with Harry Manfredini doing the score we get a Friday the 13th music sting when one of the dolts jumps out with a Jason mask on. He even makes a direct reference to the film...which makes it even odder that these guys are wandering into a horror film scenario. They find a room with decorations and Marty's old yearbook, and there's some exposition and the janitor shows up...and then he gets killed. The characters play some jokes on each other that are...well, a little funny, anyway. The bit where they bet Skip that he couldn't drop a quarter into a funnel stuck into his pants and then dumped water down it is pretty good.
The first of the characters that isn't a lowly janitor is killed during the party scene when one of the randos drinks an acid beer...and his stomach inflates and explodes in a big gooey mess. The rest of the party bolts for it, only to find they're locked in and can't escape. The stomach burst effect was actually pretty solid...looked good.
Know what's never a good idea? Full black on screen. Eventually the guy manages to show up under some lighting, but it takes a minute or so to get there. I never really bought the "killer in the car" gag under these circumstances: the guy runs out with the keys to Carol's car, and Marty is inside. How did Marty know which car the guy would go for? Or, did he see him and instead jumped into it while nobody could see him? I guess that's possible.
One of the dingbats decides to take a bath, which I'm not even sure where she'd find a bathtub in a high school, but somehow Marty rigged the plumbing to dump acid into the bath, and she melts. Actually, right up until the last moment where her face dissolves in a time lapsed claymation effect, the death looks pretty good again: her body is covered by burns and stuff, and the girl has quite the pair of lungs on her. Her scream is among the best.
Marty must have been worth a fortune...in order to fully rig this old abandoned school with death traps, electrified windows and such...I can't imagine how much that would cost. Apparently being a hideously scarred psychopath pays really well.
One of the girls is married to one of the dolts...and was sleeping with one of the other guys, and apparently she and the other guy have a child that the husband-dolt thinks the kid is his. Classy folks. And then an impotence joke. Hilarity. I can't think of anything more inappropriate than having sex after two or three of your friends had died horribly...in typical horror film fashion, they're murdered in the middle of the act by an electrified bed. Again, Marty really has his shit together.
Seems like we're already down to three: Skip, Caroline and the hippy girl whose name I didn't catch. Skip starts demanding that Marty show himself, yelling threats and the like...maybe not the best way to approach the situation. But, considering that Skip asks "what do you want from us" and doesn't seem to understand that all Marty wants is their untimely deaths...I dunno, maybe try saying sorry? Do they make a "sorry we inadvertently scarred you horribly" hallmark card?
Oh, Nancy is the hippy girls name...Nancy blames Caroline and Skip for all the carnage(which isn't entirely inaccurate, since they were the primary offenders) but quickly backs down. Skip is convinced that Marty will leave them along after mid-day, which makes absolutely no sense. I don't think time factors all that much in Marty's psychotic plan to exact murderous revenge. Wait, April Fools ends at noon? Where did that come from? Hmm, research says it ends at Noon...in the UK. I don't think this movie is supposed to be taking place there, though...Nancy is clearly cracking, Skip appears to have been hung. Caroline is the only one keeping things together.
Marty furthers the mind games by playing the video of him being pranked, and Nancy runs for it. Apparently Nancy succeeds where everyone else has failed and manages to get outside in no time...only to be herded into a pit full of hot mud or something. Nancy almost makes it out, but Marty shoves her back in...which is apparently fatal. Now Caroline gets to do the final girl panic and run around finding corpses, which is always fun, especially with the Manfredini music. He really is one of my favorite composers. Caroline wacks Marty with a bat, but then she, uh, drops it...and all the light bulbs burst(really, where did he get funding?!)...y'know, the photography isn't bad, either. The simplistic, maze-like set design actually creates a sense of disorientation when combined with the narrow focus camera shots and steady-cam moves.
Adding to my "Caroline's life is actually a waking nightmare" thesis is her outfit. It looks like she made her own outfit out of bedsheets...parachute pants, big cumbersome belt over her stomach. It's kind of awful. So I'm not sure being attacked by Marty is even the worst thing to happen to her. Did I mention that Marty has a jester mask, and that it's actually kind of cool? I probably should have. Oh, it turns out Skip wasn't dead...well, until he staggered in front of Caroline and she embedded a hatchet in his head. Oops. April Fools, dude.
Despite having a run in with a strange death trap in the locker room the first time she was in there, Caroline runs back into it a second time anyway, hiding in the shower where she pranked Marty the first time. Marty follows her in...takes off his mask, and plunges a spear right into her chest. Marty then celebrates in crazy person fashion...until he hears the voices of his victims taunting him. Actually, according to my research, the April Fools tradition they were citing earlier actually suggests that anyone who performs a prank after mid-day is the actual April Fool, so considering that he killed Caroline after noon might be why the ghosts of his victims are harassing him.
Except they aren't, because in another variation on the April Fools theme, this movie is an April Fools on the audience themselves: the whole movie has actually been the fever dream psychotic fantasy of Marty in the hospital, apparently shortly after his accident. For whatever reason, even though the alarm is going off, the Doctor takes his time responding, opting instead to finish his paperwork. Marty kills the nurse, throws on her outfit, kills the Doc and starts ripping his own skin off as the movie draws to a close.
Final Thoughts: There's a clever element to the "all a dream" thing, considering that the movie was originally supposed to be called "April Fools Day" and playing with that concept. It's not necessarily a great idea-and was done considerably better by April Fools Day-but there is an intelligence to it that is admirable. For what is ostensibly a pretty straight-forward 1980's slasher flick, this works pretty well. Some of the deaths are admittedly inventive(well, somewhat, anyway) and the effects are mostly well done, and the killer has a pretty striking look that even plays off of the absurdity of the entire scenario and the personalities of his victims. It's pretty standard stuff, but there's a sense of charm here.
Final Rating: Two and a Half stars.
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