GRADUATION DAY (1981)

GRADUATION DAY (1981)

Tagline: There are 200 seniors at Midvale High. And seven days till graduation. The class of '81 is running out of time.

(Horror, Mystery, Track, And Field) [R]

Come back here! Don't think I don't know who you are, because I do. Come on and show your face, you miserable scum!

In this one, a track star named Laura dies after winning a race after collapsing right on the track in front of hundreds of students. It doesn’t take long before a sweat suit, fencing mask-wearing killer starts stalking the high school’s track and field team. As the story unravels, relatives, lovers, and faculty float to the surface as the suspects, but who is picking the track team off one by one?

Some issues with this movie include numerous inexplicable music numbers, sometimes back-to-back and bizarre editing issues, and camera work. Like why are we getting butt shots of anyone just walking into a classroom? Also – for most of this movie “graduation” is the next day. It seems like this movie takes place over several days. 

GRADUATION DAY is considered lower tier or lower middle tier at best when it comes to the slasher genre. I was trying to think of why it hit a chord with so many slasher fans and I think I came up with a few reasons. 

1. The killer wears a fencing mask and kills with a fencing sword. At the time Jason hadn’t yet donned his hockey mask and very few slasher flicks had masked killers. 

2. Linnea Quigley stars in it as Dolores. The movie doesn’t have a ton of nudity, but of course, she is one of the characters that do go topless is her. Quigley had already starred in 4 horror flicks before this came out, but I think the movie gained cult status well after those movies, but Quigley herself was basically and still basically is one of the most well-known scream queens of all time. 

3. There are a bunch of closet Karen Abbott fans around and we just don’t know it?

4. It was Vanna White’s first feature film before she became a household name on WHEEL OF FORTUNE. 

That’s about all I can think of. This movie could have ended a few minutes earlier and been fine, but the killer just can’t die and nothing in this ends up really being about Graduation Day. It’s almost as if the producers were just running out of events and days to based horror flicks on. 

There are some chills towards the end of this movie, but overall the majority of the movie's run time just isn’t very interesting at all. I felt like I might as well have been watching GREASE. We do get a decent score when things finally kick in, but this won’t be a go-to horror flick for me. I kind of doubt it’s a go-to horror flick for anyone.

Overall I have to give this one a 2 out of 7. It’s just not any good and even with a few okay performances, it’s just not a solid movie. Even the backstory and plot are loosely thrown together like Olive Gardens all you can eat pasta ideas.
 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF APRIL FILMS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

Please check out the link below by clicking on the picture. Purchases made at Indy Planet for any issue of DARK 30 will go towards funding the next issue.