SLAUGHTER HIGH (1986)

SLAUGHTER HIGH (1986)

Tagline : Where the student body is going to pieces.

Okay, so in this thing a bunch of really jerky high school kids decide to terrorize the school nerd Marty, (played by the late Simon Scuddamore) into believing one of the more popular girls “Carol”, played by Caroline Munro was 35 when this movie was made. She actually plays a teenager in the opening scene. If you recognize the name, it might be because she was in a couple of 007 movies, or because she was in THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD where she played one of the lead characters “Margiana”. However she has been in a TON of movies and is still acting to this day. Anyway, that whole situation goes bad and later Marty is in a severe accident that leaves him badly burned. Fast forward a bunch of years and now the school is run down. The same group of mean kids decides to have a reunion on April Fool’s Day and Marty still hasn’t forgotten the tragedy. Like….he’s super pissed. 

There are few odd things about this movie that make sense only at the very end of the movie, but one I can explain right now. April Fools ends at noon in Britain. So if you watch this movie from a US perspective, the constant references to April Fools ending at noon won’t make any sense? This movie takes place in one of the more “beat up” schools I’ve seen in a long time. Even for the 80’s. I guess in real life the building (actually a sanatorium) was set to be demolished, so that kind of makes sense. 

This flick acknowledges that Jason from the FRIDAY THE 13TH series exists which makes a lot of sense when you hear the score. It’s a lot like the original FRIDAY THE 13TH score because it’s the same guy. The acting is pretty bad once you get past the first few leads. To give them credit, however, most of them are faking American accents because most of the cast is British, so perhaps they are decent actors and actresses but struggled with that part. The cinematography is pretty rough given that similar movies were shot far better years before this movie came out.

A lot of the alternate posters have a joker faced villain with a bat, but the character only carries the bat for a few scenes and does nothing with it. So don’t expect to watch this and see “batman”. Slaughter High was originally named “April Fool’s Day”, but that name ended up being taken by APRIL FOOLS DAY which was another movie made that same year. Overall this movie has a very FRIDAY THE 13TH feel to it, but with quite a bit more nudity and a few gorier scenes. 

The ending of this movie is pretty nuts and not what I expected, but overall the production just misses the boat for me in more ways than one. SLAUGHTER HIGH gets a 3 out of 7 for me, but I can see why horror fans would have regard for it. It’s got all the elements you would expect in an 80’s horror flick and the creepy factor is definitely palpable.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF SPECTACULAR TRADING INTERNATIONAL AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. NO, I DIDN'T MAKE THAT PRODUCTION COMPANY UP...THAT IS ACTUALLY THE NAME. 

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