I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

HIGHER EDUCATION WILL KILL YOU









April Fools Day (1986)

Who says a mystery horror movie can't be fun? Actually I find a lot of them fun because they're so stupid. This movie gives us a huge wink to let us know that yes, it's going to be stupid so enjoy the ride. Before you had 'spoofs' about horror movies, there was this. Starring a lot of characters you'll recognize if you watched any 80's movies at all (and some into the 90's) this bevy of familiar faces is in this story of college students visiting an heiress who inherited an island and a huge house for a big party. Of course you know (and they seem to keep using the same scene just about every movie) that if there's an island involved it was probably filmed in British Columbia. 

So we have a whole group of 80's talking, clothes wearing, hair blown dry mid twenty somethings playing college students per usual. They're spending spring break at the house of Muffy (sorry, that's her name) St. John. One boy (played by Griffin O'Neal, beleaguered son of Ryan O'Neal) starts the party off with a gag that has him faking being stabbed and falling overboard. He's fine but as a result, Buck, a deckhand, suffers a gruesome accident trying to get the boat tied to the pier.


Muffy has set the group up with the typical April Fool's jokes - whoopee cushions, dribble glasses, collapsing chairs, all the stuff of good fun. They then retire for the night. And that, she said in an ominous tone, is when things go wrong. One goes missing, others, after finding weird stuff in their room as if being taunted about their pasts also start to go missing one by one. Eventually their bodies are found and the rest are desperate to find their way off the island. 


But things just get worse, the body count rises and... I hate to give away the ending. This is one of those movies that is better seen than read. I'm not saying this is a good movie, it's just - original. For the 80's anyway. Check it out if for nothing else to see who you can recognize and see how silly those of us old enough for the 80's were about clothes and hair. The ending is different and a good end to a silly entry into the world of college horror.