April Fool's!

In the interest of transparency, tonight's screening was chosen based solely on the VHS box art I remember seeing at my local video rental place in the 80's/early 90's.  As with a whole lot of 80's horror movies, the box art was what sold the movie to anyone not familiar with the work, especially children who were not supposed to watch such scary movies.  The caveat to that is that the box art frequently had scenes or characters not in the actual movie, it's what made me rent Dead Alive (boy was I disappointed).  In this case, the box art has a woman with her back towards the box holding a knife and her long hair is tied into a noose. Although this scene was not in the movie, I was still able to enjoy this original and entertaining movie, I mean, just look at the picture I posted above, way better than noose hair.  

Having never seen or heard anything specific about this movie, I did not know what to expect.  I briefly read the logline and let my brain convince me I knew what was going to happen.  Somebody smarter would have already learned that just as you cannot judge a horror movie by its VHS box cover, you should not judge a horror movie by the description.  Spoilers ahead for this thirty-four-year-old movie.  Watch it and then come back and catch up loser, otherwise keep reading. 

I was sold on this movie within the first five minutes, already terrified. The movie starts with a little girl playing with a jack in the box. To this day I am afraid of the anticipation of that stupid toy springing up before the part in the song where the weasel pops.  In addition to that, a lot of the time jack in the boxes have stupid clowns inside, if you know you know.  In fact, I was at Target a couple weeks ago and was thinking I was tough and over my fear of jack in the boxes and long story short, I yelled and walked away very fast so the kids would not see me. I want to be clear that it is the anticipation that terrifies me and not the actual toy, (unless it has a clown).  I could tell from the beginning scenes with said toy that the director Fred Walton knows how to expertly use sound to build suspense and anticipation in scenes.  He did so brilliantly in other scenes like when Skip is murdered in the dark silence that is interrupted by a cat screeching.  A lot of other suspenseful scenes include the use of the classic 80's keyboard breaking up the quiet.  You kind of expect the music to be interrupted by a sudden visual or cacophonous sound.  All in all, I think this is the movies greatest cinematic strength.  

The plot centers around a wealthy girl named Muffy who invites he friends and acquaintances to her parents' secluded mansion on an island that's only reachable via ferry and then boat.  The friends include the typical cliche character archetypes of nerds, jocks, jerks and the horny.  After a guy gets his face badly smashed and disfigured by a boat and has to be taken to the hospital, the guests arrive to the mansion where Muffy begins to play pranks on them because it is April Fool's Day. Rigged drinking glasses and light fixtures, sawed off chairs the usual tricks people must have found hilarious in the 80's.  It's worth noting that one of the friends, Arch is played by Thomas F, Wilson, Biff from Back to The Future.  Audiences got to see him in this movie right after Back to the Future since this came out a year after that.  If you've seen this movie, we're you also thinking of his quotes from Back to the Future or are you normal? Anyway, the friends start disappearing and dying one by one and every time Muffy comes in acting awkwardly never knowing what just happened.  When the friends catch on that someone is trying to kill them, they agree to all remain together in the same room for safety.  Literally five minutes after that they all split up into dark and unexplored rooms in the house. It was at this point where I thought I knew how this was going to end and started thinking about what I would do if I were stupid enough to accept an invitation to stay on a secluded island with someone I didn't know that well and my friends started dying.  I thought about how I would grab Muffy since she was clearly the killer and tie her up until the seemingly only constable in the area showed up hours later.  I would get all of my friends in the same room have two groups take turns sleeping and guarding the door.  Anything other than walk around a big house while a killer was loose somewhere nearby. 

I then started talking about how cliche this movie was and when the concept of an evil crazy twin was introduced, I doubled down on my smugness.  I started thinking how 80's horror movies seemed to have a fetish for siblings where one went to a mental institution but somehow managed to escape and start a killing spree. This was literally the plot for Blood Rage which came out a year after this.  Just before the last two victims are going to be killed with a knife, we see all of the other supposedly dead friends relating in the living room. Turns out, it was just a big April Fool's Joke on everyone and nobody got hurt.  After each person "died" they were told of the joke to see who would be the last one alive.  Even the constable and the guy who got his face smashed were in on the joke.  Muffy informs the group that she intends to do this every summer as a "Whodunnit" mystery theater thing for paying customers and her friends were just the test subjects. 

I did not expect this twist in the end, thinking I was so smart and thinking since this movie had all the predictable elements from a horror movie, the payoff was going to be minimal.  This movie lulled me into a false sense of predictable security and then dropped me like a 12-year-old nanny.  They played all the lame April Fool's pranks in the beginning, I did not think the whole thing was going to be the joke. It reminded me of Scream, an isolated big house where people are getting picked off and in the end there's a twist where some of the people you thought were dead were in fact alive. I'm a big fan of originality and this film is it especially for 1986.  If you think about it, Muffy St John is the inventor of escape rooms.