Poor Marty. Add him to the same company as the main characters in films such as Toxic Avenger and The Burning where a seemingly quiet, often nerdy, person is subjected to a prank that goes terribly wrong and, in most cases, sets the bullies up for violent revenge sometime down the road. In this case, Marty (Simon Scuddamore) is just your average, science obsessed High School nerd who's conned by the school's most popular girl into the locker room with the promise of sex. Of course, this being the type of flick it is, it's all part of an elaborate prank set up to embarrass Marty badly as the school jocks and their girlfriend's are outside filming everything.

They decide to continue on with the pranks even going so far as to mess around with the chemicals in the science lab which, it turns out, is a bad decision as a freak accident ends with Marty catching on fie and having acid splash in his face.

It's five years later and the school has been closed for years and is about to be demolished. This causes our rowdy group of bullies to decide to head back to their old stomping grounds, and the scene of the crime, in order to have a makeshift reunion of sorts that's promised to be filled with copious amounts of drinking and sex. That is until they start being killed off one-by-one by a psychopath who, usually, wears a cheap jester costume and giggles maniacally. Is it the work of Marty back for bloody revenge? Have you seen this type of movie before?

Originally titled April Fool's Day, but then changed to its current moniker so it wouldn't get confused with the Frank Mancuso (Friday the 13th) produced flick of the same name, Slaughter High is definitely not a very good slasher flick. How it managed to take a writing/directing team of three to make this is beyond me and, even though there's a lot of amusing deaths, it feels like they're trying way too hard to make them stand out from the pack. I'll admit to chuckling at moments involving an intestine blowout, a peaceful bath that turns deadly, and (in what's the only scene I remembered from my original viewing) a riding mower that's put to good use; but it's also difficult at times to sit through the lame attempts at humour and low grade acting. Then the confusing, and tacked on feeling, ending with its "look we flipped the script on you!" punch line comes along and effs everything up.

Speaking of acting, it has to say something that they've cast the recognizable Caroline Munro (Starcrash, Maniac, The Abominable Dr. Phibes) in the main role and have her play a girl who's supposed to be in her early twenties when it's quite obvious she's older - she was thirty-six when this was filmed. As Marty, Scuddamore isn't too bad but this would, sadly, mark his only film role as he'd commit suicide not long before this was released. However, the rest of the cast is pretty miserable with Donna Yaeger stinking up the place as our co-heroine Stella and everyone else joining her in the cesspool of High School stage production level performances.

Within the horror sub-genre of "Pranks Gone Wrong" there's plenty of good examples to point at such as Brian De Palma's take on Stephen King's debut novel, Carrie, as well as the campground slasher goodness of the aforementioned The Burning. Then there's fare like Slaughter High. Granted, it's nowhere near being the worst slasher movie ever made and you should be able to wring a few cheap laughs out of the ineptness on display, amazingly cheesy rock song they continually crank out in the background, the fact that composer Harry Manfredini gets to poke fun at his iconic Friday the 13th score, and sloppy effects - but that doesn't mean it's not crappy. (Chris Hartley, 11/3/11)

Directed By: George Dugdale, Mark Ezra, Peter Litten.
Written By: George Dugdale, Mark Ezra, Peter Litten.

Starring: Caroline Munro, Simon Scuddamore, Carmine Iannaccone, Donna Yaeger.