NIGHT SCHOOL

 1980/18/85m

“A is for Apple, B is for Bed, C is for Co-Ed, D is for Dead, F is for failing to keep your head.”

A.k.a. Terror Eyes

Director: Kenneth Hughes / Writer: Ruth Avergon / Cast: Leonard Mann, Rachel Ward, Drew Snyder, Joseph R. Sicari, Nicholas Cairis, Karen MacDonald, Elizabeth Barnitz, Annette Miller, Holly Hardman.

Body Count: 6

With only viable suspects, you won’t have to do much thinking to work out who is beneath a black motorcycle helmet beheading girls around Boston with a rather unique, boomerang-shaped blade. Although, a slow-witted peeping Tom is thrown into the mix to try and sway suspicion away from the real killer.

Nicely put-together from the director of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, with lush photography, but it never really settles into itself – is it a police thriller or a slasher pic?

Either way, accusations of misogyny could be quite fairly levelled at this one, despite having a female scribe, the eventual motive does little to defuse the women-are-nothing-more-than-vacuous-victims subtext.

Splatter wise, there’s a fair serving of blood for kitty to lap up, but it’s nowhere near as explicit as its residency on the Video Nasty list would have you believe: The killer leaves the decapitated heads submerged in buckets, aquariums, and kitchen sinks, but the gore is no less sloppy and amateur than a zillion other, cheaper flicks.

Rachel Ward probably looks back on his with the half the embarrassment she’d feel over The Final Terror, another title which, like this, isn’t particularly appropriate, as the school is hardly relevant. The Childcatcher is still way scarier.

Blurb-of-interest: Leonard Mann was later in Silent Night Deadly Night III.