Retro Raunch Revisit

APRIL FOOL'S DAY (1986)
Deborah Foreman, Amy Steel, Thomas F. Wilson, Griffin O'Neal, Leah Pinsent, Clayton Rohner, Ken Olandt
Directed by Fred Walton
Released March 27, 1986 (Happy 40th Anniversary)
Featuring one of the most iconic & prominent images for 80's horror movie posters, it might surprise many that even at a late stage of 1986, with the era's slasher subgenre beginning to wind down, and it's popularity having shrunk due to stagnancy, APRIL FOOL'S DAY's cover was STILL one of the extremely scant few depictions (if not the actual first) to slyly infer a woman as a possible mass killer instead of the gender appearing as the screaming stalked victim, corpse, or skeletal form that was usually the norm. A group of 8 yuppie college friends have been gathered by Skip (who all know him but not each other) for a spring break weekend getaway at an island mansion (filmed in British Columbia) belonging to his rich heiress cousin, Muffy. Ranging in bookish, quiet, sarcastic, crass, and ditzy, the group are celebrating their final year of school, and with the housekeeper gone, there's plenty of fun, flirting, mingling, and horniness on hand. While waiting for a ferry to shuttle them to the secluded estate, a pierhand named Buck is injured in a grisly accident because of a moronic prank involving a switchblade fake stabbing, and his nearly being crushed from a boat mooring resulting in his face being disfigured. Citing the group at fault, he is rushed back to a mainland hospital. Hardly setting off on a good note, once arriving at Muffy's luxurious place however, everyone find's she is really gung-ho about playing practical jokes.

At first (and precipitated by a jack-in-the-box -- in which a beginning flashback about the toy gave haunting insight into Muffy's possible shaping), they are numerous goofy & immature gags that she has set up around the house such as breakaway chairs, a malfunctioning faucet, lights that won't turn off, broken doorknobs, a portrait with moving eyes, dribble glasses, whoopee cushions and exploding cigars, but they become more annoying & unnerving in the form of drug kits, a tape recording of a crying baby, a drawer full of S&M gear, and a newspaper article about 6 victims dying in fog. (A shout-out to John Carpenter). When Muffy's demeanor changes, friends start disappearing, with each revealed to be hiding a sinister secret. And then bodies & severed heads begin turning up, dumped into a well and floating under the docks. Trapped with no way to get back to the mainland, isolated with their numbers dwindling, and with communication cut off, they are being slaughtered by a maniac who they suspect is Buck out for revenge. Is it all just an elaborate, cruel & sick game, or is there much more to Muffy the hostess than just her valley girl name? After all, she seems very chill for all the panic taking place and offers to make tea(!) It turns out Muffy has a twin sister, Buffy, (a slayer in her own right) who is a violent asylum patient and has escaped. Buffy has killed Muffy and impersonating her, is offing everybody. But hang on: remember the title of this movie? It's all a big joke.

In a doozy of a then-unguessable twist, it turns out that Muffy from the get-go has been staging a dress rehearsal all along with the co-operation of the group as part of her plan to turn the estate into a murder mystery vacation resort. Skip (the first victim) is infact Muffy's brother, and Buck is a Hollywood sfx & makeup guru. This has all been a dry run and champagne flows to celebrate its success. That night in her room, Muffy finds a wrapped gift which is the jack-in-the-box. Snuck up from behind, her throat is cut by one of her friends, Nan, but this also is a trick on the audience as the knife is a stage prop. A final wink/nudge with the holiday joke being on Muffy. As one of the last big budget horror productions, APRIL FOOL'S DAY is memorable for presenting it's 'movie-within-a-movie' formula and not until a decade later with 1996's SCREAM did we see this pulled off again in sweeping manner. Originally there were 2 alternate endings: one with Skip killing Muffy for real out of jealousy only to end up dead himself, and the other with him instead of Nan sneaking into the room. For all the familiar tropes, unlike many contemporaries at the time, the movie contains a bonus of being surprisingly devoid of usually big plot holes. It also has some brisk moments of genuine exchanges that played quite effectively such as Skip confiding in Nan an honest belief of feeling like the black sheep in his family, or Muffy taking a breezy magazine sex quiz with 2 other girls, or Nan revealing she had an abortion.

As many of the talented cast & crew had been in other horror films, the idea of deliberately pulling the rug out from the viewer, and turning slasher conventions on their head, was refreshing. With a creep-factor atmosphere that builds with suspense and tension, APRIL FOOL'S DAY is a mixture of dark comedy, some raunch and whodunnit, and also has similarities to Agatha Christie's 1939 book, 'And Then There Were None'. In the years afterwards, I find the movie doesn't deserve the hate that it gets. And unlike many horror flicks featuring assembled characters who are extremely unpleasant with atrocious acting, this group here are considerably above average, and because of their varying idiosyncratic personalities, they have an appeal and are likable. Yes, it was a box office disappointment but it was the right time at this period to say we could all loosen up. And this particular non-traditional display was an exercise of solid self-awareness in category, and the non-insulting parodying served to show that not having to take itself serious could work too. In total, the movie deserves its cult status, and contrary to popular hostile criticism, does not deliver a cop-out conclusion. As for the direct-to-video 2008 remake starring Scout Taylor-Compton? That doesn't even hold a candle to the original.