After a high school girl falls dead from a blood clot during a 200-meter race, members of the track team are slain one-by-one. Patch Mackenzie plays the dead student's sister, returning from the military, while Christopher George plays the harsh coach. E. Danny Murphy is on hand as the girl's grieving boyfriend.
"Graduation Day" (1981) is a cheap slasher that only cost $250,000. The high school setting is great for the genre, but "Prom Night" (1980) beat it to the theaters by 9.5 months whereas the parody "Student Bodies" (1981) debuted a few months after "Graduation Day." Although not technically slashers, high school horror flicks "Carrie" (1976) and "Christine" (1983) are cut from the same cloth in spirit. The difference is that those films had considerable budgets while "Graduation Day" is decidedly low-rent; and it shows.
Another issue is that the creators couldn't make up their minds if this was going to be a serious slasher or a campy parody. So they walked the balance beam between the two and it's an off-kilter vibe. But I got used to it and enjoyed the movie for what it is, a schlocky early 80's high school slasher.
There are a several highlights on the female front, including Linnea Quigley (Dolores), Karen Abbott (Joanne) and Denise Cheshire (gymnast Sally). Even Vanna White shows up (Doris).
The movie is overlong at 1 hour, 37 minutes, which is a tad too long to sustain a cut-rate fun slasher.
Likewise, seven and a half minutes was probably a little too lengthy for the live performance of the song "Gangster Rock" by Felony, but it is a driving hard rock ditty and the sequence perks up the film. Besides, the movie kept switching between the live song/roller skating to the slayings in the nearby woods. Thus it's assumed that the song either ran more around 5 minutes or the band simply did a longer rendition for the live setting, possibly because it was their local hit.
Unfortunately, the lead singer, Jeffrey Scott Spry, committed suicide in March, 1992. Remember this: Once you're dead, you're dead for a looong time.
The film was shot at La Cañada High School, La Cañada Flintridge, California, and nearby Pasadena (houses).
GRADE: C+
