Too much of everything

good back-story, and good acting

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Night School (1981)* 1/2 (out of 4)A woman is sitting alone with a stranger dressed in a black motorcycle helmet and black outfit comes up and decapitates her. Soon Lt. Austin (Leonard Mann) is investigating the murder and before long more women from a local school turn up with their head cut off. Suspect quickly falls on a professor (Drew Snyder) who has had an affair with many women and his current love (Rachel Ward) begins to wonder what's going on.NIGHT SCHOOL is a pretty forgettable slasher that tries to mix that genre with that of a police thriller but it pretty much fails on both levels. After watching something like this it makes me appreciate something like 10 TO MIDNIGHT even more. There are all sorts of problems with this film but the biggest is the fact that the horror elements are weak and the thriller aspects are even weaker. If you've seen at least three films like this in your life then I'm going to be willing to bet you'll have no problem figuring out who the killer is.When you're watching a film like this and discover who the killer is so early on you really know you're in trouble. What's worse is that the horror elements are pretty bland as well as the majority of the death scenes happen either off camera or they're covered so that no actual money had to be spent on special effects. I'm going to guess Tom Savini was busy at the time but the producers of this should have waited to get him.Another issue is the fact that there's really nothing that happens as we get a murder then we hear the police talk, another murder and more police talk. This just happens over and over again and after a while it gets boring.I did think Mann was good in the lead and I also enjoyed Joseph R. Sicari and Nicholas Cairis. Ward is also good here and she's also involved in a somewhat neat wink to PSYCHO, which also has her in the nude. That scene alone is almost worth sitting through the whole film. With that said, NIGHT SCHOOL is certainly one of the weaker entries in the 80s slasher boom.

"Night School" has the female students of a Boston night college quite literally losing their heads at the hands of a psychopath in a biker helmet, with an anthropology graduate student (Rachel Ward) caught in the middle of it all.Overlooked and underexposed are two key words that come to mind after seeing this film; it's been bashed by critics and hasn't exactly gotten the love that other slashers of the period have amassed, but I knew I was in for a treat from the film's opening scene. I won't claim that the film is wildly original, because it obviously isn't— but it does have unique touches to it and some of the most savage murder scenes of its era. Directed by Ken Hughes— who, strangely enough, directed "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" a childhood memory of my own— the film opens with a horrific slashing scene involving a merry-go-round that sets the stage for what's to come. The cinematography here is moody and dark, and the photography of Boston's cobblestone streets and foggy evenings are effectively creepy. The attention to the city itself and its old-world architecture gives the film an almost British feel.What I found perhaps most impressive about the movie is its understated yet absolutely macabre murder scenes. The body count is relatively low compared to many of its peers, but each kill here counts. The method is the same in each scene, and yet it doesn't become any less unsettling as the bodies begin to pile up. There is little in the way in of extreme gore (in fact, Hughes sort of teases the audience by rarely giving in and showing us all), but the horrendous sound effects that come with each slashing, paired with the jarring score and killer's POV shots make the scenes unexpectedly disturbing.Off-setting the film's gritty edge is the slightly comedic relationship between the determined lieutenant and his bumbling assistant. Unconventional thematic elements are also at play here, including a blatant anthropological bent to the entire murder plot, an examination of the sexual politics of academia, and a surprising lesbian subplot between a female professor and her student. Rachel Ward plays Eleanor Adjai, the cool and levelheaded graduate student, and the film is ostensibly most known for being her film debut. Drew Snyder plays her smarmy professor, and we also have Leonard Mann as the headstrong "Harvard" police officer.Some have said the conclusion to the film is predictable, which I suppose is true, but given the context, this was a fairly original approach for 1981 (albeit a bit of a self-conscious riff on Hitchcock and the Italian giallo). There is a well-shot motorcycle chase sequence through Boston's narrow streets that concludes the film, as well as a nice graveyard denouement. A final "gotcha!" moment closes the proceedings, that appeared to me to have been directly lifted four years later in Paramount's "April Fool's Day." In fact, there were several moments throughout that were reminiscent of other films of the era, including a bathroom scene that may or may not have been re-created in "Curtains," as well as a culinary disaster in the vein of a particularly grim moment in "My Bloody Valentine." The connections are difficult to make and it's hard to say who did what first given that many of these films were shot around the same time, but there are striking similarities nonetheless. "Night School," also distributed by Paramount, does seem to have the signature Paramount feel that many of these films had.Overall, "Night School" is an underrated slasher film that somehow was unjustly glossed over in horror history books. It is a smarter slasher film than most, and also successfully incorporates elements of the psychothriller to bolster its effect. It is effectively shot, and its confrontational yet tightfisted approach to violence make for some of the most jarring murder scenes of any eighties slasher. Highlights: the aquarium scene, and a wicked "Friday the 13th"-esque after hours diner attack. 8/10.

With a barrage of Slashers from the early 1980's, how could any casual horror fan keep all of them straight? Unless you're a fanatic, or have an extremely good memory – or both, then it's easy to get lost with so many titles to consider. This trend of repeating similarly-based movies isn't a foreign concept to cinema and yet the Slashers of the '80's stand out in most people's minds as an overbearing exercise. Night School, although existing on the rare side of the heap, is featured next on our operating table.Night School recounts the tale of a young teacher's aid found slain in a back alley. This vicious act featured her decapitation at the hands of an individual donning a black outfit and a darkened motorcycle helmet. Lt. Judd Austin, a scholarly and effective crime scene investigator, is called out to examine the details. He concludes that the victim was employed by a local all-girls night school. Judd broadens his investigation by interviewing several acquaintances of the deceased woman. The murders that follow thereafter all showcase the preferred method of execution – beheadings! These are tied closely together by an additional similarity; each severed head is submerged in water. The premise of this film spells out a traditional who-dun-it. Director Ken Hughes, the creator of this project, made his debut in the early '50's and Night School would be his last piece of work in the directorial field. He is also responsible for 1968's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Ken died at the age of 79 in 2001 and was not a major player in the horror industry by any stretch of the imagination. Night School was also the debut of Rachel Ward who led a successful career as an actress after her involvement with this movie.Right off the bat I noticed a glaring mistake in the editing. This can be the result of various practices – whether poor editing all around or a scene removal process to make the grade are viable occurrences to blame. Night School also went by the name of Terror Eyes in the UK and was denounced as a "Video Nasty" by the British Board of Film Censors in the 1980's. Like other films found on that list, the ban has since been lifted. Warner Bros currently owns the rights to Night School and fans have yet to see a DVD release as of November of 2010.The thing about Night School is that it's more of a cop story than your average teenage entourage ushered into slaughter. In this respect it's a breath of fresh air but with moments of cop humor thrown in for good measure it's hard to fully classify the film alongside it's kin. I certainly wouldn't be able to write an in-depth essay on the articulation of the actors and actresses found within but their mannerisms and emotional output are believable enough. As far as the characters go, the masked killer is highly reminiscent of that dopey buffoon that I had the displeasure of viewing in 1985's The Nailgun Massacre (well it's a stretch I guess).Night School's soundtrack was composed by Brad Fiedal – a young and ambitious composer at the time who would later be responsible for working on all 4 installments of the Terminator series. Fiedal can also be credited with the likes of Just Before Dawn from 1981, Fright Night 1 & 2, and the Serpent and the Rainbow. Fiedal currently works on writing and arranging original musicals and holds no interest in returning to cinema. It never ceases to amaze me how so many professionals get their start doing horror films in one way or another…almost as if it's the proving grounds for talent.I think all-in-all, Ken Hughes had fun making this movie. I believe the players did too. Night School is, to some extent, considered a rare Slasher in comparison to some of the other greats established in '81 (and not-so-greats, too). When we discuss a film's rarity in the horror genre one can rest assuredly that a cult following is close at hand. So where does that leave me? A film's notoriety isn't a selling point for me to own it – there has to be something more; an air of panache, a chilling soundtrack, or great set of characters. This particular title just didn't hold my interest for long. In order for someone to swallow the very large pill that Night School is, they'd have to be a die-hard Slasher film collector or a completist such as myself. Is it a rare film? It is, and if it has even stricken your fancy to embark on a Slasher tour perhaps it's within your interest to give this a once-over. Like Eyes of a Stranger, which I've covered previously, Night School plays it too safely and by the numbers. Don't expect anything shocking or dangerous.

Like sadly too often the case with early 80's slasher-movies, this one honestly isn't as bad as the rating & reputation suggest and it obviously all depends on the viewers' prior expectations. If you're set to see a mindless and undemanding stalk 'n slash effort, you get just that, but with a tidbit of goodwill, you'll even notice and appreciate the creators' slightly more ambitious intentions. The vast majority of contemporary slasher flicks were blind copies of "Halloween", but "Night School" looks for role models that predate Carpenter's horror milestone by several years, more particularly Alfred Hitchcock (oh yes, yet another shower sequence) and various Italian Giallo movies! The killer's disguise and modus operandi, as well as the profile of the victims and several red herrings along the way, seem to come straight out of the script of the typical Giallo-effort. The stylish characteristics and outcome of the story may perhaps fall short (real Gialli have far more complicated denouements), but still this is one of the more likable non-Italian attempts at making a Giallo. "Night School" is also clearly sponsored by Boston's department of tourism, as the opening sequences depict multiple picturesque shots of the city by night. There's a killer on this loose in this beautiful city, completely dressed in black leather and wearing a pitch-dark motorcycle helmet, who brutally decapitates of young co-eds and dumps the chopped off heads in the nearest watery reservoir. Police inspector Austin quickly discovers a pattern, namely all victims attended night school classes and – more particularly – the anthropology lectures of professor / playboy Dr. Millett. All the evidence points either towards Millett himself or towards a simple-minded waiter/peeping tom, but that would just be too obvious, wouldn't it? The actual revelation of the killer's identity is ridiculously simple and easy to predict if you only just paid a little bit of attention to small clues. In spite of the gooey sounding head-hunter premise and its listing among the infamous Video Nasties, "Night School" is a rather tame and UN-shocking film. Most of the beheadings play off screen (at first, I even feared I was watching a censored version) and the rest of the bloodshed is kept to a minimum as well. The one sequence in the Sea Life Centre's locker room is quite mean-spirited, however, and probably single-handedly responsible for the notorious reputation. Director Ken Hughes (director of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", of all people) films a handful of effectively suspenseful scenes, the music is atmospheric and – even though I seem to be the only one who thinks so – the character of Taj (the assistant) was funny!