April Fool's Day (1986) Horror

April Fool's Day (1986) - This film is 33 years old so this commentary on it is FILLED WITH SPOILERS since you should have seen it by now. Certainly a classic in my mind a slice in time, a pseudo-slasher, a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, a perfect April Fool's joke. A bit cruel to the characters but in the end really harmless pranksterism. The 1986 film written by Danilo Bach, who a couple years earlier had a big hit in writing Beverley Hills Cop (1984) hits again with a clever little film about a group of college friends who get more than expected when visiting their friend Muffy (Deborah Foreman) on her private island. When things start to go horribly wrong the friends begin to question if Muffy is really who she says she is or a murderess trying to do them all in. The film was well received upon release making an opening weekend of 3.4 million on a five million dollar budget. It finished by making a cool 12 million which in the eighties was a winner for a horror movie. Viewers have been less forgiving of the awkward characterization in the film, the princess rich girl, the bookworm girlfriend the callus jock etc. with a current rotten tomatoes, Tomatometer score of  38% while the audience score is just 47%.
  My personal feeling is this movie is wonderful. It captures many of the elements of slasher tension and gory kills with the comic relief that it is April Fool's Day, as well as a bit of a mystery. Sure there are some stereotypes particularly the men in it being horndogs. Much of the female dialog also fails the Bechdel test but much of this is elevated by the wonderful twist ending. It was a stroke of genius to cast Amy Steele as Kitt, she gets to be our final girl but with a completely different outcome from her role as Ginny in Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981). That film not so far in the past that people would not remember it.

  The story is a collection of college friends are joining hostess wealthy Muffy St. John on the private island she is about to inherit for a reunion. It is a smart piece of writing to have not all the characters know each other. This creates outsider who can later be used to cast suspicion on when things go wrong. The characters meet each other waiting for the ferry which is the last one before the weekend, creating a location that is isolated from help. Sort of a classic slasher setup. It is established in the early scenes that it is April Foll's Day (weekend) spring break  for the group and they are going to spend it at Muffy's.
  On the ferry Skip (Griffin O'Neal) and Arch (Thomas F. Wilson) play a pocket knife game called stretch where they face each other and take turns throwing the knife trying to sticks. (In it in the wood of the deck in this case) If it sticks the person on the receiving end must move his nearest foot to the position of the knife and pick the knife up without falling. Now he gets a turn to throw the knife. The idea being to make the opponent stretch until they fall retrieving the knife or moving his foot.  I played sort of the reverse when I was a kid. Chicken where you tried to stick the knife on the inside of the opponents feet, moving them closer and closer until one of the combatants flinches or quits. Or you lose by hitting the opponents foot. All of this is an elaborate pranks where the two guys pretend to argue and then struggle and Skip is stabbed in the stomach. He falls overboard right as they approach the island.  A fake knife gag that scares everyone on the boat for a minute or two. It gets ferry worker Buck (Mike Nomad) in the water which sets a a chain reaction where he face is mauled when caught between the dock and the boat. He is rushed off to the hospital in the constable's boat and the constable is right behind them in Muffy's boat leaving the group on the island with no way to get off.

  This first act is to set up the character's and who is with whom but it is also to present Muffy as a detailed oriented friend who dresses impeccably and is in control of her world.  Chaz (Clayton Rohner) and Nikki (Deborah Goodrich) bed up together but not before we learn in a conversation between Muffy and Nikki that Muffy has in the past swooped in and scooped a guy from Nikki. Kitt (Amy Steel) and Rob (Ken Olandt) are a couple from the start. Nan (Leah Pinsent) definitely has a thing for Muffy, the studious blonde is a new friend of hers (lover?). Harvey (Jay Baker) also a classmate who has aspirations of using her rich and well connected family to get ahead in life. All are a bit thrown off by the accident when arriving but quickly we see that Muffy has established a set of pranks to play up the fact it is April fools day. Exploding cigar, spraying water faucet, doorknobs that come off, moving eyes in a painting are all designed to lighten the mood after the serious start. Only the crying baby recording that Nan finds very disturbing seems off. Writer Bach keeps the characters busy, and has just enough character backstory for a slasher while Director Fred Walton keeps te focus on everyone but Muffy.

  It is not long before the death start, and the guest catch on that there might be a killer. They have this idea with good reason that the ferry captain (Lloyd Berry) is getting revenge on them for what happened to boatman Buck, the early setup certainly plays to this reasoning. As people start disappearing and the remaining ones get nervous Muffy starts acting strange. Dressing sloppy and seeming off her rocker a bit. Needless to say this goes on and finally we have just Rob and Kitt left and they have discovered a dark secret about their hostess. The final act is a panic attack of discovery and when it seems that Kitt alone confronted by her killer there is a wonderful twist that changes how to look at everything that happened in the last hour and a half.
  Certainly not the greatest slasher hybrid April Fool's Day is a refreshing take on a genre that was well into maturing at the time of its release. Now 30 years later we have so many satires and tongue in cheek examples in this genre it is hard to remember that when the film was release it was a really fresh take on a slasher film. There is also a final scene that seems to be ripping off The Big Chill (1983) right towards the end. that was amusing. I really like this film and wanted to see more of the mechanization behind Muffy while she planned her ruse but the film works as is and is a delight to watch on this day of fools.