"April Fool's Day" (1986)

Sherman, set the Wayback machine for 1986.

As a fan of horror films, I’m sure that I’ve seen every cliche in the book. However, there are times when I find that I can still be surprised. Last week, when I watched “Don’t Look Now”, I was surprised by just how awful it was. However, when I watched “April Fool’s Day”, I was surprised by something else entirely. Actually, I was surprised by two things.

Admittedly, it wasn’t the ending. I’ve been aware of the ending of “April Fool’s Day” for a few years now; ever since the tv show “Psych” did their “Friday the 13th”/”Sleepaway Camp” parody episode, and made reference to the “April Fool’s Day” ending. (Just so you know, I’m not going to reveal the end.) I’ve only seen the “April Fool’s Day” ending used in one other place: the movie “Cry_Wolf” (2005), which, just like the “Psych” episode, added it’s own twist onto the “April Fool’s Day” ending. I have not, however, seen the 2008 remake.

No, what surprised me about “April Fool’s Day” was how good it is, and who all I recognized in the film. “April Fool’s Day” is a cavalcade of 80’s ‘almost was’s’; actors who may be vaguely recognizable (as in “oh, I know him, he was in that one thing I saw, what was that called” or “oh, look, it’s that guy, what’s he doing in a slasher movie”); or showed up all over numerous miscellaneous episodes of popular 80’s and 90’s tv series, but almost never had a starring or recurring role; or who may have showed up in starring or primary roles in various 80’s films, but whose careers either dead-ended or were never as widely known for any role that followed.

The most recognizable member of the cast is Thomas F. Wilson, best known for playing every visible male member of the ‘Tannen’ clan in the “Back To The Future” trilogy. Since the 80’s, Wilson has been doing mostly voice work for cartoons and video games.  The other most notable is Clayton Rohner, other than Tom Wilson, will be the most likely to make you go, “oh, it’s that guy”. In the 80’s, Rohner showed up all over 80’s tv, including T.J. Hooker, Hill Street Blues, and Miami Vice, and starred in “Just One Of The Guys”. Rohner has been able to maintain his career, never really hitting it big, but in the last few years, Rohner has appeared in Justified, Burn Notice, Castle, and The Mentalist.

I could spend the rest of this review listing the mediocre careers of the rest of the cast, but I’m not going to. I, instead, recommend that you, dear reader, peruse the IMDB listing for “April Fool’s Day” yourself. It is, in this regard, a solid movie for any “6-degrees” gamer to have in their arsenal.

Anyway, as I said before, what surprised me most about “April Fool’s Day” is how good it is. In my review for “Tucker and Dale vs Evil”, I referenced a group of horror movies which were not only solid as horror movies, but also cleverly lampoon the genre as a whole.  I had mentioned “Scream”, “Tremors”, and “Cabin in the Woods”, but I had not realized that a “meta” movie (a movie that parodies movies of a given genre, but is also solidly of that genre) for the ‘slasher’ genre of horror had predated “Scream” by a decade.

“April Fool’s Day” presents a thoroughly non-traditional execution (no pun intended) of a ‘slasher’ movie and does so in two clear ways.  

In horror movies, there are three elements which contribute to what makes it scary; suspense (the anticipation of the moment; the atmosphere), surprise (the arrival of the moment; the jump-scare), and slaughter (the revulsion of the moment; the gore). In ‘slasher’ movies, particularly in the 80’s, emphasis is usually placed on the ‘kill’ scenes, focusing on jump-scares, quick setups and gore, depending on the idea that anyone could be next to provide the suspense and atmosphere. “April Fool’s Day” breaks this convention, setting up the kill in ways similar to other slasher films which had come before, particularly “Friday the 13th” and “Sleepaway Camp”, but, instead of showing the kill, the scene fades to black before hand, revealing the victim’s body some time later. In this way, the film depends more on building and maintaining suspense throughout the movie.

This also allows the characters the opportunity to maintain a more tongue-in-cheek disposition.  Instead of the campy stereotypes of standard ‘slasher’ picks, the characters in “April Fool’s Day” are smart, clever, sarcastic, and a little twisted, making them feel a little more dimensional, more real, which, as it always does, makes the story better, richer. The movie does a solid job of combining “Meatballs” type comedy, gallows humor and self-effacing jokes which also (deliberately) send-up the rest of the ‘slasher’ genre.

Just like today, the 80’s saw the bulk of theatrical release films which were comedies as bawdy farces, and those in the horror genre as campy gore fests, with few diamonds-in-the-rough in either genre. I had thought that I had seen them all.

Nice to know I can still be surprised.