Michael_Elliott
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.
slasherstudios
Anne Barron (Meb Boden) is a teacher's aide at the Jack-N-Jill Daycare Center in Boston. It's the early evening and the last child has been picked up by her mother. Anne is relaxing on the playground carousel when someone pulls up on a motorcycle, wearing a pink helmet. Anne is startled. Suddenly the stranger pulls out a machete and starts spinning the carousel. The machete is held up in the air and the terrified woman goes around and around - until she's struck with it.Judd Austin (Leonard Mann) is the cop assigned to the case. He is called to the scene and when he gets there, he sees a gruesome sight. The girl was decapitated and her head was put in a bucket of water nearby. The distraught director of the center tells the officer that Anne worked there during the day - and was attending night classes at Wendell College. At the hospital, Judd and his partner Taj (Joseph R. Sicari) discuss a similar case from the previous week. Another girl was found decapitated and her head was dumped in a pond. They wonder if there's any connection between the two murders."Night School" is a typical run-of-the-mill early 80's whodunit slasher with a decapitation twist. This is the kind of movie where half of the money is trying to figure out where the detectives are going to find the missing heads. The twist ending is pretty predictable and the acting is a bit wooden (Rachel Ward, in her film debut, is all sorts of terrible here) but the film is never boring and has been directed with style. Boston looks positively wretched on film here and it gives the slasher a bit of a grungy "Departed" vibe. Overall, it's definitely worth checking out, just check your expectations-and your head--at the door.
lost-in-limbo
Probably best recognised for being the debut feature for of the ravishing British actress Rachel Ward, but "Night School" deserves a little more credit for that lone reason. I wasn't expecting it be as good it was, but while it's your by-the-numbers mystery psycho slasher it managed to resourcefully up the suspense and intrigue in some well presented set-pieces. The usual revelation behind it all doesn't come as much as a surprise (where we seem to be quite ahead of the clueless detective/s scratching their heads), along with the second twist (which is even more foreseeable), but then it ends with a neat final one which seems to be a mock send-up of the typical shock closing. "Don't you ever take your job seriously". I'm kind of surprised by its middling to poor reputation, as I found it more than competent than its 80s crop. Good atmospheric, authentic locations are masterfully framed by cinematographer Mark Irwin. His expressively flowing camera stages some inventive frames and effectively helps building up the tension before the initial shock. He films the ominous looking killer (decked in black leather and bike helmet) quite well. Director Ken Hughes' slick touch lets it flow, nailing the terrorising tension with a real sting to its tail. Hughes style kind of reminded me off Hitchcock, but the modern unpleasantness is evident (slicing and dicing with ritual decapitation on mind, but little is seen) and lurking within is a sneering sleazy undertone. The black and white story remains interesting, due to the solid performances (Leonard Mann, Drew Snyder, Rachel Ward and an amusing Joseph R. Sicari) and particularly sharp script. Brad Fiedel composes the score in an understated manner, but it eerily works. A modest psycho slasher offering.
slayrrr666
"Night School" is an entertaining slasher if only slightly flawed.**SPOILERS**Following a series of gruesome murders, police detective Judd Austin, (Leonard Mann) is assigned to search a local school that has a connection with the most recent victim. Meeting up with teacher Vincent Millett, (Drew Snyder) and his assistant Eleanor Adjai, (Rachel Ward) they provide nothing important in the case. Determined to crack it, he stays around and finds that they're a couple, which the Headmistress Helen Griffin, (Annette Miller) disproves of. As more murders are committed, each one following the same pattern as before, he becomes convinced that something is going on. Following up on a seemingly insignificant clue, he is able to solve the case and races to stop the killer from committing more murders across town.The Good News: This is a surprisingly decent slasher attempt at times. The film's most effective when its at its stalking moments, which are really well-done. The opening murder on the swing-set is a novel use for transforming an everyday object into something of terror, with the ironic twist that the killer displays in toying with the victim before the fatal blow is outstanding. A later sequence inside an aquarium's dressing room is marvelous, with the initial moment arising when the killer begins alerting the victim to their presence with the noisy clatter of banging a machete against a chain-link wall, which gets closer and closer and tipping off the victim, before the surprise attack is launched and a really terrifying exchange leading into the shower is quite effective, leading to one of it's great gags with severed heads that is one of the best ones. The severed head gags are played up throughout, which is the killer's habit of leaving the heads in a body of water. That is played up with terrifying results in a diner sequence, where the impact is alerted with the discovery of a mass of hair, and then a systematic search of the kitchen area leads to a marvelously fun time as several areas of where the head could be hidden are explored, followed by the actual appearance given in a fantastic fashion that is quite chilling. Most of the stalking moments here are top-notch, mostly due to the imposing figure, which is dressed head-to-toe with black leather biker gear and helmet which hides the identity. It even tries to pull out a little bit of erotica, with the best being a really impressive moment in a shower where two decide to engage in a display of body-painting with red gunk while in the shower, which is memorable and highly creative, given previous story connections. The last big effort is that fact that there's some rather sly black humor. Some, hopefully intentionally, funny lines about severed heads are a hoot, and a general fun tone about the detectives helps make this one of the more fun entries in the genre.The Bad News: This one here doesn't have a whole lot of flaws with it. The killers big unveiling is not much of an event as there are not enough credible suspects, and too many things throughout the film have pin-pointed them anyway. There's also the fact that this one doesn't really have a whole lot of kills in it, which really lower the body count significantly. That also brings up the fact that it really doesn't have a lot of gore in it as well, since all the big impact moments are cut away and the severed heads are seen later, indicating the death blow. That really cuts away from the big impact, as the gore is cut away and the impact never shown, simply the aftermath and that leaves a really bad impression in the film. That also comes into play with the really big problem in the film, the really irritating police-procedural story. This one really takes a large amount of the film's running time, hardly ever does anything noteworthy beyond that, and completely overlooks the most obvious realization about who the killer is. That is the big fault with it, as well as the fact that it takes away time from the body counts when they're all done in spectacular fashion. Along with the dryness from the gore, this one is mostly hurt by the really imposing police-procedural story and is why this one suffers, if only slightly.The Final Verdict: When this one is on, it's got a lot to really enjoy about it, though it really needs more to be a more complete entry. An uncut version is preferred, but if not found, then only slasher die-hards would enjoy this one, while those who don't care for the genre won't find much to restore them with this one.Rated R: Violence, Full Nudity and Language
