Return to Horror High
Return to Horror High | |
---|---|
![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Bill Froehlich |
Written by |
|
Produced by | Mark Lisson |
Starring |
|
Cinematography | Roy H. Wagner |
Edited by | Nancy Forner |
Music by | Stacy Widelitz |
Production company | Balcor Film Investors[1] |
Distributed by | New World Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 95 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1 million |
Box office | $1.2 million |
Return to Horror Highis a 1987 Americancomedyslasher filmwritten and directed by Bill Froehlich and starringVince Edwards,Brendan Hughes,Scott Jacoby,Lori Lethin,Philip McKeon,andAlex Rocco.Told in anonlinearformat, the plot follows a film production crew who begin to disappear while shooting a movie based on an unsolved killing spree that occurred in a high school. The film features supporting performances from Al Fann, Panchito Gómez, Richard Brestoff,Maureen McCormick,andGeorge Clooney.
Plot
[edit]In 1982, the town of Crippen was rocked by a series of murders at Crippen High School. The killer was never caught. Several years later, Cosmic Pictures, headed by sleazy producer Harry Sleerek, arrives in Crippen to make abiographical movieabout the crimes titledHorror High.To maximize the production's low budget, the cast and crew temporarily move into the real Crippen High School, where they are to filmon location;the lead actress, Callie Cassidy, is hired to play multiple roles. In the midst of the film shoot, multiple disappearances and murders occur, which are subsequently investigated by police Chief Deyner and Officer Tyler. While the bodies are recovered from the school, Chief Deyner and Officer Tyler interview the film's screenwriter, Arthur Lyman, outside, and he recounts the events on-set:
Some days prior, lead actor Oliver informs director Josh Forbes that he is dropping out of the production. Before leaving, he is murdered in an empty wing of the school. Harry immediately replaces Oliver with Steven Blake, a real-life police officer and former Crippen High student. Tensions on set rise when Harry insists Callie show on-screen nudity, while Arthur is forced to repeatedly make script changes to accommodate Harry's requests for more gore. One day, anextrais murdered, followed by Choo Choo, a special effects assistant. Shortly after, cast member Richard Farley is caught in abooby trapthat drags his body into a steel-blade industrial fan.
While wandering the high school in-between scenes, Steve recounts to Callie his relationship with his high school girlfriend, Kathy; her father, Crippen's Principal Kastleman, is on-set serving as atechnical advisor,but Steve has not seen Kathy in years. Meanwhile, Callie begins noticing that cast and crew are disappearing. Fearing the killer has returned, she and Steve begin their own private investigation. Callie's discomfort is compounded one day while watching the filming of a brutal scene in which the school biology teacher, Richard Birnbaum, is dissected.
Later, Steve notices a photo of Kathy on the set; when he inquires to Principal Kastleman about Kathy's whereabouts, he claims she is ingraduate school.That night, Steve and Callie find a trail of blood in the hallway, and discover Harry and Josh's corpses, as well as a trapdoor leading to a basement. In the basement, they find a classroom full of the decomposed victims of the 1982 massacre, all posed in desks. They are confronted by Amos, the school janitor, who attacks Steve. During their fight, Steve inadvertently removes a latex mask from Amos's face, revealing him to actually be Principal Kastleman in disguise. Kastleman explains how years ago, Kathy discovered she was pregnant with Steve's child, after which Kastleman murdered her in a rage and hid her body in the school basement before killing multiple students. Callie and Steve manage to overpower Kastleman, impaling him with ajavelin.
In the present, after Arthur finishes recounting the events to Chief Deney and Officer Tyler, the police enter the school to investigate. While they do so, Arthur calls out "all clear" outside, upon which all of the victims–who have been laid in the grass and covered in sheets–rise; they have in fact been alive all along. In reality, Callie and Steve uncovered in their research that Kastleman was in fact the true killer in the 1982 massacre, and killed him in the basement. Harry decided to capitalize on this by devising a mock massacre centered around the revelation as apublicity stuntto help promote the film. In the basement, police find Kastleman, still impaled by the javelin, but alive; he lunges at them, leading them to shoot him multiple times. When they return outside and find the bodies of the film crew inexplicably gone, they assume there is still a killer on the loose.
Later, Arthur sits at a typewriter to compose a new screenplay he has calledThe Return to Horror High,which he intends as a sequel. A framed photo of Principal Kastleman sits on his desk. An unseen figure enters the room and stops at Arthur's typewriter, dripping blood on the pages being typed. Arthur looks up at the unseen figure and says, "Dad?"
Cast
[edit]- Lori Lethinas Callie Cassidy / Sarah Walker / Susan
- Brendan Hughes as Steven Blake
- Alex Roccoas Harry Sleerik
- Scott Jacobyas Josh Forbes
- Richard Brestoff as Arthur Lyman Kastleman
- Andy Romanoas Principal Kastleman
- Al Fann as Amos
- Pepper Martinas Chief Deyner
- Maureen McCormickas Officer Tyler
- Vince Edwardsas Richard Birnbaum
- Michael Eric Krameras Donny Porter
- George Clooneyas Oliver
- Cliff Emmichas Dillon
- Panchito Gómez as Choo Choo
- Marvin J. McIntyre as Robbie Rice
- Philip McKeonas Richard Farley
- Remy O'Neill as Esther Molvania
- John Besmehnas Templeton Smithee
- Darcy DeMossas Sheri Haines
- Will Etra as Mangles Face / Hatchet Face
Production
[edit]Filming forReturn to Horror Hightook place inLos Angeles,California at John Hughes Junior High School in Woodland Hills, and Clark Junior High School in Glendale.[2]The production budget was $1 million.[2]In order to avoid anX-rating,the scene-within-a-scene sequence in which the biology teacher's heart is dissected had to be pared down in post-production.[2]
Release
[edit]The film was given alimited releasetheatrically in the United States byNew World Pictureson January 9, 1987.[3]The release expanded in April, with its widest release being 227 theaters.[4]It grossed $1,189,709 at the U.S. box office.[4]
Critical response
[edit]Michael Wilmington of theLos Angeles Timeswrote that the film is "laudably offbeat" with "a rich premise," but added: "True life or nightmare, recollection or schlock—each level of" reality "has the same camera angles, the same fake gore, and the sameSaturday Night Live-in-the-Charnelhouse style acting. And the triple-twist climax is so wildly unlikely, and depends on such cretinous inattention from some of the cast, that you could only accept it in a drunken stupor. "[5]Lou Cedrone ofThe Baltimore Sunwrote: "As horror films go, this one is not all that gory, but it does well enough to displease the people who don't go for this sort of thing. Are there many of us left?"[6]
Two years after the film's release, an article inCinefantastiquenoted: "[Return to Horror Highis] a slasherpastichethat garnered significant critical acclaim even as it came close to succumbing at the boxoffice because of what Sims called New World Pictures' inept distribution and promotion. "[7]TheBlockbusterVideo Guidecharacterizes the film as an "Ambitious low-budget affair, with a film crew making a movie about gory high school murders caught up in a bunch of real slayings. [It] never really takes off due to slack direction."[8]
In his book150 Movies You Should Die Before You See(2010), film critic Steve Miller writes: "The narrative threads of this low-budget spoof of slasher films are more tangled than the cocaine-fueled fever dreams ofQuentin Tarantino.As the end credits start to roll, we start to wonder if this was a movie about real killings or a movie within a movie based on real-life killers. Or... well, you get the idea. "[9]
Home media
[edit]The film was released onDVDbyAnchor Bay Entertainmentin 2002.[10]
References
[edit]- ^"Return to Horror High (1987)".British Film Institute.Archived fromthe originalon April 19, 2018.RetrievedApril 19,2018.
- ^abcBiederman, Patricia Ward (March 1, 1987)."Campuses Make Popular Film Locations: As Stars, Schools Are in Class of Their Own".Los Angeles Times.RetrievedApril 18,2018.
- ^"Return to Horror High".American Film Institute.RetrievedApril 18,2018.
- ^ab"Return to Horror High".Box Office Mojo.RetrievedApril 18,2018.
- ^Wilmington, Michael (April 6, 1987)."'Horror High'".Los Angeles Times.RetrievedApril 18,2018.
- ^Cedrone, Lou (March 17, 1987)."'Return to Horror High' is one reunion you may want to avoid ".The Baltimore Sun.p. 44 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^Teitelbaum, Sheldon (1989). "Bram Stoker's" Dracula "updated by the way of" Romeo and Juliet "".Cinefantastique.19.F. S. Clarke: 80.ISSN0145-6032.
- ^Blockbuster Video Guide to Movies and Videos, 1996.Dell. 1995. p.964.ISBN978-0-440-22114-2.
- ^Miller, Steve (2010).150 Movies You Should Die Before You See.Simon and Schuster. p. 88.ISBN978-1-440-50902-5.
- ^"Return to Horror High (DVD)".DVD Empire.RetrievedApril 18,2018.
External links
[edit]- 1987 films
- 1987 comedy horror films
- 1980s slasher films
- American comedy horror films
- American high school films
- American satirical films
- American slasher films
- Films about filmmaking
- Films about screenwriters
- Films shot in Los Angeles
- New World Pictures films
- American nonlinear narrative films
- American police detective films
- Self-reflexive films
- Films set in 1982
- 1980s English-language films
- 1980s American films