Friday, June 10, 2016

Student Bodies (1981)

Toby Badger is a student at Lamab High where students are being targeted by a serial killer who breathes heavily, and kills teens who engage in sexual activity.  Toby keeps her boyfriend at arms length so she has nothing to fear.  She even wears a pin under her clothes that says No! But she's worried that the killer may be someone at the school.

There are plenty of people to suspect.  Woodshop teacher Mr. Dumpkin is obsessed with horse head bookends, and his class is getting sick of making them.  School psychiatrist Dr. Sigmund asks the girls he's counseling to call him daddy, and when alone he dances around while wearing his clothes backwards. Principal Peters is creepy.  Ancient Miss Mumsley is always glaring at the students. Oddest of all is janitor Malvert, a double jointed, extremely skinny, very tall man with a limited intellect.

This is spoof of slasher flicks, and the comedy is pretty dated.  I ran across this movie originally back in the mid 80s on late night tv and thought it was stupid. But the repeated references to horse head bookends caught my attention and cracked me up. I have no idea if I was tired , or it seemed funnier because I was younger.

While there are some funny lines in the film, they're few and far between.  But you're got to see Malvert. He's an incredibly odd looking guy and his double-jointed movements are kind of disturbing.  It's an early foray into horror comedy that Scream pulled off years later.





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