APRIL FOOL'S DAY (1986)
Label: Scream Factory
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 88 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA Stereo mONO 2.0 & 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Fred Walton
Cast: Deborah Foreman, Griffin O'Neal, Clayton Rohner, Jay Baker, Pat Barlow, Lloyd Berry, Deborah Goodrich, Tom Heaton, Leah Pinsent, Mike Nomad
Not unlike a lot of slashers April Fool's Day (1986) features a group of young teen-ish looking people gathering at one location, we have Muffy St. John (Deborah Foreman, Waxwork) calling upon her college friends to come visit her family's island mansion for an April Fool's Day weekend getaway. We have nice girl Kit (Amy Steel, Friday the 13th Part 2)and her sulking boyfriend Rob (Ke Olandt, Summer School); pranksters Arch (Thomas F. Wilson, Back to the Future) and Skip (Griffin O'Neal, The Wraith); the free-spirited 80's dude Chaz (Clayton Rohner, Destroyer), uptight prep Hal (Jay Baker), hottie Nikki (Deborah Goodrich, Remote Control) and Nan (Leah King Pisent) who is sort of the stick-in-the-mud. The group arrive on the tiny island via a ferryboat, but the pranksters shenanigans enroute cause a ferryman's to be horrifically injured, with him having to be transported by boat to the mainland to a hospital by the local sheriff.
With that out of the way they make their way to the mansion and settle in for the night, the gatherings spirit seemingly unaffected by the disturbing accident, with Muffy pranking the group with gags that include collapsing chair, dribble glasses, trick lights, spraying faucets, and an exploding cigar. It's mostly harmless good natured stuff, but when boisterous group settles into their rooms for the evening things start to get a bit more strange, each discovering something weird, like ominous newspaper clippings, s&m gear, and a cassette tape (remember those?) of a crying baby, the latter of which is rather disturbing and in poor taste considering the young woman had just had an abortion. Later in the night prankster Skip heads to the boathouse to explore it and is attacked by an unseen assailant. In the morning his friends discover that he's missing and form a search party, with Kit spotting his corpse on a boat beneath the boathouse, but the body is nowhere to be found when they return with the rest of the group. After that the teens begin to disappear one by one, leading the others to believe that someone is stalking and killing them.
The film is directed Fred Walton (When A Stranger Calls) and produced by Frank Mancuso Jr. (Friday the 13th Part III), it has a decent set-up and if it had followed through on the premise and pedigree this could have been a cool traditional 80's slasher, but that's not what happened. Turns out that Fred Walton was making a deconstructionist satire of slashers, playing with a set-up that feels very traditional but then turns it on it's head with a late-in-the-game revelation that has not always sat well with slasher fans. I know the first time saw it Ishouted "what? are you kidding me?" at the TV, feeling that the movie had betrayed me, and while it true that it betrayed my expectations, it's still a good bit of slasher-y fun.
The twist which I won't spoil prevents the film from laying out the standard stalk and slash game-play, the kills are absolutely bloodless, and the set-ups are not that great, even lacking even the killer POV shots we've come to expect. That there's not much bloodshed might be my biggest beef with it, hamstrung by the mechanics of the plot. As a fan of slashers I tend to be forgiving to lapses in logic, but even I have to admit that the line of exposition that tries to button-up this film's inconsistencies is absurd, but I still love it.
For all it's slasher-wrongness I still think the film has plenty to offer slasher fans, I love the remote island setting, which is along the lines of something like The Slayer (1982), plus the ensemble cast is pretty great,. We get a good group of folks that are likable overall, even if I don't care for they way that Amy Steel (Friday the 13th Part 2) comes off as a not particularly strong, she deserved better, and when her character didn't punch another girl in the face following the shocker ending I was a bit mad, she needed to knock that girl on her ass!
I know that this is a film that's gonna anger a few people, but if you take a step back and look at it it's still a fun slasher-y thriller with a hell of an audacious punchline. The fact that there's close to zero gore and only a touch of nudity is a negative, but it's got a great sense of humor, a fantastic cast, plenty of atmosphere and the sort of goofy hijinks that you only got in the eighties.
Audio/Video: Scream Factory bring April Fool's Day to Blu-ray for the first time in the U.S. for their Collector's Edition. There;s no info about the transfer so I think we can probably assume this is an existing HD master provided by Paramount Pictures who they licensed the title from. The 1080p HD image is framed in 2.35:1 widescreen and looks fantastic to my eyes. Whatever the source it is in great shape without any blemishes, a few very minor white speckles but otherwise trouble-free. Grain is well-managed, clothing textures and facial close-ups offer pleasing amounts of fine grain and the colors are punchy and vivid, and the blacks are of the inky variety, it might not be a new HD master but this looks great.
Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono and 5.1 surround with optional English subtitles. The mono track is is solid but lacks power, the surround option just has more life and oomph to it, it's well-balanced and delivers the dialogue with more precision, and the score from Charles Berstein sounds great in the mix, which is spread into the surrounds.
Extras on the disc kick off with a 49-min 2-part interview with director Fred Walton who talks not just about this film but also about When A Stranger Calls (1979) which just got a bare-bones release in the U.S. so I appreciate the expanded purview of the interview. Of course he also speaks about the film at hand.
Actors Deborah Goodrich Royce and Clayton Rohne each show up for 17-min interviews with the former touching on the lost alternate ending of the film which was actually filmed, and recounting having to repeatedly plunge herself into some nasty water. Rohn discusses his early career and how he ended up getting into acting, as well as touching on the fun atmosphere on-set while shooting the film.
Composer Charles Berstein (Cujo)gets a lengthy 26-min interview, I've been seeing him pop-up on a lot of new releases discussing his scores, and I never get tired of it. He speaks about his early career, how he grew up watching his mom played organ music accompaniment to silent films, and his process of scoring films, how he prefers to score alone, but stating that music editors are worth their weight in gold.
The last of the interviews comes from cinematographer Charles Minksky who gets into growing up watching films every Saturday at the cinema, how he became a cinematographer and learned his craft through trial and error, and how he loves the feel of film running through a camera.
Extras are buttoned up with 2-min of TV spots and a 2-min full-frame trailer for the film. Unfortunately we do not get the alternate ending of the film, which to my knowledge has never been found, in fact I think there's only one still shot of scene from that version floating around the internets, it's certainly not here. As a fan I would have loved interviews with actors Deborah Foreman, Thomas 'Bif Tanner' Wilson and scream queen Amy Steel, but that didn't happen, though probably not for lack of trying I am certain, but what we do get is a fantastic A/V presentation and over 2-hours worth of interviews, so it's a bit hard to be too sore about what we didn't get, but I am quite certain there will definitely be fans bemoaning the fact nonetheless.
The singe-disc release comes housed in a standard keepcase with a reversible sleeve of artwork featuring the original theatrical poster and a new on-point illustration from Yannick Bouchard, which is also featured on the disc itself, and on the limited edition slipcover with the new illustration.
- NEW Horror with A Twist – an interview with director Fred Walton (47 min)
- NEW Well of Lies – an interview with actress Deborah Goodrich Royce (17 min)
- NEW Looking Forward to Dessert – an interview with actor Clayton Rohner (17 min)
- NEW Bloody Unforgettable – an interview with composer Charles Bernstein (26 min)
- NEW The Eye of Deception – an interview with cinematographer Charles Minsky (17 min)
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min)
- TV Spots (2 min)
I have been waiting since the arrival of the Blu-ray format for this slasher gem to finally get the HD treatment, and it was worth the wait. Scream Factory's Collector's Edition gives us a solid A/V presentation and a wealth of extras, it's a winner.
MORE SCREENSHOTS FROM THE BLU-RAY
