April Fool’s Day (1986)

Director: Fred Walton

Cast: Deborah Foreman, Griffin O’Neal, Clayton Rohner

Synopsis: A group of nine college students staying at a friend’s remote island mansion begin to fall victim to an unseen murderer over the April Fool’s day weekend.

April Fool’s Day seems to enjoy a dubiously elevated reputation thank to its twist ending which, while undoubtedly effective for about five seconds, leaves us suspecting that the twist came first and the rest of the movie was built around it. Unfortunately, the twist is the only thing that is original or unique about April Fool’s Day.

It’s the usual ho-hum plot for this kind of thing. A bunch of twenty-something teenagers congregate at the remote home of a friend they haven’t seen for three years for a reunion on April Fool’s Day only to discover that they are the target of an insane – and unseen – killer who seems intent on picking them off one by one.

There isn’t too much time spent on character development, and what there is simply leaves us impatient to see those characters getting offed – preferably in a particularly gruesome and gory manner. Unfortunately, though, the violence mostly takes place off-screen. Sometimes, this can serve to heighten the horror by allowing our imaginations to picture the worst, but April Fool’s Day simply doesn’t give our imaginations anything to work with, which ultimately leaves us feeling cheated.

(Reviewed 5th April 2015)