Coming at the tail end of the early 80's slasher movie craze was a little gem called April Fool's Day. It was at once both another holiday-themed slasher thriller and a clever satire of the well-worn genre.
The film follows the familiar premise, with a bunch of college friends getting together at the secluded island mansion that belongs to their friend Muffy's family.
On the ferry over, they accidentally cause the accident of a ferry worker when a prank goes wrong. Shaken, they continue to the house, where Muffy welcomes them. As they settle in, they find the house rigged with various pranks ranging from innocent (a faucet that sprays you in the face, a chair that collapses when you sit in it) to the cruel (reminders of character's dark secrets such as an abortion or deadly accident).
Things escalate when one by one friends start disappearing only to turn up dead later. Who's behind the deaths? The ferryman? Or is it the increasingly unhinged Muffy? The increasingly dwindling numbers gather together to try and stay alive, await the arrival of local law enforcement and try and resist the urge to go wandering off alone.
At the center of the film is Kit, played by Amy Steel in familiar horror heroine mode, who catches on that something is afoot early on and tries to alert the others to it, but most think it's just another April Fool's prank. Amy Steel has been a favorite of mine since I first saw her in Friday the 13th Part 2. She has this great girl next door presence that I've always really liked and wish she had gotten more acting opportunities either in or outside the horror genre.
The film has a better than average cast, especially for this genre, including Deborah Foreman, Thomas F Wilson (forever to be known as Biff from the Back to the Future trilogy) and the aforementioned Amy Steel. The well chosen cast play their parts well, which helps with these types of films when you have characters you're sad to see go rather than cheering on the killer, a trend I always found disturbing with these films (although there are a few exceptions, where even I have called out, "Okay, you can die now.")
The film also has the benefit of being rather well written with most of the characters fleshed out at least more than the average slasher film character. The plot weaves around well enough to keep the audience guessing who has taken their love of April Fool's Day pranks way too far.
This is one of the slicker and better made 80's slasher films with enough twists and turns in the plot to keep the audience engaged and guessing. It's also a lot of fun, as you'd expect from a film titled "April Fool's Day."
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