Director – Jared Masters (Slink)
Starring – Nikole Howell (Diary of a Black Widow), Mindy Robinson (Iron Man 3), and Yasmine Soofi (Big Hair, Long Lashes)
Release Date – 2014
Rating – 2/5
Tagline(s) – “Some students just don’t make the grade” and “They didn’t make the grade”
Slashers seem to be making a huge comeback with several dozens set to be released in 2015 before the summer arrives. I am all for a huge push in slashers and will welcome any sub-genre that can dilute all the zombie flicks we have a surplus on. Slashers are cheap to make quickly and fun to watch. All you need is a few douches, beautiful women that don’t mind taking their tops off, a fun killer with a dark back story, and some fake blood. Boom, you have a slasher!
However, most people have taken the slasher back to their bloody roots and had them stalking and killing teens in the woods or at camp. Personally, these are my favorite slashers but I sometimes want a little variety. One of the other slashers that I always liked was when a killer invaded a school of some kind and killed your typical students. Sadly, these slashers have not made a come back with the exception of a few popping up randomly. One of those such films is the slasher from Brain Damage Films called After School Massacre that had the working titleTeacher’s Day. Personally, I liked that title better but I don’t make those kinds of decisions.
**Spoiler Alert**The film begins with a group of high school girls as they are having a sleep over and doing adolescent girly things. However, one of the girls is in the bathroom on the phone when she receives some news she did not want to hear. She then takes a entire bottle of Advil and overdoses. We then jump forward and those same girls are at school when one is confronted by a teacher. She makes a few jokes about him stalking her on social media and they both go about their separate ways.
The teacher is then called into the office and the principal fires him for cyber stalking girls. He freaks out and kills the principal and his secretary. We then jump forward again and those same girls are having another slumber party. This time that same teacher plans on crashing it this time while wearing a homemade ski-mask.**Spoiler Alert**
What I like about the slumber party slasher is how they typically cast several female leads, usually in their late 20s, to dress in skimpy clothes and pretend they are in peril while someone in a mask tries to kill them. We usually get slasher standard kills with decent practical effects and several tit flashes. However, this slumber party slasher forgot to give the viewer all the things they tend to expect from this kind of flick. Instead, we get a post-Scream slasher with no style and several cock-teases.
The acting in this one is surprisingly decent. The mostly all female cast does a great job and added a lot of spunk and sex appeal to the film. This film was cast perfectly and it showed. The story for this is your typical slasher but the follow through was extremely poor. The film was able to give us a slasher with someone that was wronged taking revenge on those that wronged them while wearing a mask. Sadly, they revealed the killer way too early with a very poor back story and a shitty mask to top of the shitcake. We also have no tits. All they beautiful ladies running around in their undies and they show no skin. What the fuck kind of slasher is that?
Finally, we do get several on screen kills. Some are very fun and clever but they lack special effects to make them fun. We do get one practical effects gag involving an electric knife but the rest were horrible. Overall, After School Massacre is a slasher that had everything going for it but the team behind it failed to pull it off. It lacked a unique slasher. a decent back story, and kills for the blood thirsty.
