Proceeding Through Your High School Years...& Beyond

I don’t care how you cut it...aerobics isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, I’m not always 100% sure when it is. Hey! If it keeps you in shape and gets you in a leotard, it ain’t wrong. How does this relate to today’s movie? Well, there’s some aerobics in it. There’s a very-well-put-together section involving a young woman dancing around and just being herself. Then, the homicidal killer pulls off her clothes and stabs her.

I like women fine. But, this guy sure doesn’t. It’s funny. I’ve never had this happen before but I knew who the killer was. He’s the one character who appears in a smoky room, flies randomly off the handle and has only a small, small number of scenes throughout the movie that have very little to do with the movie itself.

It’s strange. I had to re-align my mind...If the killer was so very obvious, then what did that mean? No mystery, no last minute revelations for sure. What was the point? Well, the point was not the killer then but his killings. Let’s examine them then:

Almost entirely women. He chases them, tears off their tops (or more) and stabs them up. Why? Well, maybe that should be left for another time. But, I won’t do it. He’s a lonely man. His wife left him and so he hates all women. Hmmm.... Interesting conundrum here. Is the movie saying “if your wife leaves, you should hate all women?” Or is it saying “Watch out ladies! Because there are guys like this out there!” It certainly doesn’t seem to be making too much of a point for the drug addled guy who thinks he’s Captain Terrific or whatever his name was. And, it doesn’t make much of a case for the hero. Let me back up...

A-OK Sorority. A young woman is killed. She was trying to seduce her ex-. He left. Killer came in. Killed her. But, not before freeing her melon breasts. A guy from Rhode Island sees all. And, the ex- is blamed.
A close watch is kept on the ex-. His present girlfriend is miffed and I was confused because the guy seems very, very gay. I’ve seen a minimum amount of gay porno but this guy looks to be a card carrying union member. Apparently, he’s not. I guess I should grow up and learn more about this guy. Hey, let’s do it together!

He seems a nice enough chap. Good looking, clean, with a very manly voice and a fine All-American girlfriend. One of his best buddies is the previously mentioned drug-addled gentleman. He likes being high and hanging out with our hero. Our hero visits his science teacher regularly, has an enemy in the guy from RI and barely knows the caretaker. He is not the killer, no matter how many times people say it to him. If he wasn’t the killer the first time, he’s not the killer the 47th time. Sorry.

Overall assessment: a much better guy than the killer.

That killer and all of his thing still leave me cold and confused. Why all the shenanigans? The movie does not condone it. Nor do I. They make the slaughter so unpleasant that it’s no fun. Humiliation and death are no way to spend the end of your life. Believe you me. The movie shows you that this is no way to act, no way to live. Then, it says, keep your eye out. Mentally unstable people can kill you. Hell, I could kill you! I won’t! You got lucky. I’m kidding.

“Fatal Pulse” has a scene where a woman has her throat slit with a record album. Well, I don’t know, but as I think of it, I think, maybe, just maybe this is the point...be careful of your record collection it could cause you great pain. In fact, I cut myself on a lovely album before sitting down to write this. Be careful of good things. They hurt too. Ow!

I guess, if that killing is the purpose of all things, then the remainder doesn’t matter: The killer, why he kills, the majority of the other killings, the hero, his friends, etc. and so forth. That means you watch this for one, and only one, reason: the LP killing.

“Fatal Pulse”: someone gets their throat slit with a record. See it for that. Or...just see that.

Cyril Wants To Help You!

Folks, folks, quick word before we begin!

In lieu of the fact that Hollywood has sent me a fourth consecutive film about High School life, I am naming this column “Proceeding Through Your High School Years IV.”

So, we have to get a little retroactive here: “The Last Slumber Party” is “Proceeding Through Your High School Years I,” “Hell High” is II, “Prom Night” is III. Maybe next week there will be a V. Although, you’ll see that we can’t go much further than this one.

Enjoy, Absorb and Live!

Proceeding Through Your High School Years IV:
“Graduation Day”

Well, in the world of cinema (is there another?), it’s that time of year. Summer just beginning and the kids are...graduating! Many just to the next grade. Some back to the same grade. This event, however, affects certain kids greatly. Many will leave home, start their own lives, meet new people, who knows? You wish them well. You hope that their final moments in high school, the big graduation day and accompanying ceremony, will be a revelation.

That’s what I used to wish for the kids. But, after watching the new feature at the Rialto, “Graduation Day,” I have a new message for them: Have a good time but watch out for that psychopath who wants to kill you!!

Leave it to the folks at the Dream Factory! Once again, and perfectly on schedule, they’ve nailed a very hot topic: the potential for graduates to be slaughtered on or around this special day. Especially if a member of the track team has recently died after winning an important race.

Hollywood can’t say when it’s going to happen but it can tell you how and what to look out for.

Here’s a helpful list:

(I have to be honest...I care about the children. I do. So, this week is less of a review and more of a public service because, let’s be honest, you shouldn’t hurt the children.)

Here’s that list:
1: Stopwatches and black gloves. The killer has them. Keep your eye on anyone you know who regularly goes around wearing black leather gloves and carrying a stopwatch. This might be quite a few people but who cares. This is your life I’m talking about here.
2: If you know someone who lives with their deaf grandmother, be wary. There is every chance that this is the killer.
3: Before pole vaulting, check the mat you’ll be landing on to make sure there are no spikes in it. These can HARM you!
4: The music teacher is a closet queen. He is not the killer.
5: (This one has been mentioned before.) When jogging through wooded, secluded areas, do not wear quadraphonic headphonic devices. You cannot hear the killer until you’re dead. (Does this make any sense?)
6: Keep an eye on anyone emotionally involved with any track stars who may have recently died on the track. They may need to get something off their chest.
7: Ladies from the navy are nice. Not mean.
8: I wish I could tell you that having sex will get you killed. But, it’s actually if you are involved in some way with the track team. If I was the kind of person who said that kind of thing, I’d say “Have as much sex as you want.”
9: Fencing outfits are good killer disguises.
10: Don’t leave the roller skating party to wander in the woods. Please.
11: The moment you see things in a sort of slowed-down motion you are in trouble.
12: In regards to 8, this just occurred to me “I wonder,” I just thought, “if the death of a Track Team member is just meant to be an example?” Maybe at a school, the “mysterious” death of any student is the harbinger, the kick-starter for these events. Maybe this is it...
: Any death in the school should be watched. A sporting group, a model U.N., an Honors Society, German Club or whatever. Watch the group they’re a part of. Apply previous rules to this. It’s not just a track team.
!Forgive that diversion!
14: It might be the coach (or corresponding leader) but it isn’t.
15: Never let anyone toss you a football, when you can’t see them, from the seclusion of bushes.
16: If you should happen to run into and/ or unmask the killer and should happen to kill him, he’s not dead. Kill him again. Third time’s a charm.
17: After the killer is officially and completely dead, anytime you encounter him will be a nightmare.
18: Don’t shave your legs in a locker room sink. You leave yourself open to reams of trouble.
19: Running hysterically screaming through pitch black woods may not be the answer. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’ll get you killed.
20: I don’t really have a 20. Just keep your eyes open.

I want you to live. Hollywood wants you to live.

I hope you can see “Graduation Day” and it can show you how.

If not, may my list be of primary assistance.

Week 14 - I Never Went To My Prom

Oh no, that poor girl from “Halloween” and “Terror Train” is getting even more grief from a psycho. Well, third time’s a charm.

The title sets us up quite well: “Prom Night.” A large portion of this film does settle in and around prom night at a high school in a town whose name we could have been given but I forgot it. It’s a lovely night (it sure is) and it’s a time for love and, yes, a modicum of naughtiness. But, not the amount of naughtiness that should eventually end in cutting someone’s head off.

Don’t cut people’s heads off. Unless it’s necessary. (And, I think the conditions that make it so are pretty extreme.) Here’s a hint from the film: Before decapitating anybody, anybody, check to make sure you’ve got the right person. It shouldn’t be too tough. It only takes a second. The face is on the front.

In this small town, in an opening flashback, a little girl is killed. Sort of accidentally falls out a window. Wouldn’t you know it? The four kids vaguely responsible are now in real trouble.

If, in your early life, you have done something like this: Keep your guard up. Especially during important social events. I suppose one eye on your back at all times may get a little obnoxious but these killers do hold a grudge so watch it!

A prom is a time of great fun. But, in converse fashion, it can also be a time for all sorts of death. I don’t want a psycho to cut your head off. I’m sure you have a similar feeling.

There’s a fat guy in the movie. He owns a van, he gets laid, he dies. All I can say is...my wish came true! Ever since that big, big sheriff in “Don’t Go In The Woods,” I’ve been pining for fatter folks to get good roles. Hey, fat people die too! Here it is folks! Ask and ye shall receive! Oh Yeah!

So, that poor girl is getting chased around again. Not as much as in “Halloween,” probably the same amount as in “Terror Train.” I sure hope that one day she can rest. I will tell you this, though, she does not die! Again. Maybe she could use a break. I think that would be nice.

So, what is this movie saying to me? The question had to come up sooner or later. I think I know. It seems to be “Don’t be a jerk and kill people.” But, I think that’s too crepitatious. The other thought I had (“The most innocent looking girl in the movie is probably going to show off her boobies.”) was too vague. After some soul searching, I pulled together what I thought this film taught me. Then, I lost the paper I wrote it on. It had something to do with using a larger ax to kill people. I’ll get right back to you...It was this: “One man can commit savage acts against people he knows in revenge but he is going to mess up before he kills the last one so make sure you’re that one. (It helps if you can be the boyfriend of the sister of the killer. Even if you did participate in the act.)”

The lessons these films teach can be very specific at times. This is, certainly, one of those times. But, I should hope, if you ever find yourself in this position, you deal with it accordingly.

Week 13 - Hell Hi!

Boy, I spend more time in and around high school now then I did when I was in high school.

“Hell High” is a variation on my personal favorite “The Last Slumber Party.” In “Slumber Party,” partying teens are killed by a random guy. (Although, actually, at the end of the film, none of them have been killed. But, you figure that’s next.) In “Hell High,” a group of rowdies from the school cause no end of troubles for a rather skittish science teacher whose breasts grow when she’s in the shower. They insult her, dawdle around in her class, go to her home and eventually assault and rape her. Kids! What they will get up to!

Now, I can say that, occasionally, in school I was known to terrorize. But, lightly. A jape here, a vulgar hand gesture there. Never, ever, did I get it revved up to the speed of these kids. Man, from the first second: causing grief. ‘Til the last moment of their lives: grief. I’m not sure what exactly is required to acquire a chip on your shoulder that’s this large but...Man, I thought I went through some rough ones. Nothing compares.

This one guy (I’d like to say his name is Frederick B. Burgthingermin but I just made that up.): He wears a school shirt but clearly he does not love his alma matter. Let’s be honest, he really hates it. Throughout, he is assisted in his shenanigans by the fat guy and the attractive girl who likes to show her breasts, which seem a lot like the science teacher’s. They’re joined by the jock who’s sick of being a jock. They welcome in their night of fatal troublemaking with the drive-your-convertible-onto-the-football-field-during-the-game- winning-touchdown-&-have-the-ex-jock-grab-it-and-go trick.

Boy, what a suspenseful scene that is when the ex-jock has to sneak around in the diner parking lot!

So, this quartet goes out to the woods. Aaahhh...woods. They actually go to the place where the pre-credit scene takes place. A little girl is playing with her dolly by a small shack-like shack out in the tall rural weeds. A couple start “getting that on” in the shack. Then, the woman won’t “give out the business,” the guy takes it out on the innocent dolly and the little girl gets a little Cheesed. As the couple zoom away on their cycle, the little girl prepares a prank. (This is a theme.) She flings a large handful of muck at their heads. The cycle skids and they go flying off right onto large metal rods jutting out of the ground. Our first casualties.

But, that little girl grew up and became...Well, I don’t want to ruin it all...Anyway, the quartet goes there. Fools around. The jacket wearing guy is hateful. The gal is slutty. The fat guy is loud. And, the ex-jock just marvels at how hateful, slutty and loud everyone is and how he could ever have lived any other way.

The guy, Jimmy Anger (Fred), decides to pick on the aforementioned science teacher beginning with the assault, followed by the rape and concluding with the teacher leaping out a window. Dead.

Or is she?

While the ex-jock goes to plant evidence on a hateful jock (who, let’s be honest, is hateful but not as destructive as this bunch), the other three wait at the teacher’s home. Maybe not the best plan but, come on, these are bad kids here! While waiting, they talk and talk and worry and the one guy is really cool and time goes and goes...

But, the teacher is still alive. And, she is incredibly, incredibly ticked off. Well, let’s not beat around the bush (I do, occasionally, bush beat.), she starts to kill these three. The fat guy is killed, the gal is killed and, as the ex-jock returns, the hip guy is killing the teacher for real as the teacher kills him. Blood everywhere. Everybody’s dead.

The ex-jock is in school later on. The cops arrive and take away...the jock! Not the ex-jock, the jock jock. The practicing jock. Wow-zow! Our guy is thrilled! Up and down! But, the ex-jock has visions and images of the teacher coming back and he screams a lot.

The movie ends.

Well, I don’t know what the hell happened here. I just kept yapping and never really got to the lesson. Now, I gotta go. The lesson’s pretty obvious, though. Isn’t it?

Week 12 - The Last Post About The Last Slumber Party...for now.

Here we are again.

In deep discussion of this strange and powerful film. You know the name. I hope, I hope, you went out and saw it because it’s not around anymore. The Rialto sent it away even though I demanded that they keep it for another week and why not? It’s a great movie!

But, it’s gone. And, since it’s gone, I think we can discuss things in a little more detail. For example, who is the girl in the opening and what do her activities have to do with anything else? How does the killer see in her window so casually when there’s no place outside for him to stand on unless he’s using the subtle and delicate POLEV!? What about the young man named Science? He deserves his own paragraph...

Science? Who was he? Why was he? I don’t know and I couldn’t tell ya. But, he is intriguing. He always dresses in hospital scrubs but he’s really just a high school kid vaguely seen studying anatomy. Why? I know this one. So we might confuse him with the killer. But, you ask, don’t we clearly see the killer in the beginning and, clearly, isn’t Science a different guy? Yes, yes. But, c’mon! Science does kill one person. Isn’t that odd! You can’t tell me you didn’t go “Hey” or something similar when he slashed that one guy up. Then, when you see him about to slash the girl (Linda), come on, that’s nutty! Science does not seem to have any motive for slashing people except...they pick on him quite a bit. Come on, you’ve seen him get the sweety sweet pick on. What about the parking lot when the three guys pick on him? When the doctor’s nearby? Well? I forget what they say to him but they definitely imply something of a masturbatory nature. There you go. The man snapped. From the two brief times we see him, I think it’s more than enough to warrant a kill. (Although, I got picked on like that occasionally in high school and I’m fine.)

What about the Doctor? A man who is so deliberately wooden that he draws attention to every word spoken and makes everything that much more important. Think about this “...well...I just don’t know.” Huh? There you go. (And, how about that news bulletin that the girls stare intently at? There’s nothing on the screen.) The doctor...every word he speaks is so...you want...you wanna know what he’s going to say.

His nurse is similar. The way she keeps stumbling over her lines makes you focus. Strong. And, she dies all too soon. All...tooo... (but, what about that guy at the bus stop and his nutty hair? Ha, HA!)

Let’s talk more about Chris. I watched the film a fourth time and those bags under her eyes add to her allure. She is the one who dreams a large portion of the film. Follow me...The film goes along. Then, Chris calls Linda from her strange and desolate room. She talks to Linda, they discuss things pertaining to the slowly approaching party, and then she hangs up. And falls asleep...And, dreams the slumber party. Then, somewhere within the party, she has another dream of a surreal nature that clues her in to what’s going on. She wakes up, still within the dream, and the film goes until her throat is slit, I think. Then...she wakes up and we enter the real world of this fictional piece of thing.

A few questions: Is Chris trapped in the house? When the killer goes with Linda’s dad to the hospital, why doesn’t she leave? It’s a dream! But, if it is a dream, why are we following the dad and the killer? Chris disappears from her own dream. Why doesn’t the killer kill the dad at home? Why sit in the back seat of Doctor Dad’s car, go to the hospital, sneak back in, stand in an elevator, slash the Dad’s throat, sneak out of the hospital with the dead Dad, drive back to his house and deposit the body in the pool?

Then, I realize...it’s all a dream! It is dreamlike. More dreamlike than almost anything else I’ve ever encountered. It certainly doesn’t make a lot of sense. I love it! I love it!

Now, what’s next...

What a strange shower scene Chris has! Does the killer go in there and stare at her? Shouldn’t she be putting on fresh clothes? Shouldn’t she be naked for a bit, for a little? Why not? How does she get from being so damp to being so dry so quick?

Every scene could be covered like this but not enough room and/or time has been presented to me.

So, we’ll shank it up...

It’s interesting. I’ve been to a lot of slumber parties in my youth and none of them were as fun and crazy as the majority of cinema’s slumber parties that always makes my youth feel so inadequate. I am finally satiated in my recollection of Slumber Parties after “The Last Slumber Party.” This is like every overnight party I ever enjoyed, apart from the killings.

The party in this film is half-assed. There is always a threat of parent trouble. It’s about getting drunk and/ or high. Occasionally having sex if you can finagle it. And, watching lots of TV. On and on and on...around 2AM, you start to feel every minute. But, you don’t want to sleep because you can do that at home. If you’ve got someone to fool around with, time flies by. Soars by. But, most of the time you sit in a room as people fall asleep one by one and repeats of sitcoms you never liked move endlessly across the TV. You might sleep for a while. Very late. Sometimes I would be the last one up and...it proved nothing. Because, 1) couples in separate rooms still might have been making out and 2) what does it matter if you’re up and not making out with someone? Ah well...

This movie, maybe, lashed me with one too many straps in the region of my special places. It’s odd. Hollywood so effortlessly keeps pulling out these glorious strings of magic after magic.

There it is. “The Last Slumber Party.” If it was, it was a hell of a time.