Graduation Day (1981)

Episode 212, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of two guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: While we are continuing with requests. And today’s request was a nice, fun eighties slasher movie during the height of the slasher movie craze where they were coming at us in droves, love, love, love to do these movies, good or bad on this show. And uh, thanks to Dave for putting this in front of us.

The movie is called Graduation Day and it was actually made in 1981. Oh gosh, this this year. I mean, you had the burning, you had this, you had Blood Rage as well, which was one of my favorites. Intruder was like a year after this Evil Dead was a couple years before this. I think 1979 I mean, this is the time for these.

Sort of carbon copies slash or films that just came out in droves and cashed in big time. I mean, this movie was shot on a budget of $250,000 it’s not even a particularly great movie, but he had grossed 25 million. By the time it was out of the females. Can you believe that this movie,

Craig: I mean, I know I could

Todd: make movies at the time that this this was going on, I would have making them left and right, and then above all odds.

There are several famous people in this movie, early work of theirs, so crazy. So it’s, I’m really looking forward actually to talk about this movie today. Uh, but I had never really heard of it before or probably passed it on the, on the shelves. Definitely hadn’t seen it. But it is available on Amazon prime right now for free in case you want to watch it, which is where we watched it.

Craig, had you seen this before? We watched it for this podcast?

Craig: No. And gosh, I don’t know if I’m surprised that I hadn’t seen it

Todd: cause

Craig: this is right. You know, this is right up our alley. The, you know, we watch these movies all the time. We grew up with them. Um, and you and I are very fond of. You know, like theme type stuff.

So I’m surprised that we haven’t done this in the spring for graduation season before. Um, but, uh, it’s interesting for sure. It’s surprising you said how much money it made. It’s surprising that it made so much money. For one, because like you said, it was kind of at the peak or maybe even a little bit on the downside of, well, that’s not really fair cause, um, I guess all through the 80s, uh, but critics were getting a little bit tired of the slasher formula already, even in 1981.

And so it wasn’t, it did not get any critical love at all. Um, and I read that, uh, I don’t remember. Who it was, whether it was the director of the producer who, um, actually went to theaters to ensure that the theaters were actually showing previews for this movie, um, because they wanted to make sure that it was really getting out there.

But no, I, I had never seen it. I’d never really heard of it. Uh, I was kind of excited going in because it was, you know, kind of this old slasher and I enjoy those and I thought it would be a lot of fun. It, I don’t know. What did you think? I mean, you said you’re excited to talk about it. I’m, I’m excited to talk about it too, but I, I can’t say that I loved it.

Really.

Todd: I can’t say I loved it either, but I think there’s some really interesting elements to this movie. I think it’s made with a lot more care and thought than a lot of these films were made. You know, we see some just utter garbage that. Just like the cinematography is pretty lousy. The editing’s pretty lousy.

The acting is always lousy. The script is something that you know, you’ve, you’ve seen a hundred times. They almost just kind of rewrite the same story for a different, a different movie. And this movie has a lot of that in it, except I thought the editing was a little inspired. The use of music was very interesting.

For better, for worse. There were some nice transitions. Uh, in some of the, between some of the scenes and, uh, I could see most everything that was going on, you know, it wasn’t muddy or dark or weird and a lot of spots. And there were moments where the special effects, the practical effects worked for me and other moments where they were just laughably bad.

Yeah. So was, it was considerably uneven. I felt even at an hour and a half, it was. Still felt really long, like this movie didn’t know how to end itself. But, uh, yeah. And at the end of the day, like, I dunno man, like the whole mystery of who the killer, I don’t know. There, there are a lot of problems with it, let’s put it that way.

But. It stood out in a few small ways that at least kind of kept me interested as a guy who ends up seeing so many of these week after week, you’ve got to find something, you know? Oh yeah, that’s unique. And I found enough unique in here that kinda, that kept me watching the screen. But I don’t know if I would’ve said the same thing in 1981 you know?

Craig: Yeah, yeah. I mean, there were definitely things that I enjoyed about it. Absolutely. First of all, our friend Linnea Quigley,

Todd: this was kind of her big break roll, wasn’t it? I mean, this was, she’s in a couple movies before

Craig: she talked to us about it.

Todd: Yeah, I remember cause she was cast as one of the girls after the girl who originally auditioned for it didn’t want to take her top off.

Craig: Right, right. And she told us that.

Todd: Yeah. And latte, quickly go back and listen to that episode. We don’t want to spoil it all for you. Cause we are really excited about the fact that we got to talk to Linnea Quigley. But you know, to make a long story short, she doesn’t mind popping her top off for a movie.

And I guess she had gotten the hint that you’d never say no to nudity. That got her to the part and that really kind of rough. Then she, you know. Then she got some plastic surgery and monitor top of a lot after that.

Craig: Uh, it’s funny cause you’ve said stuff about her having surgery before and I’m like, no, she’s just really cute.

Um, I barely recognized her in this, like had I not, had I not known it was her, I’m not sure that I would have figured it out. She does have a really distinctive voice and I, I, I did recognize her voice, but I think it would have taken me a while to figure it out just because she’s very, very young. And fresh faced and this really screwed up tissue.

You’re going to be lucky if you graduate. I’m going to graduate. What you want? You didn’t even go to class half of the time. I know, but that’s cool. I talked to Mr. Robertson, you know he doesn’t care. I’m going to graduate high girl. Send me screwed. Is it true that you screwed the ones at sacred heart?

Huh? Have you. What do I look like? Calculators. No, but you know, I just wondered everyone. Every one of them should leaders, POM POM, girls. You know, Nancy, you go back a long ways. First time I met her.

Todd: So

Craig: you did do it with her. I had to teach her a little bit. She’s already,

she’s my best friend and, and she plays a small role, but I enjoyed her. Uh, and just having made that one very, very brief personal connection with her, it was a really cool to see her. Um, and then, uh, another very young. Fresh faced. Vanna white is in the movie.

Todd: The back of her head is in the movie more than her face.

But yeah, you’re right.

Craig: It’s funny because again, I’m not positive. I would have recognized her either because she’s so young, but I definitely did recognize her voice. What was funny to me about all of the scenes that she was in was she always appeared with another girl, and it seemed to me. That they didn’t have any written lines like it seemed to me that they were like just act bubbly and goofy, and so they had the silliest, silliest lines.

Like at one point she’s like, you scared me so bad. I peed my pants. The other girls like you did, and she’s like, no, not really. Then they’re like. Yeah, you did. I can see it like these are the lines.

Todd: Like

Craig: it was fun. That was pretty hilarious. Um, so little things like that I liked my biggest problem. With the movie, I think was the writing of the script.

It really kind of irritated me because it sets up this a murder mystery, and I’ll try to say this without totally blowing the ending before we get there. But okay, so it starts out at. Um, a track meet that also features gymnastics like, Hmm. Is that, was that a thing? Like, did people do gymnastics at track meets?

Todd: It just felt like they had a song? Well, first of all, the opening is awesome. I loved the opening. There’s like this cool, groovy seventies, like. Like rapid pace song and they let the whole freaking song play and they’re editing really fast cuts of this track need and these people in the crowd. And I just felt like after a while there were only so many shots you can get of a crowd cheering and somebody running around the track and a coach yelling at them to go faster, that they just had to cut in some footage from gymnastics.

That was how I read it.

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe they just happened to have an actress who could like do a bar, like a parallel bar scene, and so they’re like, well, why not? Let’s do it. I don’t know. Um, but anyway, so. This big track meet apparently, and this girl, her name ends up being, Laura, is like winning the race and the coach is yelling at her and he’s got a stopwatch and he’s like, you have to get under 30 seconds.

And she’s running so hard. And, um. It was also funny because this girl was, she looked like she was maybe like five, four, and she clearly could not run as fast as everybody else in this scene. And so, like, they had to do really tricky things with the editing to make it look like she could actually run faster than these other people.

But anyway, um, she does, she, she, she wins and she makes it under, or right at 30 seconds or whatever, but then she immediately dropped it. Dead and, uh, everybody is shocked and they explain later that I guess she had a blood clot in her brain or, or an aneurysm or something, but she dies and then it jumps to, I don’t know, sometime later when her sister and who is played by patch McKinsey, should I know who that is.

Um, she’s somebody, I don’t know.

Todd: She was in ER for a handful of episodes or something. That’s, I mean, she’s done some things, but not a lot, but she’s been on

Craig: here, I don’t know. Yeah, the name sounded familiar, but whatever. Anyway, she shows up. Um, and then right away we see another young jogger running in the.

Forest or the park or something. This young jogger female jogger is killed by somebody in a sweatsuit with a stopwatch, who’s also like, you know, doing the whole 30 seconds thing. And then that’s the setup. Like, okay, so you’ve got this killer in a sweatsuit with a stopwatch killing. What turns out to be the other people on the track team, and that’s the big mystery.

What irritated me about the movie is that they set up so many ridiculous red herrings. That

Todd: transparent.

Craig: Yeah. Like at one point when Anne goes home to her mom and her mean stepdad or whatever, she unpacks her suitcase and there’s black gloves and. Like sweats, a sweatsuit in there or something. And then later, other people also have knives and stopwatches and sweatpants and

Todd: like,

Craig: so there are all these red herrings.

And as it turns out, again, without trying to be too spoiler-y. You meet the killer very early in the movie and then the killer disappears for the rest of the movie until the very end.

Todd: Yeah. That character existed and you, right. You’re going to be spending a lot of time with that character in the beginning of the movie, like to the point where I thought were there a few scenes in the middle that ended up getting edited out at some point, but that character is not the only one.

Who goes missing for most of the movie ends up at the end. So even still, you’ve got like three or four people to choose from. Yeah. Before we go too far into this, I want to talk just briefly about the male gaze and feminism and stuff like that, because I thought that this movie, one thing that set it apart from the other a slash or movies of the time was it, it had pretty strong.

Female characters and pretty worthless male characters. Now, that’s not to say that it’s not exploitative and sexist in many parts, but. I love that scene where she’s in the car with the truck driver and

Craig: we don’t even see,

Todd: yeah, we don’t even see her face for awhile, which was a pretty smart move. He’s just talking to this girl and she’s not responding because he’s being just too chatty and eventually kind of lecherous.

Uh, but we see her legs like he’s looking down at her legs, like sets. The only thing that he’s really. Paying attention to in the car and she’s wearing a skirt and there is a like a Navy hat on there, like she’s in the Navy and he makes some comment that’s like,

Craig: you were read about those two Navy girls, Bannon, the San Diego

Todd: who was in all the papers

Craig: I hear.

They were a couple of real Lesbos.

Todd: He ends up making some comment to her and, uh, puts his hand on her leg and tries to kind of move it up her skirt. And when she pushes it away, we still don’t see her face when she pushes it away. Hey, let’s come on babe. I’m a taxpayer, which is horrible. You’re not a lesbian to Aria.

And finally she gets them to stop the truck. And we see her face for the first time when she gets out. But one of the first things you see in this movie after seeing a young woman dropped dead, is a strong woman standing up for herself to a lecherous pig. These two scenes, you know, the quick cutting and the kind of the excitement with the music of that first one.

And then that aspect of the second one, just something I was . Definitely not expecting a from a movie in this era. Those were things that kind of made me sit up and take notice. And so I was trying to kind of take, take, like I had a little chart going, you know, of other points. They were scoring a little bit for strong females, and there were a few, and I’m sure we’ll talk about it.

Craig: Well, all of the women were far more interesting than the men. The men were all just kind of bumbling oafs

Todd: or horrible people. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig: And that’s, that’s not to say that the women were all rocket scientists. They certainly weren’t, but they were at least more interesting characters. So, okay. So, uh, you know, where do we go from there?

Cause that’s the thing, like I feel like it’s a lot of scenes of people talking to each other. A lot of. Like he hears introducing some red herrings, like, okay, so Anne goes home and her mom seems kind of nice, but kind of put upon, and then she has this jerk stepdad named Ronald, um, who confronts her right away and is like, I don’t know why you get to accept your sister’s award at graduation.

That should have been me. I was the one that practically raised her. And he calls her a big mouse, self-centered bitch.

Todd: Calm

Craig: down.

Todd: She just walked in the door. Come on.

Craig: Oh God. Then I mean, I can go through the plot points, but then we’re in the locker room and it’s a killer POV, and, uh, there’s the, the killer takes a picture out of a locker and it’s the track picture. And Laura’s . Faces already crossed out, and then they cross out the other girl that just got killed in the forest.

And so it’s just this big setup like, okay, I get it. Somebody’s taken out the track team.

Todd: Yeah. And, and that’s one of the most cliche things about this movie, down to the kilo killer POV shots with the gloves on, all borrowed from Glo pictures, but used heavily in these eighties movies here. Uh, and then the very obvious, like we, the audience know.

Who the next, you know, victims are going to be basically, because the killer is putting a big frickin red X over a picture that I guess he tucks away in the locker and then pulls out again every now and that just have come right track. You know, it’s all really, really silly, but it does definitely follow those tropes.

I, there are times when you kind of like to watch a movie that’s following those tropes, right? Yeah. I know. I recognize this. I see what’s going on. So that didn’t bother me too much just because every movie at this time pretty much did that. Yeah. I thought that the Kilz for the most part were really well, like stylishly filmed, almost everything is a sword or a knife.

Everything’s like a blade. But at some point there’s like a sword and a fencing sword. So unlike a lot of movies where the killer usually just kinda has only one weapon. Or, or the methods of killer, like so drastically different, like, uh, you know, boiling water from a kitchen on one person, a bunch of killer bees in the bathroom, or you know, on another, just sort of, depending on what’s going to get to each of these people.

I don’t know if the fencing swords that you find in a school are really. Sharp enough that you can stab a person with it. But that’s what happens in one scene.

Craig: No, they don’t.

Todd: They don’t have points. Right.

Craig: The fencing foils don’t, they don’t even have a sharp point. No, they’re dull at the end. At least, you know, from my vast experience with fencing, you know, that’s my understanding.

Like you’re not actually. Trying to stab people, but again, you know, like it’s, it’s just all of these coincidences, like, okay, so it’s clearly a killer POV watching this girl, her name ends up being Sally. She’s a walking in the woods and the killer is watching, and then she bumps into Annie who is . Or an excuse me, who is now out of her uniform, and I just have written down bumps into Annie looking good, acting weird, like

She looks real pretty, but she’s acting weird. What’s going on? Is she the killer? I mean, that’s what it seems like it would be suggesting. It also make, you know, like she comes in from out of town, it’s her sister that died. Like if anybody has motive. It would be her. And so they take advantage of that right away.

Todd: Oh, she’s in almost every scene in the beginning and it gets kind of boring, right? Cause we’re just sort of following her around town and they’re having a graduation rehearsal and that seems pretty boring. And then she pops in and it’s like Sally whispers, that’s the one I saw in the, in the woods. And then later she goes over to Kevin’s house and Kevin is the boyfriend of, um, well the former boyfriend, I guess, or Laura, uh, who dies and he’s got this weird ass house where.

I don’t know if they like stockpile art supplies or something. And then he’s got this grandmother who just sits in front of a static screen and yells at it. And that was interesting because she didn’t need to be there.

Craig: Interesting. In that it amounts to nothing. Like that’s, that’s my big problem. Like there are all of these things that a V the amount, nothing like at the end of the movie.

Again, it’s going to get a little spoiler-y. I apologize, but by the end of the movie, I wondered why was the character of an even in this movie like as, except for to like throw suspicion on her. There’s no reason for her to be there.  all of the events of the movie could have played out in her absence.

Like she’s only there. As a mislead. And that frustrates me.

Todd: Yeah. And we spent so much time with her in the beginning, the movies really trying to build this sympathy for Laura. And you think kind of for Laura’s family, I mean, she’s come home from Guam. Right, right. Be here for this graduation in the wake of this tragedy.

Her mother’s trying to reassure her, her stepdad has this kind of issue. He’s clearly dealing with some trauma. She goes over to Kevin’s house and he’s put together a little flip book, uh, you know, a photos from her and they have, you know, exchange words and have this kind of sweet talk and she gives him.

The necklace that she was going to give her, and that gets laid down on a photograph and there’s a shot of that and all of these little things. You’re right. They seem like they’re being set up to be significant,

Craig: or at least it,

Todd: there’s this kind of family drama and this kind of shadow that’s supposedly hanging over everybody about Laura being dead.

Now. We all know Laura collapsed. On the track field. Nobody shot her, nobody killed her. So we’re not starting out with a mystery right away. And that’s maybe, I think a big failing of the movie is not only are we not starting out with the mystery right away, but they’re trying to make a mystery out of it.

Like at one point before she disappears for quite a while. Uh, Anne confronts the track coach who’s a Dick, who just yells and screams at the girls and stuff all the time, and she makes this absurd assertion that everybody knows that he killed her. I guess because he pushed her so hard that she got a blood clot that’s at least a third of the way into the movie.

But nobody really takes it seriously. So the main mystery we have going this whole time, if you can call it, is who is the killer. But that’s only a mystery for us because until like the last 10 minutes, nobody else knows there’s even a killer. Nobody knows people are being killed, right? These kids are just disappearing.

And. Nobody’s finding the bodies and nobody’s saying anything about it. There’s not even like, Oh, where’s Sally? She was supposed to come here today. You know, where’s Jim? It’s only like the last 15 minutes that, I’m sorry, it’s the last 30 minutes that a cop shows up and is like, ah, you know, I’ve been called by some parents.

They said that a bunch of kids are missing and. Yeah. The principal’s like, yeah, I know. I realized they were all members of the same track team. Two parents had been calling me about it too. Uh, yeah. You know? Well, it’s just like, I just want to get the things done, write my report and get outta here.

They’re probably kids just playing around. Yeah. I don’t even know why the parents are upset about it. They’re like, what?

Craig: What?

Todd: What? Yeah.

Craig: Well, yeah. And, and the, the principal is just like, Oh. They’re not going to miss graduation. Don’t worry about it. They’ll turn up it’s graduation day. Um, yeah, and they’re, they, there are, you know, after the first girl gets killed, there’s a pointless scene where they’re like taking the track photo and that girl doesn’t show up.

And everybody’s like, no, we don’t want to take the picture without her and the coach. Like, too bad we’re doing it anyway. So they kind of notice that people are missing. And especially after that party, when like, I don’t know, four or five people get killed. Um, yeah, parents start calling and stuff, but it doesn’t, it doesn’t seem high stakes.

Uh. Point. No.

Todd: And nobody’s walking around nervous. Right? It’s not scream.

Craig: No, no. Yeah. They, nobody jumps to the conclusion, Oh, somebody must be killing everybody, which I guess you probably wouldn’t, but just a little weird. Like it’s all these red herring things that just drive me nuts. Like when, uh, Anne is at, uh, Kevin, is that his name?

Yeah. When she’s at his house. Um, and there’s that photo album. Maybe this was just like a logistics things, but it drove me crazy. That was a full photo album of the last 30 seconds of her life. Like

Todd: what,

Craig: who is taking all of these pictures and why would you want to commemorate this? Like I was waiting for the last picture to be like her dead body on the track.

Todd: True. That’s a very good, so

Craig: weird and random. And then just lots of weirdo, uh, ran. Okay. So, uh, Sally gets stocked in the locker room again and, and that’s when Vanna white piece, you are out to get out of here. This girl wacko.

There’s a weird scene and this happens a couple of times where. The Sally. Okay. So I guess a reporter has come to do a story. No.

Todd: Sally or no, no, no, no. I think this is, I’m the yearbook photographer, isn’t it? The same guy who was taking the track, I don’t know. And all that stuff. That’s what I thought it was,

Craig: I guess.

Okay. So anyway, a photographer and he’s there to take a picture of . Her doing her uneven bars routine or whatever. Well, she keeps falling. Well, one of the, the reason that she’s falling is because she keeps having these weird, like flashbacks. Like I didn’t even understand was she just like traumatized by the fact that this girl collapsed and died.

And there’s another part later where somebody else has these weird stylistic flashbacks and I’m like, I didn’t even get it.

Todd: It’s what is happening. I thought it was cute and clever, and that’s how I interpreted at first, like she’s flashing back to the track and to her collapsed and I thought, Oh, that’s interesting.

Like she can’t, because she’s an athlete, a fellow athlete died and now it’s affecting her performance. She can’t concentrate because this keeps coming up to her except. Some of the flashes that come through are one of the other girl’s murder, and so that didn’t make sense

Craig: anymore like it. She doesn’t even know about,

Todd: she doesn’t even know about it, let alone did she see the body or it happened.

So that didn’t make any sense. I liked that scene just because we got a good, I don’t know, six or seven minutes. We got to watch her whole fricking routine.

Craig: It was so long.

Todd: They’re padding for time clearly, but the coach is standing there and he’s looking up at her, and after a while up to too long, actually, he starts like licking his lips and kind of looking at her.

Leslie and the photographer also notices it and as a little creeped out by it. But doesn’t do anything about it. Right? And everybody just goes along their Merry way. And then Sally goes into the women’s locker room by herself, just

Craig: shave her legs in the sink.

Why? I mean, it’s a locker room. I’m sure there are showers in there, but I guess that’s sexy.

Todd: Yeah. I felt like it was one of those, it was a notch against the, you know, the feminist thing called, I’m not going to argue that this is a feminist film, trust me, but it’s definitely a notch down a against the film as far as, I felt like the only reason she was shaving her legs in there, uh, was just so we could see her legs a little bit more.

Craig: Yeah,

Todd: definitely. She gets stabbed. She’s the one that gets stabbed with the of the

Craig: fence fencing foil. Right. And then it cuts to a totally random scene of this guy in like a leisure suit. Like it turns out, I guess that he’s the music teacher. I think. Mr. Roberts and he’s like doing this performance. It’s so funny, like he’s sitting at the piano and playing this song and these two high school girls are fawning over him.

Like he’s Paul McCartney or something, and he’s talking, he’s talking about how, Oh, you know, I, I had to leave the business. And they’re like, it’s so ridiculous. He’s not. In any way attractive. Like he looks like he stepped right out of like a porno from the late seventies or something. Even like mustache.

Maybe I’m, maybe that’s just how I projected him in my mind. I don’t

Todd: know.

Craig: He was just. Gross.

Todd: Yeah. He didn’t seem to be the kind of guy who’d be terribly interested in girls. Let’s just put it that way. Well, true. So bats rang a little untrue when one, when limited Quigley, uh, in her first scene in the movie, I think, right.

We didn’t see her earlier.

Craig: Well, okay. We didn’t see her earlier because the other girl was still playing her. Like, that’s the, I guess so the original girl. Who wouldn’t show her boobies. They tried as much as they could to cut around her in the opening scenes, but she’s there and then she’s then now replaced by Linnea Quigley and again, spoiler alert, later on, Linea quickly gets.

Killed and she gets decapitated I think. And then in the big fines, the bodies scene, which were in all of the slashers in the last 10 minutes, where the final girl is running around and happens upon all of the bodies that have been piled up for the whole movie. Um, you see this character’s severed head, but it’s not the, they quickly his head, it’s the other girl’s head.

Yeah. They had already shot that scene.

Todd: You’re like, who’s that?

It’s so funny.

Craig: It’s perfect. Linnea Quigley from the 80s. It’s exactly what I want from her.

Todd: She basically set her tone with this movie, I think, because this is her character on every film thereafter to varying degrees. Right. She comes in, she sits down and she’s already slinking in a, and the other girls leave and she turns around and locks the door and sits down next to this guy and asks him, Oh, you know, I want to talk about my grade, you know, of course I need to make sure I get a good grade.

I don’t know, in music class to graduate. He’s like, Oh, well, I don’t know if that’s going to be appropriate because whatever. And she like takes his glasses off and he’s like, Oh, ha ha. You know, um, um, ah. Oh. And then she just pops open her top and pushes his face right down between her very natural boobs and, uh, almost pulls his, his to pay off in the process.

Did you notice that

his hair makes a very dramatic shift back as she.

Craig: And then that’s hilarious.

Todd: Which sets up this bizarre scene that I have no idea why it was there, except again to pad for time. There’s a scene in between where the secretary goes into the principal’s office and the principal wants

Craig: a . That’s her name. Her name is Blondie,

Todd: and. Actually, I liked her character.

She was a cha, a notch in the, in the section of strong female characters because it was clear that either she and the principal do or had a thing going, but she doesn’t just let him lay his hands all over her. She’s kind of rolls her eyes at it most of the time. Very forcefully, pushes him off. And I don’t know, I didn’t really get the relationship, but I kind of liked it.

I thought it was different. You know, she wasn’t just a bimbo. Yeah. Who’s funding all over the principal. He asked her to make some recordings and she’s like, I’m going to be up all night doing this, and I don’t even really understand what they were supposed to be recordings up.

Craig: I think she was supposed to be transcribing letters.

I think that he had dictated letters into a cassette player and she was supposed to transcribe them. It doesn’t matter

Todd: the scene. I think that almost follows this. Lynette Quigley’s character. Doris has gone now, so all we have is this teacher again, and he just hears this odd banging sound and it makes him wonder where is this clanging coming from?

And he’s curious enough about it that he goes out into the hallway and bumps into the track coach and it’s like, yeah, there’s this crazy banging. It sounds like it’s coming from the pipes, you know, to do it. Anything about it. I’m going to go to the boiler room and check it out. Like what really? So he goes into the boiler room and he’s like, anybody in here?

Are you kids banging around on the pipes? Look, I’m not going to get upset. And then a tape player is thrown at him and it is playing a recording of him and Dolores, what we didn’t see from their scene, which is hilarious.

Craig: Visit the Roberts center with your clothes off. Why

Todd: don’t you find me attractive?

Craig: Well, I’m sorry. You’re okay. You’re fine. Do you like

Todd: snakes? I call this my little Cobra.

Craig: Why is it poison, man?

Todd: God so funny. So

Craig: that was really

Todd: funny. Then two kids run out.

Craig: Yeah. Like it was just a prank. Like it has nothing to do with anything.

Todd: Yeah. And he lives, doesn’t he? Does he even die? I mean, he’s not on the track team. I don’t need anything

Craig: happen though. I don’t think he does.

Todd: I didn’t even think he was going to die because he goes into that place and I know he’s not on the fricking track team, so there was no.

Suspense. It offered me in the scene. I was just trying to figure out what the why in the world. Halfway across the school, he heard some clanging coming from somewhere and was so interested in stopping what he was doing and going into the boiler room and along with the bit where I didn’t understand why, um, Anne was allowed to just wander around the school for.

For ages and decided to go into the dark shop. What was that about?

Craig: I have no idea. Apparently the coach is also the woodshop teacher, but yeah, she walks into the dark wood shop and the machines come on mysteriously by themselves and then the coach comes in and he’s like, are you crazy? These are dangerous machines, and she’s like.

I didn’t turn him on and he’s like, okay, whatever. That’s it. No explanation ever for why that happened. Like I guess there was just a power surge or something that made the machines come on like it’s, it just seems really sloppily written. Like, wouldn’t that be scary if the machines came on for no reason?

Yeah, let’s do it. Okay.

Todd: It just gave the coach a reason to come running in, and I guess he was out in the hallway too, to hear the machines. So he comes and runs in and talks to Laura and that’s that. And the principal is no Saint either, apparently, because a, he doesn’t care about the kids a and B. He has a drawer full of switchblades, which I assume he’s confiscated from kids.

Is that the assumption, I guess, and a stopwatch

Craig: and gloves

Todd: and he is the worst at cutting an Apple I have ever seen anybody cut.

Craig: Yeah. He cuts it into like. For asymmetrical pieces, like through the core, like what was the point? God, but my faith, Dolores is my favorite and the ne quickly, she’s just, she’s just so cute and she just plays these.

Like she just dives into these roles and they’re so silly, but she, she’s just so endearing in them, but it’s just like her only characteristic in this movie is that she’s super horny and like she even says it more than once. Like, ah. So horny.

Todd: Tony,

Craig: you’re hanging out in the park and they’re like smoking a dupe and like they’re just chatting and then he’s like lounging with his head in her lap and then she just out of the blue is like. You weren’t really horny, and she goes to start on doing it, his pants, and he’s like smacking her hands away.

It says, Oh, there’s time for that later. There’s time for that later. Like she must be so hoardy if her teenage boyfriend is like swatting her hands away from his

Todd: cross, God nodding,

Craig: listening, chafe.

Todd: Oh, too. Too bad. I was just a kid at that time.

Craig: They get caught by like the school cop, like I guess there’s a cop of that word. I didn’t realize that there were resource officers in the 80s I mean, I know that there are now, but I don’t remember there being cops. At

Todd: school? Well, the thing that’s weird about it, and the movie does this a lot, is that we’re already almost an hour in and suddenly we’re being introduced to a new character, like who seems like he’s going to be somewhat significant this cop, and he’s ends up not actually being in many scenes after that.

So it doesn’t really matter. And then, you know, it’s just sort of like the, the detective who shows up later and is in maybe two scenes. Toward the end and that’s it.

Craig: Well, and they do stupid things like trying to establish conflict. Like they have this one totally random scene between the cop and the coach and the cops, like, I know all about you.

Uh, you better be careful. I could take you down, or something like that. And then that’s it. That’s the only scene they share together. There’s no context for what apparently this cop knows about the coach. Um, except for it. Like there’s a little bit of insinuation maybe that the coach. It has like lecherous relationships with the girls on the team.

Like it’s just that the tiniest hint that that could be, and the cop runs with that for that one. 15 seconds scene and then you never hear anything about it ever again. God and Oh,

Todd: there’s so much more to talk about. There’s so much more we

Craig: got to get through. Okay, good. I’m ready. Well, I mean,

Todd: it’s really funny that this one path through the woods is where pretty much all except for maybe one of the murders happens.

I think only Sally actually gets killed in the school. Right. And everybody else, like they’re walking through the park. And then they turn left into this path and you’re let go, great. I know what’s going to happen here. It happens all the time. And that’s where Linnea Quigley and her boyfriend are sitting on that bench before the cop chases them off.

That’s where this football, this one of the track team guys apparently also plays football and he’s back there tossing a football around and with himself. Yeah. And Vanna white and her friend like suddenly grabbed the football from him out of nowhere and Chuck it into the bushes and runaway like, hahaha.

So then he has to go into the bushes to find it. Luckily, all along the killer has been in there with a giant blade like four feet long that he managed to insert into this football, I guess, without deflating it so that he has as holding a football. With an F, like a four foot blade off of the end of it.

And again, we get this POV shot, um, and it’s, you know, the kid comes over as like, Hey, Hey, give me my football. And I guess the killer throws the football with the blade in it at the kid and impales him.

Craig: Yeah. That was hilarious.

Todd: It was silly.

Craig: It was the silliest thing. One of the silliest things I’ve ever seen, and like blood comes out of the guy’s mouth.

I don’t know what they were using for blood. It looked like rusty water. Like it didn’t look like blood at all. It was orange. It wasn’t red. Um, but that was, it was funny. And not only is it a POV shot from the killer, but then like, gosh, I may be misremembering this, but I almost feel like. You get like the football tracking shot?

Yeah. Like they put like, they put the football like right underneath the camera lens and then just moved the camera towards the guy with the shocked face until he gets impaled. Oh man. That was really, really funny.

Todd: And none of it was probable. And then,

Craig: and then there’s a sing along. Yes. And I really enjoyed that.

It was really long.

Todd: Yup.

Craig: The graduation day blues sing along. I enjoyed that a lot and then the cop threatens the coach and then there’s a break dancing scene. Yes, in the roller rink, which I also thought was pretty amazing

Todd: and a seven minute long music video. Like, I may be mistaken about this, but we have seen this happen in so many low budget horror films that I think there must be kind of a, an arrangement like, like w if you’re too cheap to go out and get the music rights to something or to have somebody write something for you, but you want to be hip and edgy and you want to have like a rock song or two in your movie.

The best thing to do is to approach a band that’s almost nothing but has good music and say, Hey, we’ll put you in the movie a lot if you just let us use a couple of your songs. And I felt like that was probably the tradeoff here.

Craig: It was. I mean, they, they, they didn’t charge them anything for the music.

Most probably because they got the exposure from being in the movie for like, they play a whole song. Like this whole scene takes place over this whole song. Um, and it’s the scene where, again, just sloppy writing in my opinion. So, um, Delores Linnea Quigley and her guy Tony sneak off into the woods to get down and, but the cop follows them into the woods and they make a big point.

Of showing you that the cop follows them into the woods. Yes. But then they get killed by the killer who, spoiler alert is not the cop so. Did the cop just like stand there and watch them while they were getting frisky and then watch while they got killed. Like I, they’re getting frisky and the guy is like  so he like goes off to take a pee and he’s peeing and he gets his head cut off

Todd: by a

Craig: soreness,

Todd: like a medieval sword bias.

Craig: By the

Todd: way, by the way, this

Craig: I was,

Todd: I was so impressed. By the effect at first, first of all, I think maybe it was cut quick enough or the lighting was just right that that blade comes around and lops his head off in slow motion and the camera gets all of it. Yeah. The head turns and stuff and I was like, ah, that is a great effect.

And then Linnea Quigley goes and discovers his head and it’s hanging from a tree and it looks like it’s made out of fricking paper. Mashay

Craig: it was horrible. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. 100%

Todd: like leave the shot of the head out of it. If your head looks so bad, and then the killer,

Craig: but the slow mode, the slow Mo of the head flying through the air really did look pretty good.

I was pretty impressed by that.

Todd: Tastic then Lynette quickly screams. The killer John jumps out of the bushes, like literally like ooga, booga, booga, booga

Sadly, this is the first time, and it was a poor choice, but it’s the first time. I’m pretty sure that we even see. The killer, and he’s wearing like a fencing mask and the grace sweatsuit and the black gloves. It’s got this giant medieval sword, which he then leaps it Linnea Quigley swings at her, but she ducks away and it glances.

Off of a twig. The same guy that was able to slice this sword cleanly through a guy’s neck couldn’t even put a dent in a sapling.

Craig: It was funny. It’s also funny cause when he jumps out like that, we do get the first shot of him and later when we find out who the killer is, it’s entirely obvious that the same actor did not utilize.

Yes. The killer in this scene is not. The person that they tell us it is at the end. In fact, I’m pretty sure that it’s the director, right?

Todd: Yep. You’re right. Yep. It’s the director, herb freed,

Craig: but completely different body type than the person who actually ends up being the killer. Yeah.

Todd: He should. Stick to directing cause he’s acting.

I mean, even when you’re not seeing your face, this is why some of our Jason actors get a lot of credit for the part they play with Jason. And at first glance you’d think, well his face is covered the whole time. He never says anything and all he does is pretty much stand there most of the time or run at somebody with assault with a knife.

But actually it does take some talent to be able to pull that off. This scene right here is clear indication of how you can’t just throw anybody into a. Jumpsuit and make them look very

Craig: well. And then you have the classic killer chasing the damsel through the woods, which I really enjoyed, especially since it was Linea.

And like, I love in one part, she’s running, and this goes on for a while. Mind you, uh, at one point she’s running and she’s holding her shirt together, and then the killer. I also love this in horror movies. Okay. So. She’s running. The killer is running more slowly behind her. It becomes evident that he’s not going to be able to catch her.

So he makes a 90 degree turn to the left, which magically allows him to then appear in front of her. Now I don’t understand

Todd: how that works cause

Craig: she kept running in a straight lie. I don’t know how he circled around her and ended up in front of her. But then at that point, her shirt is totally open, her boobs akimbo and uh, then she turns around and starts running back the other way in the very next shot.

Apparently she has taken the time to stop and button her shirt up entirely

and then she gets killed. And I’m always sad when she gets killed in movies

Todd: cause she’s always

Craig: my favorite.

Todd: And we didn’t even get, I mean, we, we know she was probably decapitated. You don’t actually see it happen. You just see the killer standing over her Murtha knife and bring it down. I read that apparently she vomited after that scene.

I guess it was her first, you know, kill, you know, in a movie and something about it disturbed her and she threw up. Oh, wow. Interesting. Yeah, I mean. Yeah. So anyway, but by then the song’s over. So the movie has to continue.

Craig: Yeah. Right. Um, then there’s, uh, like you said, uh, after the party, the principal’s fielding all these calls about missing kids, this inspector shows up for no good reason.

I mean, I guess the parents have called the police too. So this inspector shows up, um, more red herring stuff where the coach opens his drawer and there’s gloves and a stopwatch. And then Vanna white finds Sally’s body in the locker room and coach Michaels shows up in a full sweatsuit like the killer and Vanna and her friends scream and run away.

And so I guess everybody then just assumes that he did it cause he was there. W and Kevin, the boyfriend, yeah, runs in and like fights him. Where did he.

Todd: In the or did he come from,

Craig: I have no idea. Yeah. I mean, I guess he heard them screaming. I don’t know. But he comes in and they fight. Um, but Michael’s gets away and Kevin chases him into the woods and Han and the inspector are chasing them.

Yeah. That one spot that they could film in the woods. Parents,

Todd: like you said earlier, and in the inspector also show up out of nowhere. We have not seen them and suddenly they’re involved in this chase as well.

Craig: Uh huh.

And it got, I missed somewhere I missed. There was another scene that was just so random, like this kid just randomly is practicing his pole vaulting alone on the track. Field and like we see the whole buildup of him like running and he pull volts over and then he lands on the mat, but the mat has been rigged with all these spikes and so he’s just impaled on all these spikes.

I mean, I thought it was a clever kill scene, but it was just like dropped in like, like, we need another kill. All right, here we go.

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: we was like it in wherever.

Todd: It’s like, Oh, we forgot we gotta we gotta kill up one more kid. And I mean, it was an interesting kill.

Craig: It was one of the more interesting ones.

Todd: We haven’t seen death by pole vaulting, and we haven’t seen death by football yet. I think, uh. So,

Craig: yeah,

Todd: that’s, that’s true.

Craig: Put 200 and some movies in. Yeah, that’s good. But anyway. Okay. So then there’s a big show down in the woods with Michael’s. Michael’s stumped. That’s the coach. He stumbles over the dead football player and Kevin catches up to him.

The coach is like, I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill anybody. And Kevin’s like, yes, you did. You killed her, and now you’ve got to be punished. And so then Michael’s bitch slaps him. That is so funny to me. Like who decides these things? Like he doesn’t punch him. He doesn’t like, you know, both ways, like across the face and backhand bitch slaps him, which I just thought it was so funny.

But this is, uh, where we find out, because at this point, Kevin, who has been Mia for the last 45 minutes, just. Says, uh, yeah, you killed her cause you pushed her too hard. You all did. You all killed her. Um, we were going to get . Married right after graduation, like the same day. Um, but, but, but she’s dead because of you.

And so I have to punish all of you. So now we know that Kevin is the killer and he’s got a knife. But Michael somehow knocks him down and gets a hold of the knife. So then he’s there standing over the dead football player and Kevin, who’s on the ground. And so the inspector just whips out his gun and shoots the coach dead

and, and so then they’re all there, Anne’s there. So she comforts poor Kevin and they all disperse. And I guess is like over it. So she goes to Blondie in the principal’s office and it’s like, all right, look, can you just give me Laura’s trophy and her diploma so I can get the hell out of here? And,

Todd: and we’re like, please give it to her.

I know, right?

Craig: God, go back to Guam. Seriously. This seems to be over.

Todd: I was surprised the movie. Well, I wasn’t surprised the movie is still going cause we had to have justice. Right. Okay. I

Craig: guess. Um, but, but anyway, Blondie’s like, but wait, Kevin came and got those earlier. He said you told him to and he doesn’t seem like the kind of boy who would lie.

And Anne’s like, no. No, he does.

She leaves and goes back to his creepy house where, okay, so the first time she’s in his creepy house, there’s like this seven foot tall nude statue of a man. And when she goes back to his house. It has moved, like it’s the biggest thing in the room, and it was front and center in the first scene. And now in the next scene, somebody has moved it to the staircase, like it’s standing.

This giant nude man is standing on the stairs. Why?

Todd: I don’t get it.

Craig: And it doesn’t make any difference and it doesn’t play into anything. It was just like a little trick. I don’t know. Um, but she does, she goes to his house and. She’s looking around and she ends up up in his room and then she is startled because somebody is sitting in a chair, a girl is sitting in a chair and she’s like, Oh, I’m sorry.

I didn’t mean to bother you. I was just looking for Kevin, and she comes around to the front and very, you know, mother Bates psycho style. It’s her sister. Laura’s rotting. Corpse, but still with very beautiful hair. And uh, so she’s scared, I guess. And then Kevin comes in and just starts crazily rambling, and he’s like, Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.

I wanted you to be the first to kiss the bride. And Ann’s like. What he’s like, Oh, we’re getting married today, right after graduation, and you love her, don’t you want to kiss her? And so then they start tussling. And the most. It’s, it’s beautiful, really. I love it, but it’s one of the most contrived things I’ve ever seen.

Like somehow they end up on opposite sides of the corpse chair and an like falls into the chair, which pushes Laura’s corpse up and out of the chair into Kevin’s arms and both Kevin and the corpse go out. The second story window.

Todd: Yes.

Craig: And, and looks out there and they’re both just laying there, presumably dead, but then she runs downstairs and she opens the front door and Kevin just saunters in carrying the body, like,

Todd: right, pastor.

Craig: Yeah. Lucky you barely know. Doesn’t give her a glance. Yeah,

Todd: nothing. Excuse me. I just got a package to take in,

but nevertheless, she goes . Tearing out of there. Right. And she ends up right once again, tearing through the fricking park and that same, you know, strip that everybody likes to go down and sudden, I guess the idea is that Kevin is now in pursuit of her, even though we haven’t seen him run out of the house and she stumbles into all the bodies, she sees, you know, the people in the, the heads, and

Craig: she runs to the track field.

Like, where are you going. Like there’s like there’s a killer chasing you and you run to the football field. Like there’s nobody there. She gets there and she’s just too exhausted to keep going. Well, maybe take your heels off. That might help. Oh man, it’s so dumb. And then he shows up and that. Yeah.

Todd: I just love that, that he, it turns out he’s hidden all these rest of these body parts and pieces and things under the bleachers, which you can clearly see from anywhere you want to stand.

I don’t know how long those things have been back in there that nobody’s noticed and they have a tussle there and God, how does he die? What happens to him

Craig: somehow? Okay, so somehow the guy that was. Killed via pole vault. Somehow he has been like strung up on a wall or a door so that he’s vertical and the spikes that he landed on are still sticking out of him.

Todd: Somehow

Craig: and some. Yeah. And somehow in an end Kevin’s tussle, she pushes him or something and he backs into those spikes and he walks off of them and you think he’s going to be okay, but then he starts. Spewing blood out of his mouth, and he falls down on the ground and twitches around for a little bit.

Yeah. But then he’s dead. Um, and, and that, I have to say that fight scene was one of the most ridiculous, poorly choreographed fights I have ever seen. There’s, there’s one part where she opens a gate. Like a, like a chain link, fence Gates, a tall one, like a six foot tall one and then closes it behind her but doesn’t latch it.

And she’s just holding it and he’s acting like he’s struggling to get in. Like he couldn’t just pull it open or push it either way, cause it would go either way. Instead he grabs either side of the gate, like he’s gonna like. Incredible Hulk, like rip it open.

Todd: What are you doing?

Craig: It’s not even lat and they’re fighting through the fence.

Oh my gosh. It was really, really bad, but fun

Todd: because it was so bad. It was fun in its badness.

Craig: And then, okay, so he’s dead. And then we get a shot of Anne sleeping in her house, and then Kevin like zombie. Kevin, like Bursztyn. But then the light comes on cause her mom turns on the light and it’s not really, Kevin is just her asshole stepdad for no reason.

Yeah. And then the next morning she drives away the end. That’s it.

Todd: Why didn’t they just end the movie with his death? What was with that weird jump scare with her waking back up again and then. Why do we have to see her leave the house and get in a taxi drive off, then

Craig: go through that. She can drive under the graduation day banner.

That’s why, so that they can freeze. Frame it on the graduation day banner. Yeah, yeah. Oh man. That was a really terrible movie, really.

Todd: But it was fun. I mean, it was fun. And its badness, I have to say, and if this is, this is the one that if you and I had been sitting next to each other when we watched it, Oh my God, we would have had a blast.

I really think we,

Craig: yeah.

Todd: So

Craig: I think so too. It is. It does it, it’s not one of my favorites, but it does fall into that category kind of of so bad. It’s good. Like it’s just so ridiculous. Just ridiculous. The writing is, is just awful, really. I mean, the dialogue is kind of stupid but serviceable. It’s just like the plot points don’t make any sense.

And they T they spend so much time trying to set up red herrings that you just don’t even. And care like, Oh, okay. I guess it could be him. Who cares? Everybody has a gray sweatsuit. Everybody has a drawer full of knives. Everybody has the exact same stopwatch. Like, all right, fine. It could be anybody who cares.

Keep going.

Where’s the of quickly hit

Todd: your tits out.

All right.

Craig: Oh man, I sound terrible. But when I talk about her like that, cause it sounds totally objectifying and in a way it is. But we have spoken to her and she has a really good sense of humor about it. And she w you know, I, I really respect and admire her for just embracing that aspect of. Careers for young women like her in horror at the time that, you know, if you wanted to work, you showed your boobs.

And she was young and cute and had good boobs. And I applaud her

Todd: array for the Linea Quigley’s boobs.

Craig: Absolutely. But, and that’s about it.

But no, it was, it was fun to watch. I, you know, I didn’t. I wouldn’t, I would never watch it again. No. Like there’s no rewatch value. Um, but it was fun to watch and it was fun to talk about. I, so, uh, who was it that recommended this?

Todd: Dave. Thank you, Dave.

Craig: Thanks, Dave. It was a good recommendation.

Todd: Really appreciate it.

Yeah. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. Thanks once again, Dave, for recommending this one. If you have something to request, we love to hear your request. We have a nice long list of them we go through and we’re going through them now, so find us online. Just search for two guys in a chainsaw.

We have a Facebook taste, we have a web page page, and we have a YouTube channel. You can leave us a comment on any of those places and we’ll spend weeks. Also, if you liked this podcast, please share it with a friend. And subscribed to us over on YouTube so we can go up until next time. I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig,

Todd: the two guys and a chainsaw.