Flashback Friday: Graduation Day

After watching Fatal Games a few weeks back, I got a bit nostalgic for the old slasher Graduation Day, which it shares more than a few qualities with, so I decided to make it my next subject for review this week. Unlike FG, I've been watching GD for ages, since way back when in the good old days of VHS and movie rental stores, before finally breaking down and buying it on DVD whenever the much-beloved Troma released it in the 2000's.

  

(Side Bar: For those unfamiliar, Troma is an independent film company known for specializing in low-budget B-movies, notably The Toxic Avenger series, and, like Roger Corman and his work for AIP, New World Pictures and others, featured a lot of filmmakers before they were famous, such as James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy), Trey Parker & Matt Stone (South Park) and JJ Abrams (Star Wars and  Star Trek), as well as actors like Marisa Tomei, Billy Bob Thorton, Kevin Costner, Vincent D'Onofrio and Samuel L. Jackson, among others.) 

Graduation Day was released at the height of the slasher boom, back in 1981, and featured a lot of the tropes the genre was known for: the mystery element, the killing off of teenagers one by one, as the killer marked them off on a picture with an "X" (see also Prom Night and the  aforementioned Fatal Games), the "bad habits" get you killed thing (namely sex, drugs and alcohol), and, of course, the gory, inventive deaths.

  

This one features some particularly nutty examples of the latter, as someone is killed by a mat lined with spikes after a pole vault and most notoriously, after the killer tosses a football armed with a spike! It's all pretty silly, but a lot of fun.  

The plot revolves around a group of track & field athletes that are being killed off by a not-so-mysterious assailant- the film tips its hat all too soon for eagle-eyed viewers paying attention early on. The impetus for the killer's spree is the death of a track runner Laura Ramstead (Ruth Ann Llorens), who drops dead from exhaustion after winning a race in the opening scene. 

In no time, a killer is stalking her fellow teammates, killing them off in grisly ways. Prime suspects include their demanding coach George Michaels (!), played by genre  fave Christopher George (of Pieces infamy, which is a film I suspect we'll get to before too long); high school principal and habitual philanderer Guglione (Michael Pataki,  Halloween IV); Laura's former boyfriend and fellow athlete  Kevin (E. Danny Murphy) and Laura's older sister, Anne (Patch Mackenzie), who was serving in the Navy at the time of her death and returns for her funeral- and just as the killings begin.  

Things go from there in predictable, if fun fashion. As I watched Fatal Games, I thought that GD was a far superior version of the same essential plot-line, but upon re-watching the film, I realized the two are about on the same level overall. Both feature substandard plotting and execution; both rarely bother to flesh out characters, often killing them almost within the same scene they are introduced or soon after; and both feature shabby production values and iffy lighting and cinematography.  

I will say that FG actually tries to be stylish at times, even if the budget doesn't allow for much wiggle room in that area, and that the big reveal of the killer there is much more satisfyingly bonkers, if somewhat abrupt and mishandled. 

In GD, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who done it, but I will say that the film's finale is handled much better, in terms of the excitement level, managing to sneak in a  Psycho-style reveal, a big chase scene, and even a Carrie-style "one last scare" moment at the very end, so the viewer goes out on an amusing jump-scare high. 

So, it's basically a draw as to which is better, but for pure nostalgia reasons, I have to go with this one, as I grew up with it, and I only saw Games recently for the first time. That said, they'd make for a perfect slasher double feature, and are ripe for ample ridicule if you watch them with a group of friends drinking beer/getting high/whatever. Games might be a little more apt to offend, given that twist at the end, but overall, both are too silly to take very seriously. 

However, Graduation Day does have Games beat in the notable names department, though, thanks to the presence of a fair amount of genre favorites, whereas Games basically just has one, really: Sally Kirkland. That's not counting the crowd extras that are Linnea Quigley and Brinke Stevens, mind you, who are only of the blink-and-you'll-miss-them variety.

Meanwhile, Day boasts the scenery-chewing Christopher George, who has lots of beloved cult horror "classics" under his belt, including Pieces, Grizzly, Mortuary, Day of the Animals, City of the Living Dead (aka The Gates of Hell), The Exterminator and Enter the Ninja. 

His wife Lynda Day also memorably appeared in Pieces and his niece is none other than professional letter-turner Vanna White, of Wheel of Fortune fame, who has a small role in this film as well, much of which was completely ad-libbed, due to the underwritten script not providing her much to do.

The aforementioned Linnea Quigley has a much more prominent role here, playing a student that ably seduces her teacher when he tries to give her a failing grade in one of the film's most memorable scenes (that "swinging" teacher is one hilarious piece of work), then later bites it having sex with her boyfriend in the woods during the roller-skating themed prom to the most endless New Wave song you'll ever hear.  

The band in question is Felony, who notably also had a song in another slasher classic, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, as well as the beloved teen rom-com Valley Girl. They are so-named due to their fashion sense, which should be one, lol. (Okay, that last "fact" is a joke- sorry, couldn't resist!)  

Anyway, Quigley went on to horror royalty status, thanks to her near-endless resume of B-movies, which include the likes of Return of the Living Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Silent Night, Deadly Night; Sorority  Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, Night of the Demons,  Creepozoids and the immortal Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers. She's pretty much the best.

Leading lady Patch Mackenzie, easily the most well-drawn character in the film- which she almost certainly brought to the table, given the stories I've heard about the less-than-favorable nature of the underwritten script- had a decent subsequent career, appearing in lots of TV shows, notably including Taxi, Charlie's Angels, Magnum P.I. and Knight Rider, as well as movies like the Marilyn Monroe biopics  Goodbye, Norma Jean and Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn; the Jim Kelly actioner Death Dimension; House Calls, Serial,  Fighting Back, It's Alive III: Alive of the Alive; and Dark Tower. She later basically quit the business to become an acting coach in the early 90's.   

Michael Pataki, who played the principal, had a long, illustrious career in both TV and film, with a massive list of IMDB credits to his name. Some of the most notable for genre fans include Easy Rider, Five the Hard Way (not to be confused with Three the Hard Way), Dream No Evil, The Return of Count Yorga, Grave of the Vampire, The Baby, the Bat People, Delinquent School Girls, Dracula's Dog (aka  Zoltan, Hound of Dracula- he was Dracula in the film), Love at First Bite, The Glove, Dead & Buried, Sweet Sixteen,  Rocky IV, Halloween IV and Death House, among many others.

Carmen Argenziano, who played the Inspector, had a healthy career in movies and TV, even appearing in The Godfather,  Part II (albeit briefly), as well as When a Stranger Calls, Scorsese's Into the Night, Sudden Impact, Stand and Deliver, Broken Arrow, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Swordfish,  Identity and Angels & Demons.  

Virgil Frye, who played tokin' Officer MacGregor, was in lots of B-movies, notably Queen of Blood, Hell's Angels on Wheels, Nightmare in Wax, Garden of the Dead, Up from the Depths, Take This Job and Shove It, Revenge of the Ninja, Colors, The Hot Spot, S.F.W. and Xtro 3. 

Denise Chesire, who played Sally- the girl who gets it in the bathroom- was the girl who swam naked in Spielberg's 1941, aping his own Jaws, and did lots of stunt work in the 80's, including playing a flying monkey in the underrated Under the Rainbow (about the making of Wizard of Oz), a gorilla in the Mighty Joe Young remake, and the "Locker Alien" in Men in Black II. 

After that, it gets a bit sketchy for the cast, though Billy  Hufsey, who played Tony, was a regular on TV's adaptation of Fame; Linda Shayne, who played Paula Brentwood, cropped up in Humanoids from the Deep; and E. Danny Murphy, who played Kevin, was in the Betsy Russell vehicle Tomboy.   

There is a "Director's Cut" available, which runs about eight minutes longer than the original theatrical release- this is the one I have, released by Troma- and, as one might expect, it's that much gorier, though not all of it is of the gore variety, some is just footage used in the TV version and relatively inconsequential. 

IMDB also mentions a UK DVD version that runs about five minutes longer than the original and inserts death scenes from the horror flick Night Screams for even more gore! (Haven't seen that version, but would like to.)

Finally, as everyone knows by now, I'm a sucker for a good cheesy title tune, and this has a doozy: "The Winner," by Lance Owg, Gabriel Rohels and David Cole, plus a bonus track featuring (spoiler) the killer getting down on harmonica with singer/guitarist Grant Loud, "Graduation Day Blues." 

And, of course, there's several tunes by the aforementioned Felony, notably "Gangster Rock," which is the song that plays during Linnea Quigley's death scene and seems to go on for about ten minutes.  

Speaking of Quigley, she was a late addition to the flick- apparently the actress the filmmakers hired refused to do the agreed-upon nudity, so they out-and-out replaced her at the last minute with Quigley, who had no such qualms. (Try  getting away with such a thing in these PC times.) 

If you look closely, she's the one who's wearing the number "46" on her jersey in the opening scenes, and towards the end, when the Final Girl stumbles upon various dead bodies, it's her head that we see decapitated instead of Quigley's, as they had already shot that scene before replacing her! Pretty crazy.

All in all, a pretty decent movie, considering it was shot in only three weeks, with an incomplete script, and various last-minute additions (Patch Mackenzie was another replacement actor hired late in the game) and a lot of the gore was cut out by the MPAA for the theatrical release. I'm more used to the uncut version, so I barely even remember that cut at this point. 

To be sure, Graduation Day is a guilty pleasure, but then, most slasher movies are. You either like this sort of thing or you don't, really. I happen to love the sub-genre, but I get why it's reviled by some, being as how most of them are practically interchangeable, save some of the high-points of the sub-genre, like Halloween, Black Christmas, Friday the 13th and so on. GD may not score any points for originality, but in terms of showing fans of slashers a good time, it's a "Winner." (See what I did there?)