While it predictably manifested itself on the big screen in such slick, polished mainstream films like Dressed to Kill, Body Double, Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct, it also influenced the TV-movies of the time as well, albeit to a much lesser-known degree.
One such film is the somewhat obscure Deadly Lessons (aka High School Killer), not to be confused with the 1995 straight-to-video high school horror flick, or the more recent Lifetime movie- although it's not too far removed from an old-school Lifetime TV-movie offering, to be sure.
Nope, this one was released around the height of slasher movie mania, back in 1983. To the best of my knowledge, it's never received an official DVD or Blu-Ray release. In fact, I'm not even sure it made it onto VHS!
This is sort of surprising, given the fairly big names involved, and the ongoing popularity of the genre, where even super-obscure dreck can often muster up a DVD/Blu-Ray release from a company looking for a quick cash-in from fans, i.e. Scream Factory, Arrow, etc.
No such luck for this one, leading would-be fans to have to seek it out either via it's occasional airing on one of Ted Turner's networks, such as TBS or TCM (aka Turner Classic Movies), where it is known to crop up from time to time, albeit less frequently these days; or, naturally, online, where iffy copies have been circulating for years. (You can watch it here on YouTube, in fact, at the time of this writing.)
That's too bad, as, while I wouldn't say that the film is some lost classic by any means, it's definitely worth at least a one-time viewing, if only for the cast and to see what a TV-movie slasher looks like. As you might guess, it's largely bloodless, and naturally, there's no nudity- two of the main hallmarks of the much-derided sub-genre. So, what's the point, one might ask?
Well, like I said, the cast is full of stars on the rise, and stars in decline, making for a fun watch for old-school movie fans. And, in spite of the fact that most of the kills take place off-screen, and the film suffers from a complete and utter lack of suspense as a direct result, it's still surprisingly fun.
In fact, it plays a bit like an "after-school special" with murder, or a more-grounded-in-reality episode of Scooby-Doo. Though you'll be glad- or perhaps disappointed- to hear there are no talking animals. There are a few horses, though, for you equine fans.
The fun begins when a series of mysterious deaths at a prestigious all-girls boarding school lead local detective Russ Kemper (Larry Wilcox, of TV's CHiPs) to believe that a serial killer is afoot, despite the hesitation of his superiors to buy into it.
However, the headmistress, Miss Wade (Donna Reed, of, um, The Donna Reed Show, as well as the perennial holiday classic It's a Wonderful Life) begs to differ, wanting to keep the school's elite status intact, and willing to browbeat the local police into keeping things under wraps- which they do at first, at least until the bodies start piling up.
Suspects include such stock characters as the shady younger boyfriend of Miss Wade's, John (David Ackroyd, a TV regular arguably best-known for the classic horror miniseries The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, with another member of Hollywood royalty, Bette Davis), the crusty old groundskeeper/janitor Robert (horror regular Donald Hotton, of Nightwing, The Hearse, One Dark Night and another movie I recently reviewed, Calendar Girl Murders), various school teachers (including Ellen Geer and Ruth Silveira, of Bloody Birthday, and Robin Gammell, best-known to horror fans for Rituals and The Haunting of Julia) and Wade herself.
In addition, there's the schoolgirls themselves, who are oft at odds with one another, and John's assistant, Eddie, who helps him tend to the horses in question, and has a shady background that includes an older brother who used to work there, but ended up in jail, allegedly for sleeping with a student.
Eddie is played by none other than a young Bill Paxton, in one of his earliest roles, and the same year he made the cult horror flick Mortuary. Paxton would, of course, go on to become one of Hollywood's most respected character actors, in everything from Aliens (and plenty of other James Cameron movies where that came from) to Apollo 13 to Twister to the underrated horror flick Frailty, which he also directed. (His Streets of Fire co-star Rick Rossovich also has a small role here, as Craig.)
However, the big draw for me was the ladies here, namely cult star Diane Franklin, of whom I am a massive fan. If you grew up in the 80's like I did, chances are you've seen at least one of her movies, which include the heartbreaking teen comedy/drama The Last American Virgin (featuring one of the single most devastating endings in all of teen movies); the surreal pitch-black comedy Better Off Dead, with a young John Cusack, Curtis "Booger" Armstrong and a singing, dancing Claymation hamburger (hey, it was the 80's, what are you gonna do?).
There's also what is regarded by many as the best of the seemingly never-ending Amityville series, Amityville II: The Possession, loosely-based on the actual murders that took place in the house, in which she plays the incestuous Patricia, in one of the film's most notorious scenes. Franklin's scheduled to revisit the series soon in The Amityville Murders, this time as the mother of the real-life-based character she played in her previous installment.
However, she's likely best-known as Princess Joanna in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, which is also scheduled for a reboot soon, reportedly with original stars Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter intact. Might Franklin make a cameo? The proposed plot-line, which has the titular twosome still married to their princesses, seems to leave room for it. We'll just have to wait and see in Bill & Ted Face the Music.
I had a massive crush on Franklin back in the day, and even went so far as to date a girl in high school who bore more than a passing resemblance to her, down to the naturally curly brunette hair and the on-point bushy eyebrows. These days, I follow the real deal on Twitter and we're Facebook friends as well, though we've never met IRL. What a world, right? 😍
Sadly, Franklin drifted out of the business by the early 90's, but still occasionally crops up in a movie here and there, and has a actress daughter, Olivia DeLaurentis, that's a rising star and is a dead ringer for her mom. Check her out in the upcoming TV series Mid-Life.
Here, Franklin plays newbie student Stefanie, who arrives just as the killings begin. Is it a coincidence, or does she have some hidden agenda we don't know about, perhaps connected to the past? Seems unlikely, but you never know...
Fun fact: her character here majors in French- perhaps she was preparing for her role as Monique, the French foreign exchange student in Better Off Dead? Or as a French nurse in a brief bit in the lesser-known Second Time Lucky? Either way, it probably came in handy!
The blasts from the past don't end there, either. There's also a young, pre-Brat Pack Ally Sheedy, who was soon to become a huge star via the same year's classic WarGames and John Hughes' The Breakfast Club and the Y/A drama St. Elmo's Fire in 1985.
And who's that random blonde playing Libby? Why, it's none other than Nancy Cartwright, aka the voice of Bart Simpson and Chuckie from Rugrats! Like fellow 80's actress Elizabeth Daily, she cropped up in a few movies back then before hitting the big time via voice-over work later on in her career.
Other movies you might have seen her in include Paul Verhoeven's medieval gore-fest Flesh + Blood (with a young Jennifer Jason Leigh and Rutger Hauer), Joe Dante's segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie ("It's a Good Life") and the Lea Thompson vehicle Going Undercover.
As Tember, there's Krista Errickson, who also played a mean girl type in the woefully underrated teen comedy/drama Little Darlings (with a teenage Tatum O'Neal and Kristy McNichol) and was in the horror/comedy Jekyll & Hyde...Together Again, the teensploitation flick The First Time, the Skinemax-friendly flicks Mortal Passions (with Gremlins star Zach Galligan) and Jailbait (with C. Thomas Howell); and the horror-thrillers Killer Image (with Michael Ironside) and The Paperboy (with William Katt).
As Cally, there's TV regular Renée Jones, who was in a lot of soaps, including Santa Barbara, Knots Landing and The Days of Our Lives, but is undoubtedly best-known to genre fans for her turns as Sissy in Jason Lives: Friday the 13th, Part VI and Robin in The Terror Within II.
Finally, there's Sally Klein, who plays Althea, and was in the cult favorite Eyes of Fire, as well as an episode of the Twilight Zone reboot from the 80's, in the segment "Welcome to Winfield." That about does it for notable names, insofar as I know.
Director William Wiard did the honors, who you might know for the way-better, likewise star-filled, made-for-TV horror flick This House Possessed and the script was by Jennifer Miller, who also did another slasher-like TV-thriller, The Babysitter, with an even campier cast (William Shatner, Patty Duke and John Houseman), as well as writing the teleplay for the aforementioned Dark Secret of Harvest Home.
Sadly, that also about does it for behind-the-scenes type stuff, as I could find woefully little else about the film. Even the usually reliable Wikipedia and IMDB have nada, in the way of trivia or the like.
The only other stuff I could find was that the movie aired on ABC on March 7th, 1983, and that it was produced by Leonard Goldberg, the über-producer behind such classic TV shows as Charlie's Angels, Hart to Hart, Starsky & Hutch, Fantasy Island and, more recently, Blue Bloods.
He was also president of 20th Century Fox for a while, where he oversaw/produced the aforementioned WarGames, Sleeping with the Enemy, Die Hard, Wall Street and Working Girl, among many other classics.
Oh, and that star Donna Reed apparently disowned the film as "cheap" and "sleazy"! Maybe by TV standards back then, but by movie standards of the time, such was hardly the case. Hell, it isn't even sleazy by modern TV standards, for that matter, lol.
That said, it is a lot of fun if you're a fan of any of the names I mentioned, and though slasher movie fans will be disappointed by the lack of gore or nudity, like I said, it is a TV-movie after all, so what did you expect? If anything, I just enjoyed seeing what a made-for-TV slasher movie looked like back during the Golden Age of the sub-genre.
What it may lack in gore and T&A, it certainly makes up for in the camp factor, not in the least some of the would-be tough, biting dialogue; the requisite villainous speeches towards the end explaining everything, motive-wise; and, of course, the twist ending, which is suitably ludicrous.
It won't keep you up at night, but it might keep you laughing at times, and it's just neat seeing some of the familiar faces in a prime piece of 80's cheese.
Check it out, but tread lightly, expectation-wise. 👺
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