After School Massacre
by Jared Masters
I've been watching a lot of strange horror movies lately, like stuff dealing with killer mermaids, evil tattoos, and possessed dolls. I really felt like I needed to watch something more traditional. That's why I decided to give Brain Damage films' After School Massacre a watch, hoping it would be a solid throwback to old slasher flicks. However, old slashers seem to have a quality about them that can't be replicated nowadays.
Ty Anderson, a high school history teacher, loses his job when the principal finds out that Mr. Anderson messaged one of his students over Facebook. Something inside of the teacher snaps and he murders the principal and the secretary, who witnessed the crime. His students decide to have a slumber party that night, shortly after a girl killed herself at one of these parties. Anderson finds his way to the girls' party, planning on getting revenge on the students who are responsible for his termination.
This movie didn't work for a variety of reasons such as unresolved plotlines and plot holes. The most notable being the student killing herself. She admits to her boyfriend the reason she is killing herself is because her boyfriend cheated on her. This is referenced several times throughout the movie. This leads to a long dream sequence in which one of the girls sees the deceased, they proceed to pick fruit and dance. At one point the dead girl is shown crawling around outside, that's the last time we see this girl. That's it, no explanation as to why any of that was actually relevant to the plot. My guess is that it's most likely a time water since the movie is only about 70 minutes long. The fate of some characters remains ambiguous as well, one of the party crashers just disappears towards the end of the film with no hint as to whether or not he was killed. My main problem with the movie was the fact that the teacher walks away at the end, seemingly scot-free. He plants evidence potentially blaming one of the other characters for the crimes. However, what about all the forensic evidence placing the teacher at the scene of the crime. Like hair in the beanie he used to hide his face or the fingerprints on some of the murder weapons? Maybe I just over think things.
This movie is also filled with poor acting; both over acting and just plain bad acting. Also, "What's character development?" this movie asked. Well, I hope it did because clearly After School Massacre has no idea. We are given no hints as to any of the characters' motives. Why do the girls party in their underwear needlessly and change wardrobes every scene? Why was Ty Anderson driven to homicidal mania just over being fired? Why was Luke, in general, a terrible human being? We never get the answers to any of these questions. To make matters worse this is probably one of the more poorly edited movies I've seen. Just about every scene is abruptly cut to another scene. One moment a character will be talking to someone, then, suddenly they're in another scene talking to someone else. It creates a very vague sense of time and becomes slightly confusing.
Then, there is the sound editing. Within a single scene there are multiple cuts from different angles, but there is a noticeable change in sound quality. Like some scenes the sound was poorly captured, so they did what anyone would do and just cranked up the volume. The problem is that it also increases the volume of the background white noise. As someone who knows how to remove white noise, it's actually really easy to remove, in even the simplest audio editing programs.
This was the kind of movie I didn't really have high hopes for but I was holding out that it would be entertaining. Sadly, it wasn't. As exciting as barely clothed women running around for little over an hour sounds, it got old fast. It's hard to say why exactly. I think it has to be that this movie tried to follow the formula that made Friday the 13th successful but didn't understand why it was successful. The aforementioned series intentionally tried to emotionally detach the viewer from the characters. This allowed the iconic villain to take the spotlight and the viewer oddly begins to care about the killer. Mr. Anderson lacks an interesting motive, preventing the audience from sympathizing with him. He had no trademark, he wore a beanie with holes cut into it for his eyes, not even a legit ski mask. He was probably the most bland slasher villain ever.
I can't say I have too many positive things to say about this movie. I hated the characters, the actors, the plot, oh and I forgot to mention how much I hated the sound design. The sound track made the entire movie feel like it was shot in an electro-dance club. The only thing I truly liked about this movie was the brutal curling iron death. I can say, thankfully, that this film is only 70-something minutes. It makes the torture a little less brutal. Like I said earlier, I wasn't looking for a good movie when I watched this, I was just looking for something fun. This did not meet my expectations. After School Massacre was about as much fun as an after-school-special.
Billy Wayne Martin, HMS