If memory has ever failed me about a movie, it sure has with April Fool’s Day (1986), one of the best horror movies, if not movie-movies I’ve ever seen! It offers likeable characters, believable situations, unbearable suspense, and so many twists and turns that I suffered whiplash. I’ve never had so much fun.
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April Fool’s!
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This movie has none of those things and I’ve had more fun brushing my teeth. I’d like to think it’s because once you’ve seen it, the surprise is ruined; however, I never have liked it, even when I saw it on its initial theatrical release. The title even spoils it for you, unless you think the April 1 “holiday” is as meaningful as Halloween, Christmas, or even Valentine’s Day.
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It does provide an excellent opportunity to spoof movies like Halloween, Black Christmas, or My Bloody Valentine and that could have made a difference. It’s deadly serious, though, yet not expressed in a way that typically makes movies scary. On paper, it sounds intriguing, but the execution is flat.
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This comes as a disappointment since it is directed by Fred Walton, who made the taut thriller, When a Stranger Calls six years earlier. Writing is credited to Danilo Bach, whose claim to fame is a “story by” credit for Beverly Hills Cop (1984), which he shared with Daniel Petrie Jr. A writing partner for this one may have helped.
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It’s 45 minutes until the guests at Muffy St. John’s (Deborah Foreman) family mansion during a Spring Break getaway begin experiencing any trouble. That means we spend 45 minutes with unbearably annoying college students praying that they’ll start getting killed sooner. If my friends or I behaved like them in my senior year of college, I apologize to anyone who met me.
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Most movies require some suspension of disbelief, but (spoiler alert) when Nikki (Deborah Goodrich) and Rob (Ken Olandt) are getting it on in the boathouse and she sees Skip’s (Griffin O’Neal) body float under them, why do they rally their friends to conduct an extensive search for him in the woods? They know where he is! They just saw him floating under the boathouse.
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I can accept the larger question of how events unfold; I don’t want to try to explain them. I just wish it were more fun getting to the end. Even jump scares are handled in non-jump-scary fashion. I know a lot of people like April Fool’s Day, but I’m just not one of them. It’s not a horrible movie, but for me, watching it is a horrible experience.
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