Reflecting upon the past, it feels like Student Bodies (1981) was made during the early part of the Slasher Age when we had yet to see the majority of films that were coming. However, what we had seen by then were the true, iconic classics, which makes this spoof of only a handful of them so powerful. Student Bodies stays focused on the tropes that make a Slasher a Slasher, beats all the dead horses, yet tells a consistently funny story.
For example, we knew by 1981 that in a Slasher, young adults were punished for having sex. Every murder in Student Bodies occurs when young adults are preparing to have sex. (Further, prior to them having sex, the male leaves to get “protection,” making the female a sitting duck and allowing him to discover her body before being killed himself.) The whole motive for the killer, thus creating a multitude of suspects, is disapproval of young adults having sex.
We knew by 1981 that Jamie Lee Curtis, with Halloween, The Fog, Prom Night, and Terror Train under her belt (with Road Games and Halloween II around the corner) was the queen of scream queens. Therefore, during the opening, a hilarious version of the opening of Halloween, captions appear at the bottom of the screen… first, “Halloween.” Then, “Friday the13th.” Then, finally, “Jamie Lee Curtis’ Birthday.”
We also knew by 1981 that when the phone rang while the babysitter sits on the couch in a dark room with the children asleep upstairs, you shouldn’t answer it. First, you may hear a heavy breather. Then, he may speak cryptically. Throughout the course of the movie, anytime someone picks up a phone anyplace, that heavy breather may even still be on the line. Plus, his drool may physically drip from the receiver.
I could go on and on. I debate whether someone who isn’t familiar with these tropes would enjoy Student Bodies as much as I did. However, is there anyone who isn’t by now familiar with these tropes? Does someone not familiar with disaster in the sky movies enjoy Airplane? It was released a year earlier, allowing Student Bodies to capitalize on not just one, but two film subgenres.
Student Bodies was funded by Paramount Pictures during a writers’ strike when the studio needed movies to release. While the pseudonym “Alan Smithee” all over a film usually means someone didn’t want to be associated with it, here it represents someone who crossed the picket line to work on it and wanted to remain anonymous. Director Michael Ritchie had made some good films in the 1970s: Prime Cut, The Candidate, and The Bad News Bears among them.
The credited director, Mickey Rose, was a writer who had worked with some of the best comedians: Sid Caesar, Woody Allen, Tim Conway, and Jonathan Winters among them. Otherwise, I don’t recognize many other names from the list of participants in the film… just like a Slasher (at the time.) Student Bodies has a low budget feel with some questionable acting… just like a Slasher. It’s just like a Slasher in many ways, except funny.
Then again, some Slashers are funny, intentionally or not. Those came later, though, when the movies became parodies of themselves and didn’t need spoofs. Post-1981 and the original core of classics, Jason took Manhattan and Freddy cracked wise. I laughed during every minute of Student Bodies. I admire its commitment to the concept. I appreciate it more now than I ever have as the knowledge I’ve gained about horror movies has collectively given me much more to make me smile.
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