A group of college friends gather together at an island mansion during April Fool's day to celebrate their final year of school. But soon secrets from their past come to life and it doesn't take long before they start showing up dead one by one. Who is killing them off and why?
When it comes to slasher films from the good olī 80's we often tend to enjoy them in this day and age (if not for nostalgia alone) for such reasons that they're oftentimes B-films with questionable acting, lots of T&A and provides mindless entertainment along with a often quite silly plot. Not to mention teens with weird hair styles and clothes that no one would wear today, if not for the sake of goofing around. There are heaps of old slasher flicks out there and while a lot of them pretty much seem like the same film over and over again there are also those that stand out quite a bit for different reasons, and April Fool's Day sure is one of those films. It has all that you expect from a typical slasher but the acting is actually really good and, the best part, it's quite a clever little film.
Ok so it might not be scary or super bloody for that matter but it has more than a few things up its sleeve, and the cool double ending is one of those things. The story of the film is about this rich chick named Muffy who invites a bunch of her friends to spend the weekend in her mansion on a remote island over the April Fool's day weekend. But one by one the friends start showing up dead and when they killer is not who they first thought it was, then who could it be? It may sounds very simple and straight forward and while it actually is for a while there's a lot of cool stuff going on and in the end it's something that you'd probably not expect.
 
I must say that for a slasher film the acting is really good which is kinda unusual. Another good thing is that the teens do not seem as stereotyphical as so often is the case when it comes to movies like this and it's easy to root for them as well. For those of you who are only interested in these kinda flicks for the sake of seeing boobs and buckets of blood, this may not be your cup of tea, I'd say that April Fool's Day is more intelligent than that.
The location of the film, the island to be specific, makes for some great environment that actually has some dread to it. And for the fact that there's no stupid killer showing up here and there killing everyone of in uncreative ways just makes this flick even more worth watching. And instead of delivering boring softcore scenes and dialogue that makes one feel more dumb by the minute, it actually has well constructed dialogue and a very realistic tone to it, meaning that you truly understand why the characters are being scared and they show it in a way that just works wonders.
Enough praise already. If you like slashers from the 80's and haven't seen this gem yet do yourself a favor and go rent it right now!
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 1986
DIRECTOR: Fred Walton
WRITING CREDITS: Danilo Bach
GENRE: Horror, Slasher
CAST: Jay Baker, Pat Barlow, Deborah Foreman
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 89 min
RATING: 9/10
April Fool's Day Website/IMDB Click here
April Fool's Day Trailer Click here
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