Horror High (1974)

User Rating:

4.4/10   

Director:

Larry N. Stouffer

Writer:

Jake Fowler (writer)

Release Date:

March 1974 (USA)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

There is something evil out there... Possessed by a force that doesn't belong to this world - and it's going to kill me!

Plot:

A nerdy high school super whiz experiments with a chemical which will transform his guinea pig "Mr. Mumps" from a gentle pet into a ravenous monster...

Plot Keywords:

Monster | Police | Experiment | Coach | Guinea Pig

Cast

Pat Cardi	...	Vernon Potts
Austin Stoker	...	Lieutenant Bozeman
Rosie Holotik	...	Robin Jones
John Niland	...	Coach McCall
Joye Hash	...	Miss Grindstaff (as Joy Hash)
Jeff Alexander	...	Mr. Griggs
Mike McHenry	...	Roger Davis
Nick Felix	...	Mr. Henshaw
Michelle Falerne	...	Girl-Student
Laura Williamson	...	Nurse
Charles Mann	...	School Principal
Abner Haynes	...	Assistant Coach
Steve Kidwell	...	Assistant Coach
Campbell Thomas	...	Narrator
Chuck Beatty	...	Policeman

Also Known As:

Twisted Brain

Runtime:

85 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Southern Methodist University - 3128 Dyer Street, Dallas, Texas, USA

Company:

Crown International Pictures

Movie Connections:

Featured in Dusk to Dawn Drive-In Trash-o-Rama Show Vol. 3 (1996) (V)

It's Pat! Cardi, that is...

Like many impressionable adolescents within late-night or Saturday-afternoon viewing range of WOR (Channel 9) or WPIX (Channel 11) in the mid to late seventies, I developed an early affection for this, the perfect adolescent horror clunker. Yes, the papercutter. Yes, the acid vat. Yes, the cleats. And hell yes... Mister Mumps. Whatever Pat Cardi's shortcomings as an actor, he made a convincing tortured high-school Jeckyll & Hyde. I never found it particularly terrifying except perhaps for that hideous ballad in the background as Vernon rides his bike to school, but it's far more compelling in a (relatively) innocently creepy way than the slicker and more cynically formulaic eighties slasher flicks that followed. Like 'Plan 9' and 'Silent Night, Bloody Night' (both big in the 9/11 universe, and endlessly repeated since the broadcast rights must have been cheap... thank Jah I came of age before the infomercial era), it rightly belongs to the Cinema of Obsession, all the more convincingly when you're 16 and watching it for the fifth time at 2:45am.

There's something to be said for a teen revenge flick that could have plausibly been written and directed by a pimply adolescent.

Reading some of the other comments reminded me that this was also one of the films that made me realize that my early tastes in cult film weren't nearly so obscure as I thought. I remember being flabbergasted as a junior in high school circa 1979 to meet a fairly cute, well-adjusted girl from another school who had seen it three or four times