Night School (1981)

Director:

Ken Hughes

Writer:

Ruth Avergon (writer)

Release Date:

24 April 1981 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

A lesson in terror [USA theatrical] [as Night School]

Plot:

Who's been decapitating the innocent girls at a local night school? The police are baffled. Who really cares?

Plot Keywords:

Police | Serial Killer | Boston | Professor | Anthropology

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Leonard Mann	...	Lt. Judd Austin
Rachel Ward	...	Eleanor Adjai
Drew Snyder	...	Vincent Millett
Joseph R. Sicari	...	Taj
Nicholas Cairis	...	Gus
Karen MacDonald	...	Carol
Annette Miller	...	Helene Griffin
Bill McCann	...	Gary
Margo Skinner	...	Stevie Cabot
Elizabeth Barnitz	...	Kim Morrison
Holly Hardman	...	Kathy
Meb Boden	...	Anne Barron
Leonard Corman	...	Priest
Belle McDonald	...	Marjorie Armand
Edward C. Higgins	...	Coroner (as Ed Higgins)

Also Known As:

Terror Eyes

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Australia:R | Finland:K-18 | France:-16 | Norway:16 (orginal rating) (cut) | Norway:18 | Sweden:15 (1990) (cut) | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:18

Filming Locations:

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Company:

Fiducial Resource Industrial

Trivia:

Alfred Sole (the director of 1976's Alice, Sweet Alice) was originally approached to direct this film, but Sole passed on it for another project.

Quotes:

Vincent Millett: [Millett knocks on the door of the office of Helene Griffin, the headmistriss] Can I have a word with you, Miss Griffin?
Helene Griffin: Not right now, if you don't mind, Professor Millett.
[she shuts the door in his face and turns to Kathy, a student in her office, who is upset that Millett dumped her]
Helene Griffin: Now, why didn't you tell me about this sooner?
Kathy: [crying] I thought it would go away.
Helene Griffin: You can't love a man like that. He's a self-centered ruthless man! You'd think he'd have more sense than to have an affair with one of his students.
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Many Lives of Jason Voorhees (2002) (V)

Schools Out For…EVER!

Like sadly too often the case with early 80's slasher-movies, this one honestly isn't as bad as the rating & reputation suggest and it obviously all depends on the viewers' prior expectations. If you're set to see a mindless and undemanding stalk 'n slash effort, you get just that, but with a tidbit of goodwill, you'll even notice and appreciate the creators' slightly more ambitious intentions. The vast majority of contemporary slasher flicks were blind copies of "Halloween", but "Night School" looks for role models that predate Carpenter's horror milestone by several years, more particularly Alfred Hitchcock (oh yes, yet another shower sequence) and various Italian Giallo movies! The killer's disguise and modus operandi, as well as the profile of the victims and several red herrings along the way, seem to come straight out of the script of the typical Giallo-effort. The stylish characteristics and outcome of the story may perhaps fall short (real Gialli have far more complicated denouements), but still this is one of the more likable non-Italian attempts at making a Giallo. "Night School" is also clearly sponsored by Boston's department of tourism, as the opening sequences depict multiple picturesque shots of the city by night. There's a killer on this loose in this beautiful city, completely dressed in black leather and wearing a pitch-dark motorcycle helmet, who brutally decapitates of young co-eds and dumps the chopped off heads in the nearest watery reservoir. Police inspector Austin quickly discovers a pattern, namely all victims attended night school classes and – more particularly – the anthropology lectures of professor / playboy Dr. Millett. All the evidence points either towards Millett himself or towards a simple-minded waiter/peeping tom, but that would just be too obvious, wouldn't it? The actual revelation of the killer's identity is ridiculously simple and easy to predict if you only just paid a little bit of attention to small clues. In spite of the gooey sounding head-hunter premise and its listing among the infamous Video Nasties, "Night School" is a rather tame and UN-shocking film. Most of the beheadings play off screen (at first, I even feared I was watching a censored version) and the rest of the bloodshed is kept to a minimum as well. The one sequence in the Sea Life Centre's locker room is quite mean-spirited, however, and probably single-handedly responsible for the notorious reputation. Director Ken Hughes (director of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", of all people) films a handful of effectively suspenseful scenes, the music is atmospheric and – even though I seem to be the only one who thinks so – the character of Taj (the assistant) was funny!