April, April - Tote scherzen nicht

In the débutant ball of the socialite Torrance Caldwell (Scout Taylor-Compton) on April, 1st 2007, the jealous and futile millionaire Desiree Cartier (Taylor Cole) dilutes a powerful drug in the champagne of her dislikable acquaintance Milan Hastings (Sabrina Ann Aldridge) and her reckless brother Blaine Cartier (Josh Henderson) takes sexual advantage of Milan. Desiree tapes the situation with a camcorder while her friends Torrance, Barbie (Jennifer Siebel) and Peter Welling (Samuel Child), Charles Lansford (Joseph McKelheer) and Ryan (Joe Egender) snoop the couple in Blaine's bedroom. However, Milan has a seizure and falls off the balcony immediately dying. The group goes to court, Blaine looses the control of the family's fortune that shifts to Desiree, but they are considered innocents and the death of Milan is considered a fatality in a prank. One year later, each one of them receive a letter mustering them up to Milan's grave. While gathered in the cemetery, they receive a package telling that each one of them would die until the end of the day if the responsible for the death of Milan does not assume the guilty.

The association of "April's Fool Day" with the franchises "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "Cruel Intentions" is immediate. The author has certainly inspired in these movies to write his plot, and I noted that this is not only my impression, but there is at least another IMDb User that had the same feeling. However, the unoriginal, unbelievable and predictable story is not totally bad and entertains. The good point of this flick is the camera work, with long travelings and original planes and angles. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Dia da Mentira" ("Day of the Lie" (literally), meaning "April Fool's Day")

The biggest incentive for me personally was seeing familiar scenes from where I have lived for much of my life. No city was ever specified but there are several brief shots of the Charlotte skyline, and the Bank of America Tower spends a lot of time on screen.

The siblings end up in court, in the Union County N.C. courthouse I remember so well from when I was in college, when efforts were being made to save it. Strange that the court case is taking place in such a small building if the setting of the movie is a large city, but it's a nice looking historic building. And it gets a second appearance later.

Charles goes on TV with Susan Moyer. It's an amazingly realistic depiction.

Blaine moves into a hotel. Based on the credits, I will guess that this is The Residence at SouthPark, though I've never seen it.

The cemetery is apparently in Charlotte since we can see the skyline, and the Bank of America Tower remains on screen through most of the scene.

Some of the subsequent incidents are quite violent, but the rest of the movie is pretty exciting, with car chases and fear of what's coming around every corner. I recognized several Charlotte landmarks in at least one car chase. I never saw the new Little Hardware but I remember the fire that destroyed the old one. If you blink you'll miss the stadium of the NFL's Carolina Panthers.

And then comes the amazing ending. Or at least I thought it was. There's more!

And it's still not over. Wait until you see what happens next!

And be sure to stay around for the credits. You don't want to miss that. It's not a critical plot detail but it's one you want to see.

Was this a great horror movie? Probably not, but it's worth seeing. It's somewhat humorous to start with and in the scenes involving the tabloid TV series. But once the movie makes the transition to more scary and exciting, I think it gets the job done.

Not a classic, but something to enjoy.

I was intrigued to see this remake of April Fool's Day after enjoying the 1986 classic. This 2008 version offers a modern take on a slasher film taking place on a day full of tricks.

A debutant type named Desiree and her brother Blaine are hosting a party on April 1st to introduce a girl named Torrance into their elite society, a group of rich The O.C. types who enjoy drinking and drugs and country clubs. During the party, one of the young women named Milan is accidentally killed during what should have been an April Fools gag. The whole thing gets recorded on film.

Exactly one year later, we see one of the people involved in the tragic gag getting murdered in a swimming pool. Desiree gets a letter telling her to go to the cemetery where the young girl is buried, in the note it also states that the person has proof of something. The entire film follows the group around the city as the killer knocks them off one by one, challenging the true killer of Milan to come forward or they'll kill everyone before the day is up.

Josh Henderson and Taylor Cole as brother and sister Blaine/Desiree are pretty good. They suit these roles of elite snobby spoiled rich kids very well. Scout Taylor-Compton as Torrance doesn't seem to fit into the whole scene of stuck up teens. The rest are just background.

I didn't mind the April Fool's Day remake as much as I thought I would. It definitely isn't as good as the original, but isn't as bad as critics paint it. A watchable slasher flick that copies ideas from I Know What You Did Last Summer and has a decent twist that is easy to figure out about halfway through.

5/10

A question if I may, why in the blue hell would a person make a remake a film if they weren't going to stick to the original concept? I mean I understand making tweaks here and there but let's be clear this shares little to nothing with the 1986 original.

Though I deemed the original movie rather overrated I at least appreciated the intricate story that it wove. This 2008 remake throws the originals concept out the window and comes up with something all of it's own, sadly what it's replaced with is generic Hollywood tripe and not even the top shelf tripe.

With an interchangeable forgettable cast playing top 1% spoiled trust fund babies we see a mindless tale about a prank gone wrong and the past coming back to haunt them one year later. So again, this doesn't even resemble the original movie.

The characters are detestable, news flash it's very hard to care about the plights of wretched human beings such as these (And no there isn't a "Nice" one mixed in). For this reason I was entirely unable to give a crap about the fates of these people and considering how dull the plot was I couldn't find it in myself to care about that either.

Did you like the original? If so this won't appeal to you. But do you like slashers? If so then again this won't appeal to you

The Good:

Nope

The Bad:

Vile characters

Hardly a remake

As generic as conceivably possible

I must say that I kind of liked this movie. Well, actually I liked just the ending. It was way better than in the first one, because it wasn't just a stupid prank to a friend (which by the way, no one sane person would do to anybody). This one also had ending, that I would never predict. But that's possibly just because I was waiting straight copy from the first one.

The acting was horrible, except for Scout Taylor-Compton. Killing scenes were stupid, especially the first one. The direction was so cheap-looking, that I almost puked. But because the ending was decent and the movie was somewhat entertaining, I give it 5/10.

Ps. I love pretty much all slasher films that I've seen.