Raging fury

"Hell High" follows a group of teenagers who decide to torment their domineering biology teacher by pulling a prank on her at her home late one night. Unfortunately for them, she is already disturbed from a double-murder she unwittingly caused as a child, and the teens are in for more than they bargained.

This late-'80s horror flick is an offbeat and unusual combination of teen exploitation with a heavy-handed revenge plot, as well as a few slasher-esque elements mixed in for good measure. The film opens with a bizarre and fairly disturbing scene in which the antagonist teacher, as a young girl, causes a horrific motorcycle accident that claims two lives in the bog behind her family home. This no doubt sets the tone for a slasher film, but "Hell High" instead opts to take the revenge horror route, predating similarly-themed films such as "Teaching Mrs. Tingle."

The teenagers in this film are, for the most part, very unlikable, which poses a bit of a problem from an audience perspective when they find themselves being hacked and slashed. While the biology teacher is not exactly an emblem of geniality, the teenagers and their actions grow progressively more twisted as the film goes on, which leaves the viewer in a conundrum as it's difficult to find allegiance to either here.

Despite this, the film is quite aptly made for a low-budget affair, with glossy cinematography and atmospheric locations, mainly the rural house where the majority of the film unfolds. Things ramp up to a breakneck pace in the last twenty minutes, leaving the picture feeling slightly backloaded, but there is a decent amount of suspense that precedes this, which prevents it from being a slog in the first three quarters. It also benefits from having a cynical and fitting conclusion.

Overall, "Hell High" is a fairly well-made horror film that leans more into teen revenge tropes than anything else. While the suggestive title may lead one to believe they are in for a school-set slasher, the film bucks those expectations quite swiftly. Though it has its share of structural issues, it is an offbeat and different film from many of its peers, and for that, it's worth watching. 6/10.

*Kinda* slasher directed by Douglas Grossman. Seven year-old Brooke likes to play with her dolls in an abandoned shack off a cycling path near her home. When a teenaged couple arrive on their motorcycle to make-out in the shack Brooke hides and watches. The teenaged girl decides she doesn't want sex, and in frustration her boyfriend pulls the head off one of Brooke's dolls (this guy is hardcore). As the couple argue and get back on the motorcycle to leave, Brooke emerges from hiding, looks at the damage to her doll, and decides to go outside and fling mud in the face of the boy steering the motorcycle. The bike crashes and the couple are thrown off and impaled on metal railings, killing them both. Eighteen years later Brook is a science teacher at the local high school and the unexplained deaths of the couple 18 years before have become local legend. When Brooke humiliates high school bad-boy Dickens in front of class, he decides to pay her back and recruits three others to help him. The next night they don Halloween masks and attack Brooke's home, terrorising her inside. What they don't know is that the deaths Brooke caused as a young girl have left her traumatised, causing her to majorly flip out and turn the tables on her tormentors one by one.

Although this was filmed 1986, money running out plus other unspecified delays meant it wasn't released until 1989. By then the slasher was starting to be overtaken by other types of horror. Also, by the time it was released the top-billed actor, 27 year-old Christopher Stryker (Dickens), had been dead for two years from AIDS. The movie underperformed and was largely forgotten for many years. For most of the remaining cast this was their only onscreen credit (with the notable exceptions of soap-queen-to-be Maureen Mooney as grown-up Brooke, and Christopher Cousins as one the of the gang).

The film inverts the slasher trope; instead of a masked killer hunting down a group of innocent teens, it's the teens who are masked (and *far* from innocent), hunted by a killer whose identity isn't hidden in any way. It also makes the moral aspect murkier, with it being debateable how many - if any of the victims - deserve what happens to them. The performances are okay and the obligatory 80s synth score is fine. The film also ticks the boxes for the expected topless nudity. Pacing-wise it's slow after the initial two motorcycle deaths, and does tend to drag until things kick into gear in the third act. And like a lot of these movies if you start to pull at the plot it starts to unravel. You just have to go with it. But it's a fun piece of nostalgia. 6.5/10.

The stage curtains open ...

My journey through lost 80's horror films continues with this little known gem titled, "Hell High" (aka Real Trouble). A teen slasher flick that was written, produced, and directed by Douglas Grossman - a name I'm not familiar with, and a person who has apparently never directed any other films. The entire cast are relatively unknown with only the lead actor, Christopher Cousins, having any notable body of work as an actor - mostly in television. I've never seen it before today, but overall, I'm glad I did.

The film opens with a little girl playing in an abandoned shack near her home when a man and woman come roaring up on a motorcycle to have a little nookie. The girl hides and watches as the man, in a fit of anger, rips the head off of one of her dolls. As they are leaving, she throws mud into the man's eyes resulting in a fatal crash. The little girl runs away horrified. Years later, this little girl has become a teacher who has a classroom of unruly and disrespectful students, especially one who's name is Dickens. One night, Dickens and some friends take things too far when they decide to scare her in her own home. These events coupled with her past cause her to snap and become a homicidal nightmare.

I actually enjoyed this one. I felt it was a bit more intelligent than the typical 80's teen slasher movie. It made sense with a back story that is viable. The movie flows pretty well, is evenly paced, and is in no hurry to get anywhere. I thought the character development wasn't bad, and the acting was decent. Maureen Mooney sold me as the mentally unstable teacher who finally loses it in the end. There's hardly any gore, but the tension is high. There is some suspense, and when she unleashes hell on the kids, they only had themselves to blame. I enjoyed the soundtrack to it as well, the music was fitting.

I think I'd recommend this one. Especially to anyone who loves a good slasher type film from the 80's. It wasn't great, but it holds its own against other films from that time. I'm surprised I never picked up on it until now, but I'm glad I did. I am rating it a solid 6 stars out of 10. I'd watch it again. It isn't high on the re-watchability scale, but I would watch it again. Overall, a decent slice of horror and an enjoyable time.

Hell High is one of your typical, bad, 80s horror films, and then again there are many things in it that are not so typical. For instance, none of the characters are likable or even sane. Usually you find at least one sane person in a slasher movie but not here. Everybody is pretty much crazy. At any rate that doesn't really matter, it still delivers good fun. I recommend renting the DVD with the Joe Bob Briggs commentary and don't even bother to watch it without the commentary, Joe Bob Briggs brings humor and fun facts into the viewing reminiscent of MST3K. His commentary really brings your enjoyment of the film up a notch by giving some where are they now comments, as well as commentary on why this film is different from the typical teen slasher. I give it a high rating based mainly on this commentary track.

But that's what i did. We were at the mall, having just come from my orthodontic appointment, and I was supposed to go back to school. However, once the title "Hell High" caught our eye, we had to see it. I remember a goofily inane, low-budget horror movie that featured a scene of a beautiful teacher becoming vocally aroused just taking a shower (because when women soap up their breasts, they are helplessly turned on.) And that's almost all I remember. But I guess I fared better than a friend who, a few years previous, had seen Revenge of the Nerds with his little, old grandmother. And, thinking on it now, I saw Clash of the Titans when I was like eight or something with my grandfather. A chaste shot of a woman leaving a bath was pretty exciting then. Later on, at dinner, my sister yelled out that I had told her there was a "tushie" in the movie. I was mortified. I could hardly deny I had said it, after all, as her knowledge of said tushie was proof enough. A shadow fell over my grandfather's face and not another word was said for a long time. A horrible memory.