Deadly Lessons

The opening gothic-laced credits accompanied by the perilous sounding music are the creepiest thing you'll get from this practical made-for-TV whodunnit murder-mystery, or if you want to call it a slasher. I guess the tube also wanted to get into the act of the cinematic craze engulfing the early 80s. Someone is stalking, killing girls at a reclusive boarding school. The headmistress seems more concerned about her reputation than that of the girls' safety. That's one thing, nevertheless there are numerous questionable circumstances in the material, as throughout the whole time the danger never lets up, yet there's a real lack of urgency on the grounds (by authorities, staff and students) as one by one, girls end up dead.

Genre tropes are there, but being a TV presentation means it's conventional and tame all over. As it chugs along, things do for most part happen off screen. This didn't stop it from being fairly entertaining, mainly due to the surprising amount of names in this well-oiled cast, than that of the school's melodramatics. It's quite heavy on the (well-mannered) dramas / scandals when the girls aren't probing for clues (ala Nancy Drew style), yet it does try to catch your bluff unsuccessfully, before leading to an outlandish potboiler conclusion. Somewhat anticlimactic, however the killer's motive is the nail in the coffin. Diane Franklin makes an appealing down-to-earth lead, the solid Larry Wilcox is the dogged detective on the case and Donna Reed hits it out of the park as the frigid headmistress. Although it doesn't just end there, as the classmates featured the likes of Ally Sheedy, Nancy Cartwright, Reene Jones and a very minor part for Krista Errickson. Wait I'm not finished just yet, there's also a pre-stardom Bill Paxton and stalwart Donald Hutton as couple of the red herrings.

Is there anything more pointless than an old made-for-TV slasher movie like Deadly Lessons? Strict broadcasting restrictions meant that gore, gratuitous sex and nudity were a no-no (there's not even any side-boob!), resulting in a frustratingly tepid thriller. So why did I bother checking this one out? Because it stars Bill & Ted cutie Diane Franklin in the lead role, with supporting turns from Donna Reed (From Here to Eternity, It's a Wonderful Life), Nancy Cartwright (The voice of Bart Simpson), Ally Sheedy (The Breakfast Club), Bill Paxton (Aliens, Weird Science) and... um... Larry Wilcox from C. H.i. P.s. It's this interesting cast that makes the film just about bearable.

The adorable Franklin plays student Stefanie Aggiston, who has won a scholarship to spend the summer at Starkwater Hall, an exclusive private school for girls run by strict head mistress Miss Wade (Reed). Unfortunately for Stefanie, her time at Starkwater coincides with a series of murders, the killer picking off the privileged students one-by-one. Investigating the murders is big-city cop Det. Russ Kemper (Wilcox).

In addition to the lack of gore and nekkidness, Deadly Lessons is totally devoid of scares and suspense, but Franklin is so appealing in the lead that the film is hard not to enjoy to some extent. It's also fun to see pre-fame Sheedy and Cartwright as fellow students, and Paxton before he got his big break in Aliens, as stable hand Eddie Fox, Stefanie's romantic interest. Wilcox, on the other hand, is rather bland, at least until the final scene when he gets to overact.

In the early 1980s, making a teen slasher movie solely intended for distribution via cable television was either a very courageous undertaking or a very ignorant one. If you ask me, it was a very ignorant one because 80s slashers could only distinguish themselves from the massive competition in two areas, namely the depiction of nasty gore (various & ingenious methods for killing dumb teenagers) and explicit sleaze (beauties showering or having premarital sex moments before getting killed). Being a TV-movie, "Deadly Lessons" couldn't feature any of these two sub-genre trademarks and the consequences are irreversible now. Today, practically all contemporary slasher movies have received fancy DVD-releases and often enjoy massive cult reputations even though many of them downright suck, whereas "Deadly Lessons" is entirely forgotten and obscure. Numerous TV thrillers and horror movies from the 70s decade are still around and popular, however, but that's because they often benefited from an exceptionally great screenplay or a uniquely suspenseful atmosphere. Apart from being blood-free and sleaze-free, "Deadly Lessons" also has the bad luck of being very mundane, dullish and unremarkable from all possible viewpoints. The setting, pacing, story and denouement are standard slasher material. It's not worse, but certainly not any better than the rest of the 80s slashers, but at least all the others showcased gruesome murders and gratuitous nudity. In an exclusive all-girls boarding school, one of the students is found drowned in a lake. It looks like an unfortunate accident, but police detective Kemper immediately suspects that she was murdered. He's quickly proven right, as more girls are turning up dead while fear and hysteria are taking over the daily life at school. Prime suspects include the handsome but bizarre stable boy, the obligatory old & creepy janitor, the eccentric French teacher and maybe even the sophisticated but uptight school principal Mrs. Wade. The climax is implausible and far-fetched, but I'm not deducting any points for that since it was also a typical slasher trademark in the eighties. If you have too much free time on your hands, "Deadly Lessons" might still be worth seeking out in case you like horror curiosities, or to see a few stars in their earliest roles, like Bill Paxton, Ally Sheedy and Nancy Cartwright (yes, she who does Bart Simpson's voice)

Starkwater Hall , an exclusive school for girls, is in its summer session when the unimaginable happens - a pupil is found murdered. The headmistress, Miss Wade, is determined to hide the fact and preserve the school's reputation but, when a second killing occurs, the secret is out. Terrified, the remaining girls decide to protect each other from the unseen horror.

This made for TV film has some elements of a slasher or killer on the loose genre, but where it differs is in its lack of gratuitous violence, gore and nudity. Consequently, Deadly Lessons isn't so tacky or cheap and is essentially a whodunnit- Hardy Drew style. The focus is on the detecting than on murders. There's no heavy menace, but it's got a light touch while maintaining a serious tone. Donna Reed adds a touch of class. Larry Wilcox' detective character looks out of his depth and is an annoying character. It might lack some punch, but overall it's an entertaining mystery. Plus the ending is quite suspenseful with that twist. Diane Franklin is cute.

When girls at Starkwater Hall Boarding School start turning up dead, a group of friends are determined to find out who's doing it. But will they before it's too late? It's a pretty good movie but slasher fans will be disappointed from the lack of blood. There's none, but there is an okay suspense scene at the end.