Deadly Lessons

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.

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.

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.

This kind of a holy grail among both slasher films and TV movies because it is BOTH a slasher film and a TV movie, which means that as a slasher film it is much harder to find than the cinematic ones which are all getting the deluxe DVD treatment these days no matter how godawful they are, and as a TV movie it is one the few that is NOT totally worthless. Needless to say there is very little blood and no nudity here, but its gratifying to read that Donna Reed still considered it "sleazy" (that's as good as "thumbs up" from Ebert and Roeper for me).

The very familiar plot involves mysterious murders at a prestigious girl's school run by Donna Reed. The most familiar actor is probably Bill Paxton, who also appeared in the cinematic slasher "Mortuary" before making it big with "Weird Science" and "Aliens". The lead is the chronically cute Dianne Franklin, who is not great here but sure is easy to look at and highly stalk-able. She was not in nearly enough movies. The same can not be said, unfortunately, for her main co-star Ally Sheedy, but you'll be glad to know she ends up bound and gagged at one point here (two more thumbs up!). Then, even more obscure than Franklin, there's Krista Erickson who played the original "mean girl" in the summer camp classic "Little Darlings" and also enjoyed a brief career as a really nice piece of acting talent in the kind of movies that play late at night on cable television.

Unfortunately, the only way to see this movie right now is to also catch it late at night on one of the Turner Stations (which is how I saw, but unfortunately didn't record, it). But, hey, if anyone reading this is a mover and shaker at Turner, this would be a great choice for a DVD release.

I thought this movie was pretty good. It's like a 'Scream' movie without the gore and a large variety of suspects. Donna Reed adds a classy touch to the proceedings and Ally Sheedy is shown just before she hit stardom with 'WarGames'. Hopefully this film will be shown on TV soon.