School Spirit

"School Spirit" is weird in the way it introduces an old fashioned Hollywood fantasy formula, and then does nothing with it, save for a few scenes where actors throw water on themselves and fall over and we are supposed to believe that the "spirit" did it.

The main character is a ghost who can make himself visible by running his hand through his hair. The movie establishes this, but most of the action has something to do with a smarmy jerk played by Larry Linville trying to do something that we don't want him to do because he's a smarmy jerk. I don't think the movie really establishes what the Linville character wants, or why we should hope it doesn't work out.

The movie has quite a bit of nudity from random models who I guess were flown in to take their tops off for the camera for a few dollars. None of the main female characters show any skin.

I have to point out that the first word in the title is misleading. Schools must not come cheap for filmmakers; most of these low budget teen sex comedies can't afford one. This movie has only one scene set in a school, a classroom scene. Most of the action takes place in the characters' houses.

What we end up with is a movie that does nothing with its starting premise and follows a subplot that comes too late and makes no sense. The only reason to watch is the nudity, and I guess it delivers on that front, though it disappoints in that none of the actual characters get naked, it's all just topless extras.

Addendum: I have seen many visible boom mics in movies, but this is one of the few where you can see the pole the boom is attached to, as well.

I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't watch 80's "Porky's"-style comedies if you have a low tolerance for head-slapping stupidity. But this movies does REALLY push the envelope. A horny college student (Tom Nolan) dies in an auto accident while rushing to buy condoms to seal the deal with a sexy co-ed (this could be a commendable "safe sex" message, but since this event results in the rest of this movie, I'm not so sure). Through some technicality, the guy is allowed to remain on Earth as a "ghost", but a strange kind of ghost that everybody can see except when he taps the top of his head and becomes invisible, but apparently still corporeal. Thus, this ends up being a re-tread of "The Man who Wasn't There" (a much more famous movie in the 80's but one not yet on DVD). So does he use his new powers to sneak into the showers at the sorority? But, of course. After that though the movie turns into a "Caddyshack" snobs vs. slobs thing as the dead guy and his friends are celebrating their annual "Hog Day" party while uptight the school president (Larry "MASH" Linville,who could play this role in his sleep and pretty much does) tries to get a financial endowment from a wealthy French woman.

But let's get to the two most important things--the "T", and of course, the "A". There's generous helpings of both from anonymous actresses in the shower and "Hog Day" slip-n-slide scenes. The lead actresses all stay mostly dressed, however, including Elizabeth Foxx as the grade-grubbing co-ed our hero is initially trying to score with and Marta Kober as Linville's daughter. (Kober, who nicely fills out an 80's bikini here, is perhaps most famous for "Friday the 13th Part II" where she becomes the first of only two female characters in the entire series to actually be killed by Jason DURING sex). I can't complain too much about this aspect of the film, and I genuinely liked the punk-style band that was playing during the "Hog Day" party (usually these type of movies are lousy with horrid music).

I originally saw this on "USA Up All Night" nearly twenty years ago and I must have been especially drunk that night because they would have cut out all the T and A, and so the band at the end at the end would have been about the ONLY thing this had going for it.

Proof I haven't seen every great film from the 1980s (a half empty/half full comment if I ever made one). This has to get credit for casting former child star Tom Nolan as a college hellraiser while he was in his late 30s. He is Billy Batson (shazam!) and gets killed in a car accident after dashing to get a condom. His ghost has 24 hours left on earth so, naturally, he heads to the girls shower. There are actually a couple of good laughs in here and the requisite nudity. Larry Linville is the stuck up college president and gives a rather spirited (boooo!) performance, even taking quite a few hard looking pratfalls. Features several songs by The Gleaming Spires, a New Wave band that had future big time screenwriter Leslie Bohem in it. Also featured my favorite exchange heard this year so I had to add it to the IMDb.

Nurse 1: I never saw anyone brain dead with a hard on.

Nurse 2: I guess you never met my boyfriend.

This film essentially begins with a college student named "Billy Batson" (Tom Nolan) desperately trying to seduce a beautiful coed student by the name of "Judith Hightower" (Elizabeth Foxx). However, just when he almost achieves his goal, he discovers that he has no protection. So, since Judith refuses to go any further without it, he hurries to procure some. Unfortunately, along the way he has a fatal car accident which, as one might expect, ruins his plans. But then, as luck would have it, just at the moment his soul leaves his body, he is met by his uncle "Pinky Batson" (John Finnegan) who was sent from heaven to guide him into the proverbial light. It's then revealed that, much like his nephew, Uncle Pinky gets easily distracted by members of the opposite sex which results in him running after an attractive woman instead of taking care of the business at hand. However, just prior to that, he shows Billy how to become visible again. So, armed with this knowledge, Billy then goes back to college to use this new ability to further enhance his sexual appetite. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this film had most of the necessary ingredients for a good teensploitation comedy. What it didn't have, unfortunately, was any humor. To that effect, despite all of the attractive ladies--and there were plenty of them in this film- none of them were able to rescue this dismal picture from its rather boring state. That being said, although I don't consider this to be a bad movie necessarily, I must say that I was a bit disappointed with it overall and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

My review was written in October 1985 after a Times Square screening.

"School Spirit" is a weak, low-budget comedy that arrives way too late in the overdone teen fantasy cycle. Announced as an Almi PIctures release last year, film debuted instead from Roger Corman's new distribution company in April 1985 in Atlanta.

Tom Nolan (imagine Michael J. Fox as a 6-foot-tall football player) toplines the overage-looking cast as Billy Batson (no relation to Captain Marvel), a college student who is killed in a car crash while rushing heedlessly home from a drugstore with an all-important condom to be down with campus beauty Judy (Elizabeth Foxx). His late uncle Pinky appears in the hospital as a transparent ghost to take Billy to heaven, but our hero, discovering that a hand motion (reminiscent of Curly's shtick for the Three Stooges) can materialize him as flesh-and-blood, escapes to stay on Earth one more day. Object: get laid.

With chintzy special effects, the pic's ghost gimmick is extraneous, mainly used for an obligatory scene of eavesdropping (invisibly) in the girls' shower room to ogle various siliconed cuties. Grainy photography, muffled sound recording and dinky production values all indicate that the picture was ground out carelessly as just another title for market.

Cast is sunk by the material, but executes the praffalls acceptably. Only surprise is the presence of a Corman mainstay of 15 years ago (in all those Filipino women's prison pictures) Roberta Collins as the perennially drunken wife of the college president.