Horror High

Like many impressionable adolescents within late-night or Saturday-afternoon viewing range of WOR (Channel 9) or WPIX (Channel 11) in the mid to late seventies, I developed an early affection for this, the perfect adolescent horror clunker. Yes, the papercutter. Yes, the acid vat. Yes, the cleats. And hell yes... Mister Mumps. Whatever Pat Cardi's shortcomings as an actor, he made a convincing tortured high-school Jeckyll & Hyde. I never found it particularly terrifying except perhaps for that hideous ballad in the background as Vernon rides his bike to school, but it's far more compelling in a (relatively) innocently creepy way than the slicker and more cynically formulaic eighties slasher flicks that followed. Like 'Plan 9' and 'Silent Night, Bloody Night' (both big in the 9/11 universe, and endlessly repeated since the broadcast rights must have been cheap... thank Jah I came of age before the infomercial era), it rightly belongs to the Cinema of Obsession, all the more convincingly when you're 16 and watching it for the fifth time at 2:45am.

There's something to be said for a teen revenge flick that could have plausibly been written and directed by a pimply adolescent.

Reading some of the other comments reminded me that this was also one of the films that made me realize that my early tastes in cult film weren't nearly so obscure as I thought. I remember being flabbergasted as a junior in high school circa 1979 to meet a fairly cute, well-adjusted girl from another school who had seen it three or four times

Jason Atwood does'nt know what he's talking about! Lots of people would agree that this is a very good movie. (about the scenes being too dark,I could see them fine,has'nt he heard of a brightness dial!) I do admit that most of the people who like this film think of what they thought of it when they saw it as kids on late night tv. I see movies on video store shelves all the time that are totally stupid and I can't say that about this one. This was the goriest movie I could find on network tv. A guys face melting off after being dipped in acid,and a guy getting brutally stomped to death with steel baseball cleets are a few things to look for in this movie! The acting is'nt too bad either,you kind of get to feel bad for the main character,its cool to see him get his revenge. (even though he does go a little overboard) I'd like to see this movie make a comeback! If anybody else remembers this movie,write a review,I'd like to see what you think.

Interesting coincidence between myself and many of the reviewers who were scared by this movie; we were all 11 or younger when we saw it, and it was always on late night t.v.! There are two reasons for this; irresponsible parents letting us watch t.v. alone that late, and irresponsible t.v. stations showing violence this graphic, even late at night. The movie, shot on dark 16 mm, depicts scenes of fingers graphically sliced off by paper cutters, teenage students savagely beaten by psychotic janitors, a janitor who gets dissolved by acid, graphic shots of a sadistic coach being shredded by the lead character wearing cleats, and much, much more. There is a curious reality to these scenes, lent to it by the matter-of-fact grittiness and low-budget camerawork; they are shot with a definite leaning toward sadism, and it is curious this was allowed on network t.v. even late at night in the mid-seventies. Everyone in this movie, save for a few characters, is sadistic. The lead character suffers a particularly brutal death, as his angelic girlfriend watches, helpless to save him. The end. Not a view of the world you want your ten year-old kid watching. (Though today's ten year-olds are completing their collection of serial-killer trading cards.)

I saw this again years later, and rather than being scared, was simply depressed by the mean-spiritedness of the film and actually annoyed at the picked-on "sympathetic" lead character; had this kid ever heard of changing schools? Of course this is the kind of setting where there is only one high school in a hundred miles.

The acting is unbelievably bad, save for the title actor, and Austin Stoker, who acts as if he's in a better movie than he is as the police detective. One gets the feeling that he had some control over which scenes he appeared in (his character follows up after the sickening scenes of violence, but does not appear in them), and that he must have known at some point that this movie wasn't going to propel his career upwards. It's interesting how many actors (excluding Stoker) in this film never made another one, including the lead. One wonders why? Three out of ten stars.

I am so pleased to see so many people have seen this movie....of course...late night on Elvira or Grimsley. My sister and I used to laugh hysterically at this. I mean with a name like Vernon Potts..you're going to get picked on! We used to say lines from this movie...we knew it word for word!

So now we are in the DVD age and I am looking to replace the really bad and really old VHS copy I made from one of our late night viewings! I need to add this one to my collection.

But on to the film......Everything about it shows the start of teen horror flicks. These guys pioneered the "outcast teenager". This is Carrie, Prom Night......all the horror flicks of the eighties.

I especially like the drawn out interogation of Vernon by the detective. The delays in response, as if they are reading from cue cards, is hysterical.

I really am pleased, like the rest of you, to know that I am not the only one who watched this movie and remembered it all these years.

Like many of the other reviewers, I remembered bits and pieces of this film from my adolescent years(ok maybe 11-13). I finally tracked down a copy and the film came back to me as I watched it. The guinea pig killed with broken glass and squealing, the English teacher with the paper cutter, the merciless jocks, and so on rushed to my brain and brought back that late evening in the 70s when I saw this film for the first time. The film is by no means great or even good, yet something in it makes it so memorable to those of us writing here. I am not sure what that quality is - maybe we see ourselves in this protagonist in small pieces. I don't want to get too psychological here, but it must be something about the film. The film is about a young man picked on by all who loves biology and the experiments he has been working on all summer. Everyone at this school..and I mean everyone except a young girl that admires the young man for his intellect...is cruel, sadistic, and totally uncharacteristic of what you would find in teachers and the like. He experiences one shocking mistreatment after another, until forced to drink a serum he has been working on, becomes a Hyde-like character that avenges himself for all the wrongs redressed towards him by all his enemies. The film is very cheaply made...very dark in most places, and it is very gory for its time, which also might explain why it is memorable. I liked the film, defects notwithstanding.