Scherzo letale

This is a movie very lightly based on the '80s slasher of the same name. The original wasn't anywhere near the best of the slasher movies so I could only think that this movie could easily equal it's predecessor. The acting was pretty bad for most of the supporting characters but I still am having a hard time figuring out if it's the actors fault or the directors. I don't know. Blaine and Desiree did on OK job with the material they were given.

Its cinematography was terrible. The quick zooms of the camera was very much something I'd expect from a teenager filming skits with friends. The score in this film was laughable. I don't know where they got the idea to use some of the music but it ruined any little bit of suspense that they managed to build.

This was one of the worse movies I have seen in a long time. I had very low expectations for this film but am baffled at how bad it really was.

I was intrigued to see this remake of April Fool's Day after enjoying the 1986 classic. This 2008 version offers a modern take on a slasher film taking place on a day full of tricks.

A debutant type named Desiree and her brother Blaine are hosting a party on April 1st to introduce a girl named Torrance into their elite society, a group of rich The O.C. types who enjoy drinking and drugs and country clubs. During the party, one of the young women named Milan is accidentally killed during what should have been an April Fools gag. The whole thing gets recorded on film.

Exactly one year later, we see one of the people involved in the tragic gag getting murdered in a swimming pool. Desiree gets a letter telling her to go to the cemetery where the young girl is buried, in the note it also states that the person has proof of something. The entire film follows the group around the city as the killer knocks them off one by one, challenging the true killer of Milan to come forward or they'll kill everyone before the day is up.

Josh Henderson and Taylor Cole as brother and sister Blaine/Desiree are pretty good. They suit these roles of elite snobby spoiled rich kids very well. Scout Taylor-Compton as Torrance doesn't seem to fit into the whole scene of stuck up teens. The rest are just background.

I didn't mind the April Fool's Day remake as much as I thought I would. It definitely isn't as good as the original, but isn't as bad as critics paint it. A watchable slasher flick that copies ideas from I Know What You Did Last Summer and has a decent twist that is easy to figure out about halfway through.

5/10

A question if I may, why in the blue hell would a person make a remake a film if they weren't going to stick to the original concept? I mean I understand making tweaks here and there but let's be clear this shares little to nothing with the 1986 original.

Though I deemed the original movie rather overrated I at least appreciated the intricate story that it wove. This 2008 remake throws the originals concept out the window and comes up with something all of it's own, sadly what it's replaced with is generic Hollywood tripe and not even the top shelf tripe.

With an interchangeable forgettable cast playing top 1% spoiled trust fund babies we see a mindless tale about a prank gone wrong and the past coming back to haunt them one year later. So again, this doesn't even resemble the original movie.

The characters are detestable, news flash it's very hard to care about the plights of wretched human beings such as these (And no there isn't a "Nice" one mixed in). For this reason I was entirely unable to give a crap about the fates of these people and considering how dull the plot was I couldn't find it in myself to care about that either.

Did you like the original? If so this won't appeal to you. But do you like slashers? If so then again this won't appeal to you

The Good:

Nope

The Bad:

Vile characters

Hardly a remake

As generic as conceivably possible

I got over my disgust that they were remaking one of my all-time favorite films and went into this one with a completely open mind -- I saw the trailer but I purposely didn't read a single thing about it. It seemed strange that the film skipped cinemas, but now I understand why. I didn't think any film could be this bad.

Strangely, there's a beautiful production design, and most of the actors are good (though the fact that everyone in the cast is model-pretty is a bit disconcerting). Unfortunately, the script is truly abysmal. After 20 minutes of getting to know the characters -- all of whom are wholly unlikable -- the story actually begins, and from that point on it becomes a routine I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER rip-off, sans the suspense, gore and intentional humor of that film. The only thing lifted from the 1986 film is the title, a character with a videocamera (which had nothing to do with the plot itself in the original) and the theatrical twist ending -- though they tried to trump the twist here, which resulted in one of the most predictable and unintentionally hilarious moments in the history of film.

This film feels like one of the clones that followed in the wake of SCREAM. If you've seen a horror movie since 1997, don't bother with this one. But if you're masochistic enough to endure the film, make sure to stay through the closing credits for an extra scene -- after all, there's no other extras anywhere on the disc.

I must say that I kind of liked this movie. Well, actually I liked just the ending. It was way better than in the first one, because it wasn't just a stupid prank to a friend (which by the way, no one sane person would do to anybody). This one also had ending, that I would never predict. But that's possibly just because I was waiting straight copy from the first one.

The acting was horrible, except for Scout Taylor-Compton. Killing scenes were stupid, especially the first one. The direction was so cheap-looking, that I almost puked. But because the ending was decent and the movie was somewhat entertaining, I give it 5/10.

Ps. I love pretty much all slasher films that I've seen.