Dia da Mentira

This movie provides you with the basics of a slasher movie: starts out with a festive occasion that then becomes a horrific scene. Then the fun begins, as someone gets cut up in here and another in the next. But the real fun begins when it reaches the ending... there's a twist (actually, 2 twists) that left me feeling shocked, relieved, the shocked again, then angry. If you want to know what I'm talking about, watch it. At your own risk. The movie is dull and boring the first half and gets more and more exciting as it goes on. I'm not exactly sure if I like this movie because I somewhat feel disappointed but at the same time satisfied at what I just watched. The final judgment: it's up to you.

The biggest incentive for me personally was seeing familiar scenes from where I have lived for much of my life. No city was ever specified but there are several brief shots of the Charlotte skyline, and the Bank of America Tower spends a lot of time on screen.

The siblings end up in court, in the Union County N.C. courthouse I remember so well from when I was in college, when efforts were being made to save it. Strange that the court case is taking place in such a small building if the setting of the movie is a large city, but it's a nice looking historic building. And it gets a second appearance later.

Charles goes on TV with Susan Moyer. It's an amazingly realistic depiction.

Blaine moves into a hotel. Based on the credits, I will guess that this is The Residence at SouthPark, though I've never seen it.

The cemetery is apparently in Charlotte since we can see the skyline, and the Bank of America Tower remains on screen through most of the scene.

Some of the subsequent incidents are quite violent, but the rest of the movie is pretty exciting, with car chases and fear of what's coming around every corner. I recognized several Charlotte landmarks in at least one car chase. I never saw the new Little Hardware but I remember the fire that destroyed the old one. If you blink you'll miss the stadium of the NFL's Carolina Panthers.

And then comes the amazing ending. Or at least I thought it was. There's more!

And it's still not over. Wait until you see what happens next!

And be sure to stay around for the credits. You don't want to miss that. It's not a critical plot detail but it's one you want to see.

Was this a great horror movie? Probably not, but it's worth seeing. It's somewhat humorous to start with and in the scenes involving the tabloid TV series. But once the movie makes the transition to more scary and exciting, I think it gets the job done.

Not a classic, but something to enjoy.

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

The presence of about ten scriptwriters should have warned me just how bad this remake of a '80s-era slasher would be. That, and the name of the directors, The Butcher Brothers. If that doesn't say it all then I don't know what does.

APRIL FOOL'S DAY is an appalling film, so cringeworthy, so awful that I can barely believe it exists. The script is awful, mind-numbingly bad and with no discernible wit, skill or intelligence present at any spot in the narrative. The actors are equally terrible, delivering their lines in a stilted way reminiscent of automatons. Watching the end result, I can't help but liken this to a particularly poor episode of BEVERLEY HILLS 90210.

Horror fans should look elsewhere, too. There's plenty of full-blooded horror on offer in cinemas today, and this is anything but. The various kill scenes are silly indeed and the movie reaches a real nadir when it comes to the big twist at the climax, which is the most ridiculous, SCOOBY DOO-type thing I've ever seen. Please, please do yourself a favour and avoid this movie like the plague.