After School Massacre

For about the first thirty minutes of "After School Massacre", I kept thinking that it was like watching a porno without the sex. The line readings are stilted and awkward, the sound is poorly recorded and echoey, and the direction is almost non-existant. Every now and then the filmmakers seem to realise they are supposed to cut occasionally; this happens so seldom in the movie's opening act that it's surprising when it does. The echo on the soundtrack provides a hint that scenes at the beginning of the movie supposedly set in a teachers' lounge were obviously filmed on a breezy set.

Anyway, they move to a house where the inevitable killings start to happen, but that doesn't really matter. The movie exists to show girls in their underwear. It must have had a laughably low budget, so at least they were able to get some attractive actresses for that money who were willing to disrobe... part of the way. If you're looking for nudity, you'll be disappointed. I remember only a couple of nipples on screen, one at a time.

The plot is something to do with a teacher's aide who apparently has received a friend request from one of his students - but has not accepted it. Somehow having heard about this, the dean of students fires the teacher's aide. Not only did he not even accept the friend request, but the dean couldn't have possibly known it was sent in the first place, unless he also works as an admin for Facebook. But since when is merely receiving a friend request from a student grounds for termination? The students should just send friend requests to all the teachers they don't like, and watch them disappear.

The teacher's aide goes crazy and starts killing, but you knew that already. In this case you can almost see where he's coming from.

The action moves to a house where a group of girls are having a slumber party. They all seem too old for such things, but never mind. From this point on (and we're only at about the five minute mark) the girls onscreen will mostly only be wearing their underwear.

Struggling to think of things to say that sets this one apart from the (perhaps literally endless) number of other low budget slashers, one thing did occur to me: the kill scenes in this movie are perhaps the worst I've ever seen. They are just so lame, I can only assume that the budget went to acquiring hot girls and didn't leave any money for gore effects.

There is a character that all the girls hate because he is an obnoxious jerk... and yet he still ends up getting some alone time with at least a couple of them. This character is the only one in the movie who made the slightest impression on me, because he is so irritating. Characters who are disliked by a coterie of hot girls are usually an easy way for a film to generate some sympathy. Hell, even "Meatballs 4" managed a sympathetic goof. "After School Massacre"'s version of this character, however, is someone we share the girls' distaste for, and that's not a good thing.

None of the said girls register with personalities of their own. You can only tell them apart because they wear different panties.

One scene actually seemed to revel in this lameness and have fun with it, which featured a curling iron, something I don't think I've ever seen used as a weapon in a movie before.

The ending to the movie also comes out of nowhere and doesn't really conclude anything. I just suddenly found myself watching the bizarre credits sequence, which includes a weird sort of quasi-rap song with all the actresses dancing around, still clad in their underwear, but no longer murdered. They rap/sing something to do with "fruit on the belly", and... er... I'm just at a loss to try to explain that.

One other thing sticks out about this movie, not that I'll remember it much longer... and that's the killer's mask, which is easily the lamest I've seen in a movie. It's a ski mask which for some reason doesn't even cover his whole face: it leaves his chin exposed. I found myself wondering if they did that to make his voice more audible when he's wearing the mask.

Or maybe the filmmaker's mother had to knit the mask for the movie because they didn't have enough money in the budget to buy one from a thrift store, and she didn't finish making the mask in time before the movie was due to start shooting?

Maybe?

Also known as Teacher's Day, this low budget film is something of a hidden gem of a picture. I'm going to make it known right now that I mostly don't like the slasher genre so, as it turns out, this is exactly what I want from this type of movie.

I've always thought that if I ever get to direct a slasher flick, I would do it in the way in which t it's never been done: the most straightforward and direct way. The way that utilizes the genre's strengths and excludes the rest.

It drove me crazy that I could never find a straightforward slasher. That is, until I found this film on YouTube. As far as I'm aware, this is the singular time that somebody made a pure slasher and it's about time. Beautiful girls being murdered by a masked killer. The End. Actually, there's slightly more to it than that which is part of the reason why this film just gets a 7 and not a higher score. Still, this a pure slasher, the rarest of breeds, one of a kind. I hope to make a companion for it to coexist with one day.

The cast of the movie does a very good job and the cinematography is excellent. The kills are also fairly creative as well.

Also, this is one of the only slashers to exist to take full advantage of the whole hot chicks running around in bra and panties routine. You get a handful of chicks, all in their underwear, shown on screen a lot in their underwear, oodles of the running time spent in their underwear. Director Jared Masters makes a lot of directors look like complete idiots.

The other main issue with this movie is that it does have lulls in a few places. Still, the sheer fact that the movie actually takes advantage of what its genre offers, makes this film worth watching and owning.

What can I say...both the dialogue and the acting come straight out of an Adult film. Even the teachers are the Adult Movie, looks too young, too dumb, and too buff to be a teacher kind of teacher.

And the setting, again like an Adult Movie, is of the "there clearly wasn't even an attempt to make it look like X" kind of set. I mean, a potted plant, a desk, and a roll away chalk board with one or two school desks looks NOTHING like a classroom. Unless, of course, very vulgar things happened in front of a camera in that classroom.

Usually I give movies like this 10 stars because...mission accomplished, they aren't really pretending to be anything else.

But this one seems like they were going for Triple X fair...and backed off at the last minute.

I've been watching slasher movies since the mid '90s, and I have 'never' been this irritated with what I was seeing. The best way to describe my feelings toward this movie is simple: I felt like I got trolled by somebody who hates slasher fans. There is no way this is a legitimate effort.

Normally I only like discussing acting in slasher movies when it's somewhat impressive, because let's face it, with these commonly low budgets it's going to be close to impossible to buy skilled actors. With "After School Massacre," the bizarre nature of 'this' level of acting is where the 'only' horror lies. This is the worst acting I have ever seen. Not only that, the acting leads us nowhere! There's no payoff for suffering through this bizarre acting and limp script. The only explanation for somebody signing off on work like this is that it was an all-out assault on all the things I hold dear when it comes to movies.

The kills, the story, the killer, the comedy, the sex, the nudity, the music, they were 'all' equally as terrible as this bizarre acting. That has to be some kind of record.

I've been hustled a few times in my life, but buying into this premise is by far the most painful duping I have ever received.

The sets are lacking, the acting chops are SORELY lacking and originality is not to be found anywhere. There are some cute women in the cast, but libidinous male viewers shouldn't get their hopes up; the "skin factor" is limited and nowhere near sufficient to make it worthwhile watching this debacle. The kills are so unconvincing as to be comical, the role of law enforcement depicted with a childlike simplicity, meaning gore and suspense fans will also find the film quite disappointing. I am the most patient of movie viewers, but I ended up skimming through most of the film on 4x fast forward after watching the first 25-30 minutes. Too lousy a film to even come close to the "so bad it's good" classification. AVOID!