April Fool's Day (1986): Don't Let the Joke Be On You!

April Fool's Day

When I was a kid my parents owned a video store.  Remember those?  During the summers I would work there retrieving the video tapes from the back room for the customers up front.  Of course I was never allowed to watch any movies that I feature on this blog but I was always fascinated by the artwork on the covers of the movies, so much so that I would try to draw them from memory when I got home.  This is one of the covers that I remember looking at a lot and I'm not sure why.  Maybe it was the noose or the knife or the douchbaggery in the background.

Over spring break, a group of 1980s cliches visit a wealthy friend, Muffy St. John,  who lives in an old mansion on a secluded island.  The group includes some pranksters who continually frighten the rest of the party with elaborate gags before yelling April fools!  Muffy herself is the biggest of the pranksters and has set up funny little jokes throughout the mansion.

"What do you mean Journey is breaking up?"

Once on the island, things begin to take a grisly turn.  Items are found in the rooms where the guests are staying which reveal dark secrets about their pasts.  Then people start to go missing.  Bodies begin to surface and severed heads and are found in the well.  Logically, the remaining group freaks out and they begin to accuse each other of the killings.  It's then discovered that Muffy has an insane twin sister, Buffy, who lives somewhere on the island.  The Muffy that they've been interacting with may actually be the maniacal Buffy who is out to kill them all.  Then there's knives and running and such.  You know how slasher movies work.

This is one of the later American slasher films and they do change things up a little to keep it from being stale.  It has one of the biggest twist endings that I can recall in 1980s horror - I'll give you a hint, the final body count is zero - but what is most unique about April Fool's Day is the limited amount of violence and gore, and complete lack of nudity.  Still, it's a fine little slasher comedy.

Violence Rating:  3 out of 5
Booby Rating:  1 out of 5