Heavily influenced by the success of ‘Scream’, this German made for TV slasher movie (which was apparently the most graphic thing ever shown on TV there) is somewhat enjoyable.
The premise sees Nina and her friends spend Graduation night setting up pranks in each of their teachers classrooms, only to find a scissor happy psycho in a Harlequin outfit waiting for them inside.
The film is a little slow to start, and sees the characters make some really dumb moves and spout some awful dialogue ‘wine in plastic cups is like a blowjob with a condom’ (which I’m hoping was a result of the English dub) before kicking into all out slasher mode, as the kids meet their maker one by one in some well handled moments, before changing down a gear for the laborious conclusion.
The film has great locations to offer, such as a room full of creepy mannequins, a room full of taxidermied animals, a room full of tarantulas and a wonderful spiral staircase. Extra credit goes to Director Robert Sigl as he even manages to make a room full of maps scary (I even jumped at one moment).
On the downside, the characters are reminiscient of those found in 80’s slasher movies, as they all talk about sex and do utterly ridiculous things, and this sadly lessens the film’s impact.
The only other flaw if you like, is the tendency to rip entire sequences, and indeed the majority of the score, directly from ‘Scream’. If you thought it was bad when they did it in ‘Scary Movie’ just wait until you see it done in a low budget German movie!!
OVERALL SUMMARY
Somewhat overshadowed by the domestic success of ‘Anatomie’, ‘School’s Out’ has still managed to acquire a good enough rep amongst teen horror fans to acquire a sequel and a US DVD release. If you’re a fan of 80’s or 90’s teen horror you should definitely find something in this to satisfy your blood lust.
