Graduation Day - 1981
(This Film Rates a C+ )
The film opens with the finished race death of a high school track star, Laura. A few months later the older sister, Anne, comes back home from the Navy and just in time for graduation. She is set to speak and honor her sister. Soon other track students start to get killed by an unknown assailant. Each one is then X'd out in the high school yearbook with pink lipstick. Anne blames the coach for pushing her sister too far which led to Laura's death. The coach IS a jerk. The parents start calling and inquiring about their missing children as the police start to investigate. It all goes downhill from there. The killer's hairy arms are a dead giveaway to the identity thus any twist ending is foiled. The fight scenes are staged and lame. The whole graduation rehearsal sequence was just laughable. Who cuts an apple like that at the 40:30-minute mark? And what music teacher is going to go check the pipes in the boiler room? How random is that barking dog at the 1:02 hour mark? It's all 1980's cheese and sleaze from the mediocre acting to the awful and uninspiring gore effects, cheap scares and that horrible disco opening. Brief T&A and mild drug use. This film is similar yet more enjoyable than Fatal Games which released in 1984, though that isn't saying much.
Review of Graduation Day
