Tag: Bananas

The Spooktacular Eight #9: Blood Rage (1987)

Some of you might wonder why i’m doing it now, why i’m not waiting for late november to review adequately unknown slasher flick Blood Rage, as it’s often regarded as a “holiday slasher” due to taking place during Thanksgiving, hence its lumped alongside 1981’s Home Sweet Home and Thankskilling (yes, sadly that’s not just a fake trailer anymore) as one of the very few Thanksgiving themed horror movies.

First, i’m not American so i frankly don’t care, second, this is a movie that might have had a cult following of sorts, or just be remembered a bit more if it leaded into the movie taking place at Thanksgiving, instead of just having people talk about Thanksgiving dinner in like 3 lines?

Then again, i don’t think it would have mattered much, sure, it does have people at a table eating turkey, Thanksgiving is mentioned more than once in the script, but even the fact it’s set during the aforementioned holiday… really doesn’t matter to the plot at all , which isn’t a problem per se, but seems like a missed marketing opportunity, hence it’s not surprising that not many people remember either this and the aforementioned Home Sweet Home from 1981.

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Student Bodies (1981) [REVIEW] | Comedy Dies Tonight

In the spirit of school season, here’s a rewrite for Student Bodies, the 1981 slasher parody direct by Mickey Rose (writer of Woody Allen’ Bananas and Van Dyke And Company, among others) and Micheal Ritche (Bad News Bears, Wildcats, The Golden Child), which is notable for being the first movie to parody the then rising slasher genre, which at the time had success stories like Halloween and Prom Night.

It’s an interesting artifact of the era, which is why this isn’t so much a rewrite but a new review built from scratch (i did cover it years ago in one of my italian blogs, FIY), despite the fact this movie would have deserved me just unearthing and traslating my old review with barely any edits, but its historical importance it’s enough for me to overlook the fact i kinda hate it a lot.

After all, it’s something to have modern movies take the piss of the slasher subgenre, so i’ll have to give Student Bodies some credit for being the first of its kind, decades before Scary Movie and its spawn run the parody subgenre to the fucking ground (with the internet age subsequiently making them redundant as big studio productions you went to see in theathers), and here you’re kinda looking at the genesis of those misbegotten films, an ancient prototype if you will.

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