A prank goes wrong on April Fool’s Day and suddenly, the makers of Friday the 13th realize that the title is already taken, so instead, we have Slaughter High. Really. It actually had that title until they discovered it was taken.

Years ago, the cool kids screwed Marty the nerd. However, these pranks go way past Carrie level, the movie the early scenes rip off, with Marty being shocked, stripped and dumped head first in a toilet bowl. Here’s something this movie has that few slashers do — full frontal male nudity (Sleepaway Camp doesn’t count, that’s full frontal transgender nudity and a massive spoiler).

Marty is then given a poisonous joint, which he smokes while doing a chemistry experiment, which says to me that he’s no kind of scientist. One set up by the cool kids later and his experiment has gone up in flames and his face has been doused with acid. I wonder what the yearbook was like that year.

Sometime in the future, those very same social elite of the school are invited back for a reunion. That said — the school is closed and the reunion is only for them.

What follows is exactly what you expect — Marty is back and he kills the rest of the gang in various ways. There’s acid melting someone’s stomach, impaling, acid baths, an electrocuted bed while a couple has sex, death by lawnmower and so much more.

After he kills everyone, Marty sees them come back from the dead in a scene that is absolutely nothing like the end of Maniac. I lied — it’s exactly like that movie, minus Joe Spinell going bonkers.

Marty then wakes up in an insane asylum, where he strangles a nurse and stabs a doctor in the eye with a hypodermic needle as if he just watched Halloween 2 or Dead and Buried.

The cast is nothing to write home about (most of them are British and often slip back into their native accents), save Simon Scudamore who is pure menace in the lead role (and who also committed suicide shortly after filming ended) and Caroline Munro, who is obviously wonderful in everything she does, from Starcrash to Dr. Phibes Rises Again. Also — Munro was 36 years old when this movie was filmed, so it stretches believability to make her a teenager. I’m not saying that she isn’t gorgeous, however.

This movie was written and directed by George Dugdale, Mark Ezra and Peter Mackenzie. Dugdale ended up marrying Munro and having two kids with her, so he probably did the best of anyone involved with this production. I always will remain forever jealous of him.

Slaughter High isn’t the best slasher ever. And it’s not the worst, either. It’s entertaining and a good one to put on at parties, where you don’t have to pay too much attention to it.

The newly revived Vestron Video re-released this on blu-ray last year and you can grab it at Diabolik DVD!