USA UP ALL NIGHT MONTH: Return to Horror High (1987)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Return to Horror High aired on USA Up All Night on August 25, 1990; June 28, 1991 and October 18, 1996.

Filmed at John Hughes Junior High School in Woodland Hills, and Clark Junior High School in Glendale, this not a sequel to Horror High was directed by Bill Froehlich, who wrote the script with Mark Lisson, Dana Escalante and Greg H. Sims.

Cosmic Pictures has arrived at Crippen High School to make a movie about a series of real-life unsolved murders. Producer Harry Sleerek (Alex Rocco) moves the cast and crew into the high school and starts filming with star Callie Cassidy (Lori Lethin, Bloody BirthdayThe Prey). The movie plays with time as we also watch the movie’s writer, Arthur Lyman (Richard Brestoff) share the on-set murders with Chief Deyner (Pepper Martin) and Officer Tyler. While the bodies are recovered from the school, Chief Deyner and Officer Tyler (Maureen McCormick).

An actor named Oliver (George Clooney) drops out and after yelling at director Josh Forbes (Scott Jacoby), Oliver is murdered and soon replaced by Steven Blake (Brendan Hughes), another area cop as well as a former Crippen High student. The producers want more skin and gore, but the murders keep happening, like an extra, special effects artist Choo Choo (Panchito Gómez) and another actor, Richard Farley (Philip McKeon).

Steve and Callie get close and he shares the past of the school and the disappearance of his girlfriend at the time and how he thinks people are dying on set. Kind of like the scene where bio teacher  Richard Birnbaum (Vince Edwards) is dissected for real (which was cut down so this didn’t get an X rating). Then they find the bodies of the past massacre, all posed in a basement, 1982 massacre, before a janitor catches them. They reveal him to be Principal Kastleman (Andy Romano), who was jealous of Steve for dating Kathy. When he learned she was pregnant, he killed her and kept killing. Steve and Callie escape and end up throwing a javelin at the slasher administrator. But everyone killed in this movie is still alive and the cops end up shooting the still breathing Kastleman, who ends up being Arthur’s father.

It’s kind of all over the place, but there’s something interesting in this beyond it being George Clooney’s first movie role.

You can download the USA Up All Night episode on the Internet Archive or watch this on Tubi.

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