September 24th

Return to Horror High (1987) directed by Bill Froehlich

Not, as I discovered, at all related to Horror High, other than both take place in a high school. Probably most famous these days for being a mulletted George Clooney's first movie (though he's killed a few minutes in). A group of filmmakers decide to film a horror movie about some real life murders in the actual high school they happened in. Naturally, the killer had never been caught and he begins to pick off victims from the cast and crew. It's essentially a proto-Scream 3.

The movie isn't very good -- it's filled with weak humor and bad acting (Maureen McCormick, yikes!) -- but it does get creative with the story. The film continual cuts between two-and-a-halfish timeframes. The main thread of the story features the film crew making their movie. We also cut to the future in which the bodies of the film crew are being scooped up by the police while the lone survivor -- the writer -- makes cryptic remarks. We also look back into the original murders at the school as the film constantly tries to trick us into thinking the scene we're watching is a flashback when it's actually a film crew reenactment. It 's pretty fun, and sort of makes up for the tediousness of the rest of the movie.