Student Bodies

Student Bodies (1981)

Someone is killing off the good-looking kids at a typical American High School. It seems that every time someone is about to get some the killer, here named the Breather, shows up to do them in. When the popular young virginal student Toby is the always the first to find the bodies suspicion immediately falls on her. But is she the killer? Maybe it is the freaky janitor with his inflatable girlfriend, or the shop teacher with the horse head bookend obsession. Heck it might even be the freaky principle or Toby’s frustrated boyfriend. Will we ever know who the killer is? Well yeah of course we will.

Before Scream there was Student Bodies, or at least that is what the cover says. But unlike Scream, which delivers both some laughs and some genuine scares Student Bodies is nothing but jokes. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact there is some really funny stuff here from the opening sequence (the gum on the stairs always cracks me up) to the farting body I did find myself laughing quite a bit. But like many other parodies the jokes do start to get old and some of them fall flat. For example what the hell is really so funny about horse head bookends? But in the end I laughed way more than I groaned, which is always a good thing when watching a comedy. The cast really surprised me. This is the biggest or in some cases the only screen credit for many of them. In spite of that I found that as a group they had pretty decent comedic timing and handled the material very well. The comedian that plays the janitor Malvert, credited only as The Stick, is without a doubt the best performer in the movie. Not only does he have some really funny lines, “Malvert pee red” is used twice and is funny both times, but he is a gifted physical comedian as well.

Well this is normally where we would talk a bit about the special effects and other technical stuff. Honestly there isn’t any gore in this movie and all of the kills are lame. In fact there is a scene in the movie where the producer appears on screen and drops an “f” bomb to get the movie an R rating. While this is a funny joke it is also completely true! So with that in mind don’t expect much from the kills. There is nothing special about the camera work or lighting. Overall the movie feels pretty generic and bland, which kind of works with it’s attempts to poke fun at the slasher genre.

If you are looking for a serious horror film, or an intelligent commentary on the subgenre that is the slasher film Student Bodies isn’t for you. If you want a movie that pokes fun at the movies we love, tosses in some fart jokes, has a killer that says boobs then this is your movie. I watched this movie twice before writing the review. The first time I don’t think I was in the right mood and didn’t much like it. But the second time I was pretty slap happy and had fun with it. So hold onto this DVD until you are feeling goofy and then watch it, you’ll have a blast.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer