And time is here. That's right. We're talking about April Fool's Day. This is the Kill by Kill podcast, where we are dedicated to celebrating the least discussed component of any horror film, the characters. And today we're going to unpack all the goriest detail of 1986's horror comedy, April Fool's Day. in the hopes that a soon-to-be college graduate's untimely end but not is just the beginning of the jokes we can make at their expense.
or not. And as always, there is only one person I trust to pick out the right S&M gear for me. The one, the only, Gina Radcliffe. How are you doing today, Gina? I know I'm good. I just ran my face into an outboard motor. Sure. As you do. Just a flap is hanging off of me. A flap that you can take off your face and just slap on somebody else's face with one piece. Just like a piece of chicken skin. So, just to do some table clearing here. This is kind of a new theme.
Now, we're starting it a little bit early. It's going to be Horror Comedy May is our new theme month. And we were trying to kind of come up with a bouillabaisse of interesting horror comedies. Some thought of, well... some that are genuinely funny classics, and some that might miss the mark entirely. And try to determine out of that, is this really a viable subgenre? Because I think it's the toughest. sort of a wire act in my estimation to actually balance.
Any movie can proclaim itself to be a horror comedy. Right. But it is very difficult to... Ideally, you... And where most horror comedies miss the mark is in the actually being scary part. Yes. I think this has a bit of a cult. to it because it really didn't find its its audience in theaters despite you know pulling a profit to a certain degree it wasn't the amount of success that they wanted but this also comes at a time when in the 80s
There's a fair amount of horror comedies that did do rather well. We have not covered American Werewolf in London because of, you know, the whole manslaughter element. its director. I'm sure we will get to it eventually, probably when we dip into werewolf. That said, I still think that is the premier example of a horror comedy that is both genuinely scary and genuinely funny. And a lot of that. that humor comes from a character-based type of comic.
Right. It is the absurdity of the situation that is mined for the humor. And of course, we'll be discussing next week, an episode we've actually already recorded on The Cabin in the Woods, another very... successful horror comedy, which manages to balance jokes and... Some amount of scares, if not like... It's not a super hard, scary movie, but I do think there are elements of it that play rather well. It's definitely one of the more successful comedies in the horror comedy genre. So this.
however, because it has this cult. There's this estimation that people really enjoyed it at the time. But one of the weirder aspects of this was this was sold to audiences as an out and out slasher movie. pretty well as to what kind of movie this actually was. I don't think...
I keep saying Sony, it's Columbia at the time. I'm not really sure they exactly knew what they had on their hand. And it's an interesting sort of buildup to the filming of this because you kind of have to ask yourself, how does anyone... in the arts ever followed up. It's really not that easy to find success, whether it's in movies or television or music or any other form of the arts. Once you've tasted success, finding it again might feel even harder.
And of course, the person I'm talking about in this success column is the producer of this motion picture, a person whose work we have talked about a lot on the show, but I don't know that we've really discussed the man. Frank Mancuso Jr. a ton of opinions about someone who's Friday the 13th work. We, we basically, this show is based. I mean, that's gonna be his legacy. Yeah.
He was the son, he's a bit of a, you know, a Nepo baby in that he was the son of Frank Mancuso Sr., who was a longtime Paramount exec who worked his way up the chain of command at Paramount during its biggest boom period. working under titans of the industry. Like Robert, you still got a little on your nose, Evans.
And Barry High Concept Diller. And not to mention the fact he worked alongside major players in the industry for decades to come, such as Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Don Steele, Jeffrey Bruckheimer. the mound of cocaine known as Don Simpson, all of them. would make huge impacts in the entertainment industry. And so would Mancuso Sr. He was the person in charge of acquisitions in 1980 at Paramount. So he purchased a little movie for the studio.
that you probably want to examine one day if we really wanted to call ourselves a horror podcast. It's called... gonna check my notes oh yeah friday the 13th and a mere 11 months later after that first movie's premiere the sequel hit theaters And a young Frank Mancuso Jr. was installed as a producer for the franchise going forward for Paramount. He kind of shepherded each iteration of the series.
to the half-baked films. But how would Junior show Senior that he was really ready for bigger assignments other than digging up a fish toilet skeleton of Jason Voorhees every year? Well, his first chance came in the form. of a movie after Friday the 13th, 3D. Paramount said, we need you to dig up something out of the Paramount library. and just slap some 3D on that shit and make us a mint. And so Mancuso's first pitch was to remake, buckle up, Gina, was to remake Rosemary's Baby in 3D.
I don't know that that movie is built for 3d fun. You know what I mean? Like what is going to be coming at you, coming at you, coming at you and Rosemary's baby other than Satan thrusting in. to a drugged woman. going to do the original movie cut to the 3d i mean you get that dead view of Ruth Gordon. That's... That's just going to be harrowing in the third dimension. Absolutely. That was Ixnade from the brass. Was this in the same period that we were doing?
Yes. Friday the 13th 3D had come out in 82 and had done so well in comparison to part two, which weirdly just comes out in a glut in the marketplace. And it came out the same month as the birding as happy birthday to me. There's just a lot of stuff happening. And it just, I think it makes. a third of what the original did it made enough to clear you know what it cost by a long shot but it also wasn't the level of
In 3D, they invest a little bit more in it, but they get so much more in the back end of it. And so they're like, oh, okay, just come up with something cheap that we can do. And so what Mancuso's pitch eventually became. was combining the Invisible Man schtick of the Universal Monster movies and the you've got the wrong guy sort of thriller caper. And you put that all together with a pre-Police Academy Steve Guttenberg.
And you've got the man who wasn't there. And you know what also wasn't there? Anyone who wanted to see it. I was going to say the audience. Yeah. I mean, just to put this into perspective, Gene, Leonard Moulton, a man who once gave laser blast 2.5 stars, stated, quote, better writing directed. Acting can be found at your average nursery school pageant. Wow. That is a guy who likes movies. He enjoyed flickering images and he couldn't be bothered with the man who wasn't there. So after this.
Mancuso does what the Paramount Brass demands, and he kills off the Friday the 13th franchise for the final chapter. But that makes... so much more money than the last two editions that he's also forced to resurrect it with a new chapter in 1985. And at that point, Mancuso is just desperate to find anything that is... his and his alone that'll become a bonafide.
And since horror is his main calling card, he kind of goes out on his own beyond Paramount here and tries to take a stab at a different kind of slasher. And his idea is like... Why don't we have a movie that avoids MPAA ratings by kind of dialing down the gore so much?
the comedy, but, you know, and some exec goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're still going to tie it to a specific day, right? That's, it's got to be a day, right? And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, sure. We'll just, we'll call it April Fool's. That's the origin of this movie. And so he calls a guy who is a screenwriter with the most insane litany of 70 stories. He's just one of those only in the 1970s sort of career.
named Danilo Bach. This guy was originally commissioned by Don Simpson to write the first version of Beverly Hills Cop that is so insanely far afield of what eventually hits screen. that it might as well be Cobra. But because he names the main character Axel, he gets the characters created by credit for every Beverly Hills Cop project that ever comes after.
If you want to know more about his version and how it transformed into the Beverly Hills cop you all know and love, I would highly recommend... the episodes from Best Movies Never Made. It's a great show, and it's very interesting, his backstory. But Danilo Bach is the guy who sort of comes up with the... framework for what April Fool's Day is. And he's trying for big characters. But there's also one other pitch here that I think is important.
for our audience to completely understand. This script is developed in the shadow of the Brad pack. Oh yeah. I was going to say that, that there's a lot. 80s teen movie also rands in here yes like you've got like you've got deborah foreman a valley girl who who the entire time i was re-watching it she reminded me so much of cheryl lee from twin peaks oh yeah
Very similar look. Yes, especially when she's mouth agape in Silent Scream. You can just transpose the two's faces. And you've got Clayton Roaner. You actually got two actors from just one of the guys. You have Clayton Roaner. You have a Denver Goodrich, I think. You have Griffin O'Neill, late of the race. You have Ken O'Lant, who played the high school student slash stripper in summer school. Oh, that's right. Yeah, there's a lot of quasi-familiar...
If the people our age. They existed. I don't know that any of them truly ascended. You've got Biff from Back to the Future. Back to the Future. Certainly the most recognizable face to modern. simply because Back to the Future still has juice in our culture. But he's got... looks, in keeping with the contemporary setting, just looks like a regular guy. So this movie is sort of.
takes a little from column A, a little from column B. It's not trying to be a teen movie. These are all about to be college graduates. So it's more the Friday the 13th vein in terms of what their age range is supposed to be. They're not completely without some level of responsibility, but they also have the driftless nature of I don't know what to do after.
And that seems to be a constant theme throughout. In fact, it has more shades of St. Elmo's fire than I think any other movie we've ever covered. Yeah. for like the it's in a rarity I actually bought these people as friends yeah I mean ultimately What they do to each other isn't very nice, but I do buy that these people have known each other for a while. see where we spend the weekend together.
At this island home. Right? This island manse, as it were. So one other element that I think we need to set up here. We don't have to explain it entirely because I think I'd rather do that towards the end. But... There's one thing that our audience who might, they might've watched the movie once upon a time. They might not know the entire story, but here's the deal. The movie we watched. is 30 minutes shy of its intended finished product. Oh, yeah.
I don't know that need to be an extra half an hour though, because what is ultimately the third act is stealthily the end of the second. Because there's an entire continuation of this that goes on afterwards that they filmed, but decided, no, this is neither fish nor fowl. I don't think making a real horror movie out of this after the fact. is going to be what saves the day.
Why don't we just try to fool people into thinking it's a slasher movie? And so that's what they attempted to do. I don't think it helped the movie, but I'm also unconvinced that the ending that we have never seen would have helped matters. at all. I actually did see this in the theater. I guess I would have had to be like 13 or 14.
I wish I could tell you because that was 800 years ago. Obviously, I didn't know going in what the twist was. So I'm sure I must have been surprised. I do remember liking it and thinking it was a fun movie. to say it didn't need a lot it didn't need to be any different than it was i mean is it is it an underseen gem
I think what works in this movie that we have lamented many times in other slashers is that we are presented with genuine characters. Now, I don't know that they're all beyond the surface characters. but everyone has decided to do a specific thing with their character. And as such, despite this movie being so lily white. Oh yeah, this is this.
of the whitest slasher movies we've covered. To the point where characters are named Muffy and Kit and Skip. It's just, that's part of the package that is there in the script. They're realized. I enjoy the character elements of this and the sort of slow build. to when the inserted slasher movie tropes begin to occur. I don't know that all the jokes land, but I do believe that everyone who's on screen actually knows the kind of movie.
that is supposed to be made. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. In both meanings of the phrase. Everybody is in with the joke. The only other person that we haven't discussed here is the director, Fred Walton. And while he doesn't have like a long history of a ton of horror content, the horror movies that he did make, you know, have substance to. He has the original 79 When a Stranger Calls, which.
A lot of people remember the opening of that movie because it's one of the best openings of any movie of all time. What they don't remember is the movie keeps going on. The rest of it is wildly unmemorable. Yeah. And he sort of continues in that vein for a lot of things. was kind of like the second to last that he does. Believe it or not, the sequel, When a Stranger Calls, was, I think, made for Showtime. And it also has an in-
insane opening that then goes on to be a different movie that's more of an investigation. And it is hardcore. I don't know what we'd make fun of it for if we were to ever cover it. I don't know how we would talk about either Stranger Calls or When a Stranger Calls Back. I don't think I've seen the sequel. I would say that the original is more of a thriller than a straight up horror movie. Well, the thing that everyone thinks about as the big twist at the end of the movie.
happens 15 to 20 minutes into it. And then an entire movie happens after that. You could basically see that entire sequence in Terror in the Isles. And of course, I think he had made a previous short film version of it called The Sitter before that. And then when a stranger calls, it's like, can you make a movie movie out of this? And the answer is... Kinda. But his legend looms large. But I don't think he's one of those people that you'd put on the horror.
sort of hall of fame. He's not what I would call one of the masters of horror necessarily. So in terms of the movie and its characters, is this like one of the first semi-found footage horror movies? Because I can't think of a lot of horror films before this that start with video cameras.
of found footage horror as you know all all of the characters end up dying and and this is what's and this is what's leftover of true yeah yeah so i think that i think that's kind of what qualifies it as what qualifies something as a found footage movie like this This is, you know, this is all this left to tell the horrible tale. But you do wonder if upon seeing this, someone said, now, if you made the whole movie that, that might be something. And then it becomes a whole fucking genre.
saying that somebody didn't see it and found inspiration. I'm just not sure how we consider this a found footage movie. Makes sense. So let's start with our cast here because they're all waiting to get onto a ferry boat. Oh my God, Gina, it's another ferry boat. Oh no. It's another one. They won't stop getting on ferries. You go to murder mansions. You go to where the giant rats. You go to Staten Island.
Yeah, we start with Nikki, played by Deborah Goodrich, rather. And to me, if we're going to, you know, slide these people into Brant Pack archetype. I believe she is the Molly Ringwald. Exclusively uncostomated. She has like a grandmother's couch doily stapled to every other piece of clothing she wears in the film. And maybe she actually is.
inspired Molly Ringwald because this is kind of more of the look Molly had pretty in pink which would have come true actually would have been uh it might be contemporary yeah i think this is just fashion is what's happening this was just like that that you know thrift shop fashion that never really bore itself out in real life right right right
And then we have Kit, played by Amy Steele, who everyone will know from Friday the 13th Part 2. And I would say her character's slightly a bit of an outlier in terms of a direct back and forth. Could she be the Demi of the crew? I don't. Really, no. She doesn't fit into an obvious role. But I also don't think anyone else in the cast is the Demi. No. Then you have Tom Wilson as Skip, as we mentioned earlier.
You probably know him from Back to the Future. He was also a big stand-up, well, I wouldn't say big. I would say up-and-coming stand-up comedian. He had done the HBO Young Comics special. And he was kind of contemporaneously doing movies and stand-up at the same time. And maybe he's kind of an Emilio, but I think for the most part. He is hitting the Joker horror trope more than the...
Yeah, there's a little touch of Emilio, more specifically Emilio in St. Elmo's Fire, as you pointed out earlier. He's sort of a little bit bumbling, but generally a goofy... Although I will say, I did not remember the gay stereotype humor, the gay panic. And the first half of this film revisits over and over and over again. Like Tom Wilson's like, guess what, guys? I've got a new stereotype I can do. And it's gay stereotype. And he just.
continues to hit this note over and over again. And it is never funny. Well, I mean, that's kind of my TV six in a nutshell for you. Truly. It's not that it's out of place. It's sadly in the place where it happened most often. Then we've got Deborah Foreman, and she is both our Muffy that we think is in the entire movie and secretly is, but she's also playing Buffy. And she, weirdly enough, is playing the two halves of the Ally Sheedy character. So, like, she's cleaned up.
And she's messing. She reverse puts the glasses on. She's like, oh, we'll get your hair out of your face at first. And then she's like, oh, I'm going to put the hair in my face. Now I'm a mess. And I will say. commits to the bit throughout this movie she is really going for it here oh yeah at the beginning of the movie they have this whole shtick where she looks at this jack-in-the-box with that contains some sort of rabid animal in it Where do you find this?
She's both wary, but also wants to open it. And you're like. Who's this for? Is this for me? Is this for the audience? But it really transports her mentally. But I will say, I think Foreman has the secret sauce in this movie. If she isn't able to sort of carry the transformation, both subtly and the moments where she's really, really big, I don't think. at all. This is very Deborah Foreman dependent.
Yes. And then we're introduced to a character named Nan, who's our button-up type. She obviously is the most direct comport to Mare Winningham. Oh, yeah. Totally. Like there should be a scene where she's got the, the chick snaps the girdle. Right. She is really prim, really proper, has something in her past which she's trying to outrun and doesn't. But we'll get to that.
Then we have Clayton Roehner, as we mentioned earlier, late of just one of the guys. Also Nightwish movie we just talked about ever so briefly on Patreon. And would go on to sort of... tumble into a long career, never quite blowing up, but always being a... lovely presence, and I think primarily known for his amazing hair. Yes, yes. He has good hair in Just One of the Guys. He had good hair in what's it called?
Oh, sure, yeah. I believe so, yeah. Which might be the most aggressively 80s movie of all time that didn't actually become an iconic 80s movie, if that makes sense. But he has... Yeah, it flies way under the radar. Yeah, he's at peak hair in this, I think, though. I mean, it sticks up on top and sticks out on the sides.
It continues into a luxurious mullet. I mean, the man had a head of fucking hair. And so I think in between the whole, you know, hair and sniffing ladies when they're not looking. I think we're looking at a Rob Lowe. Oh, he's totally Rob Lowe in St. Elmo's Fire. Absolutely. He's just missing the saxophone. That is the only component of this that he is missing. You know how there's always a dude in these movies?
you know, you know, a necktie, but no shirt. Like, like it's just the ties, like tighter. That's this guy. He's definitely the cool guy party animal mold. And later on in the movie, Deborah Foreman's character describes Chaz thusly. Chaz is sweet, but he only has two expressions, collar up and collar down. Damn, son! You've been cussed. Holy shit. Oh, my God. Call the Sandman with that hook and take you off stage because you are.
It is no longer Showtime at the Apollo for you. Then we are introduced to Skip. And Skip is played by Griffin O'Neill, a guy with a very tragic... real life story that I think is a very big bummer. I don't think we're going to get into here, but he is sort of prognosticated here. As the quote unquote dangerous type. He has the most danger out of everybody. So while he's not a physical man.
I think he is fitting into the Judd Nelson of the group. Yeah. He's like attached to rich people. But of course. tells everybody that he is distant family, the poor end of the family. And so while he's appreciative of being included, he also knows that he doesn't quite belong. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I could also say that he is a parallel to a Rob Lowe character from another movie. Oh, you're absolutely right. The Rob Lowe's don't end, though, Gina, because we have Kit's boyfriend.
who will not make it into medical school. And Rob is also kind of a Rob Lowe. Mostly because he's just a pretty boy. Yeah. He is the one who's been asked to be in Tidy Whities the most out of the entire cast. Oh, yeah. I mean, the director knows what the audience is going to want to look at. And he delivers. God love him. He delivers.
And then I think the real outsider here is Hal Jr. He is not really core to the friend group. He's more of an outlier. And I... guess because he's the up-and-comer he's the Andrew McCarthy shoulder shrug I mean is he that or is he secret Anthony Michael Hall in the Breakfast Club. He's not funny the way Anthony Michael Hall is. And he's also not as much of a loser who can't shut up. I was going to say, like, like, yeah, he does kind of bring. sack element that Andrew McCarthy
In St. Elmo's Firebrings. He's so thirsty for wealth and sort of has a business plan for himself that just sort of fits a multitude of Andrew McCarthy roles over the years. You know where he's like, listen, I don't believe that a human being would pretend their dead boss is still alive so they can party with ladies. Unless Andrew McCarthy's involved. then I'd believe it. That motherfucker would try to get away with anything. Did you ever see that documentary he did last year?
I did not. Where one critic said a semi-mean thing indirectly about him, and it just blew his fucking mind and ruined it. I did not. I was out to a movie with Ollie and Becky watched it without me. And I'm like, okay, you can sum it up for me. And I think it'll be just as delightful because she'll, you know, do all the voices and everything. But it sounded to me like everyone that he interviewed was like.
Get the fuck over this. Yeah, I have to tell you that the conversation between him and Emilio Estevez was so uncomfortable because like Emilio Estevez had the body language. an Amway salesman. Oh, wow, yeah. Like, arms crossed, just sort of like, what is it? Are we done yet? I cannot believe I let you in my kitchen. You are somebody I used to know. It's the kind of vibe that Emilio Estevez. And the trailer almost sets it up like the one person who doesn't want to talk to me is Emilio Estevez.
And then you cut to Emilio Estevez and his face says, I don't want to talk about this. And I certainly don't want to talk to you about this. Multiple people did not want to talk to him about it. Molly Ringwald. Demi Moore, you know, was very sweet to him. You know, sort of, you know. lightly insinuated that he could benefit from some therapy. Good for her. This is, I find it utterly delightful. You never really know where people are going to land in life.
And certainly, Demi Moore has had a lot of shit come her way. And out of that group, you could pretty much say she's the shining star out of it. She had the biggest launching pad into a sustained movie star career. She was a person you could launch a movie on. And then she wasn't. And then she kind of continued. And then she was kind of a celebrity wife. And now she's this.
wonderful person who can pull somebody aside that she did movies with in the eighties and go buddy. And I think the other funniest part is, is when he's interviewing, he's talking with Rob Lowe. And Rob was like, no, I had a great time. Yeah, I think he has that drummer from Spinal Tap philosophy of have a good time all the time. I'm glad he's no longer pretending to be smart because all of his kids are much smarter than him and seem to rip on his ass online.
He also has to fly to Ireland to film a fucking game show, for Christ's sakes, which I don't believe is something they need to do. It seems like a scam. Anyway. So the seeding of clues start almost right away. especially all of the articles. that are in Hal's room. And then we have weird baby noises in Nan's room. We're seeding elements of creepy dolls everywhere. There's all these sort of lighthearted pranks that build into the harder core prank.
But there's one that seems to stand out as, what the fuck is this all about? And that is the baby noises in Nan's room. Yeah. Would it surprise you to know that that is actually a holdover? from the original version of this movie that contains another 30 minutes of material. I would not be surprised because that is like... That is something where you think about it later and it occurs to you, oh. This is kind of psychotic. Yeah.
it's it's fucking weird and mean in a movie that's not yeah it's like let me like spoiler nan had an abortion right and and so you know the people or person involved ultimately is an extended prank as a setup to, you know, be turned your house into like, you know, a murder mystery attraction, I guess for, you know, as like, okay, so are you going to. Are you going to do recognizance on potential guests to find out what kind of shameful secret they might be keeping?
Well, that's the crazy thing. It is the complete outlier of all the seating and the pranks. It is so personal when the rest of them are not. Right. So let's talk about it here. The extended ending that was supposed to happen all comes down to Skip. Skip is the secret twin. It's not Buffy. It's Skip. But the thing is. Skip has been written out of the will, and his goal is actually to replace the lighter-toned prank. with more and more hardcore pranks that get everyone pissed off.
at muffie to the point when after it is revealed they all come back to actually murder her which is why the whole nan comes back and slashes your throat That was supposed to be real. Okay. Even though that's one more gotcha at the audience. That's one more gotcha at the audience. But in the script.
She was going to have her throat slashed by Nan, who's like, fuck you. You should not have done this to me. And there's just a whole bunch of murder, real murder at the end of this. And they filmed it all. And then they cut. exception of that with when they reshot the reveal that it's fake yeah that's interesting because that because that kind of leaves a big question mark as to is anybody gonna you know mention this
Right. Especially when the whole prank going too far is one of the big setups here because on the ferry ride to the island. You have the fake-out of Skip getting stabbed in the stomach. Is it Skip? Or is it... Who the fuck is it? Oh, God. I'm forgetting everyone's name. It's all names like Skip and Biff and Arch. Arch, Arch stabs Skip in the stomach. Whoops, that was a fake out.
And then that leads to a we kill the townie setup, which happens a lot. It's a setup in the birding and that whole thing. And so. One of the dock hands goes overboard and then tries to. sling a tie-up rope around an anchor from the water. Who the fuck? This is terrible maritime etiquette. I'm just going to tell you right now, as someone who gave out maritime merit badges to Boy Scouts. Don't do this. But that guy gets his face scraped up. That's Buck.
Don't worry. He'll come back later completely alive. But it's the sort of unnerving setup of this of like, oh, we fucked around and now we might end up finding out. This feeling does not extend very long. As soon as they're in the house, they're like, all right, time to be horny. All of the guilt goes away. The other thing about that dock entry is it's set up with the driver grinding it and finding it into the original dock. You're like, oh, shit, dude. You're coming in hot.
I've been on a fair amount of ferries over shorter distances. But very few of them do they come in and grind the fucking quarter of the... the dock on the boat like you do that too many times you're not gonna have a boat to take across the bay just just a little toothpick floating across the water yeah you really it's hard to sail when there's holes in your fucking boat
So you have a bunch of like, oh, this chair is rigged. Oh, this is goofy. These glasses dribble. Oh, we have fart machines. The whole nine yards. But this is also kind of a setup for Muffy to do her big transformation the next morning. And that is the one thing that I feel like really, really. Plus, we get to see how it fills out those tighty-whities. I think the light gag is the one.
visual gag that actually makes me laugh every time. It feels very funny and semi-original and I'm like, oh, that's funny. I enjoy that. As a story construction element, I really don't mind the sort of soft launch into the plot, that we live with these characters, that we understand their relationships or non-relationships to one another. And it sets the expectations for the audience for comedy.
Unfortunately, they weren't sold the comedy when they came to it, and it just made people angry as a result. I mean, you know, what do you think is worse? a movie in which is sold as a comedy and turns out to be a secret horror movie or vice versa. I don't know.
that the I don't think it's so fall down hilarious that it you know that you can't also still call it a horror movie yeah and For a majority of its runtime, it is absolutely trying to create suspense sequences and have kill sequences that you see those dead bodies. After the fact, you don't see a ton of impact when they happen, but you do see a ton of, oh, there's a decapitated head. Oh, there's an emaciated body. Oh, that's someone whose throat has been slapped.
There's a lot of setups, very Friday the 13th setups here that are paid off with people seeing glimpses of dead bodies to convince them that this stuff has really happened. So in the end, the fact that it turns out all to be a ruse is kind of like, yes, but you also came to see a movie called April Fool's Day, y'all. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's right there in the title. It came out at the last weekend in March. Like it is absolutely telling you that this thing is a joke.
I do enjoy when we see Nikki and Chance having sex that it's so tantric. that we see a lot of their flesh, but none of their naughty bits. It's just their legs are in impossible positions. They're very stretchy people. Good for them. Skip, who's the secret brother here. ends up off the table. And it might seem like there's a lot of luck involved here. But again, I'm not coming to April Fool's Day for realism. No. So he's off the table by...
And of course, Muffy goes into immediate disaster mode. It's almost like she's a completely different person. But she's not the only one because Nan is so genuinely disturbed by the quote unquote abortion joke. She is livid and her entire vibe changes completely. Then we get Hal and Kit and they have a boathouse sex scene that has to be a Friday the 13th call out.
I guess I could see that. I mean, again, if you are going to have sex, why would you ever do it on splintered boards above the water? No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. And yet they are the ones who see Skip's dead floating corpse underneath the dock and then it magically disappears. Then they tell everybody. Oh, where's Skip? What is happening? They go off searching for them. And this is when I wondered, what the fuck, Gina, is Chaz wearing on his body?
He is rainering that outfit like you cannot believe. There is a loose-fitting T-shirt with also a sweater vest. A gray sweater vest over pajama paint, but hung very low so you can see his different colored boxer shorts. It's the outfit of an insane person. Yeah, there's a lot. fabrics happening here. A lot of mix... patterns and I just... I know you're relaxing out of the public eye, but also these people have to see you.
Why are you doing this? Put on pants or keep the pajama pants on and keep the T-shirt on, but don't add a sweater vest to this accoutrement. like an aesthetic choice because you don't put a swap. certainly put on a sweater while wearing a pajama while wearing pajama bottoms and a t-shirt but a sweater vest does not keep anybody warm no no and i don't really know that it's the point it's some sort of visual contrast
And it's also just the wildest damn outfit in a movie filled with wild damn outfits. It's like, what do they call it? where you have like the pictures that are like three different pictures and you can like move a tag to like. Right. But that's just three of the same picture. Yeah, what is that called? Oh, Jesus. There's a praise word that's going to fucking kill me. Listen, someone's yelling into their phone right now how stupid we are. And you know what?
That I feel is audience engagement. You can tell us in the comments. Yeah, please. And I won't remember what you're talking about. We do too many of these things. on social media and tell us what this thing is called. It's the biggest mystery in this entire mystery. And so this is also the sequence in which Muffy slash Buffy is called out by Nan asking what the fuck is the deal with this and Hal Jr. overhears this.
And there's genuine surprise on her face because that's not one of the gags she actually set up. That is Skip's secret plan. But of course, that really never comes to. to the fore because that section of the movie is just surgically deleted. Yeah. go back and and and I think a modern movie absolutely would because it's so out of step with everything else that's kind of happening. That it's just not the kind of move that Muffy has been showing anywhere else. And it feels needlessly cruel.
Or it's entirely, they try to play off as unintended. But what would the fucking intention be for you to just have that playing in her room regardless? Exactly. Oh, you know what it is? Believe it or not, it's called Exquisite Corpse. Oh, okay. There we go. I thought an exquisite corpse was a story that you hand off to somebody else. It's both? It's pretty much both, yeah. Okay, all right. You learn something new every day.
Don't tell us in the comments now. No, tell us anyways so that other people who will hear this later will go, yeah, we heard you. So, then we get Arch. out looking for Skip, ends up in a leg snare, accosted by a snake. Again, an entirely Friday the 13th coded gag. I would, you know, go so far to say this movie might, you know, was maybe suffering a little bit. Yes, absolutely. I mean, it's attempting a tone that really hasn't.
had its day in the sun. There are other horror movies that are obviously horror comedies that are trying for something. They're trying for that mix. of creature featuring comedy. And obviously there were early slasher parodies, our beloved student bodies being first and foremost. But sadly, that movie in the third act decides we need to solve this mystery. And I keep yelling at it. Stop. Don't. You were doing so well up until this point. Bring back the horse head bookends.
So the arch gets taken off of the playing field. And then we have a scene in which Hal Jr. is still trying to get into Nikki's drawers. But the way he does this, I think, strains credulity. Because I don't believe anyone on planet Earth... has ever gotten laid after saying, I really want to plow your field. No. No, no, no, no, no. Now, if you're flirting, you failed. You've gone beyond flirting to just weird, please stay over there territory. Yeah, what?
Some of the reviews of this movie, when it came out, you know, upon release, were a little harsh. Yeah. The New York Daily News. Deliberately spoiled the ending. spoiled it. But some pointed out that Like, these characters are sort of shrugging off the horrible things they, you know, believe are, you know, happening to their other friends one by one and continue going about, you know, hooking up as if nothing's going on.
It's a mysterious choice. It is. One friend's death is going to put me off of sex. Two friend's deaths? I'm like... figure out how i can get the hell off this island but trying to get sex out of the woman who discovered a decapitated head and a body that's throat has been slashed That, I think, is a real Mission Impossible scenario. And on the other hand, there were and continue to be a few horror movies.
even after things get cooking and the monster shows up. There are couples that still steal away to go get... And speaking of student bodies, the only line of dialogue missing from this is finding bodies in a well you know that turns me off. Uh, so the body in the well is Nance and the head is Arches. Um, They then get a phone call from the sheriff that reveals that he is visiting Buck in the hospital, and he's been there all day with Muffy. Now, Rob takes in this information.
But it doesn't seem to... fire a synapse within him that says, how is that fucking possible? He never mentions this information for the rest of the film. He just takes it in and does nothing with it. He is He should not go to medical school. You can kind of hear it like a large, soft, almost kind of like sizzling sound of a candle going out in his brain. It is the egg hitting the frying pan, but no one turned on the gas. Or the egg misses. like, hits the edge of the pan and goes into the...
Yeah. He, again, is revealed that he wanted to go to middle school school and the college counselor's like, I don't think that's for you. And I'm on that guy's side. Have you considered perhaps becoming a stripper? Have you considered making your body your business? Perhaps a male prostitute of some sort. You know, we have some literature on being going on.
Max, where can you? Keeping an older lady entertained can be both a pleasure and a viable business. I cannot believe he receives this clue and is like... Nope, not going to tell anyone. And why did Muffy think he would be the one to not tell anyone that? I just, again, we're not coming to this movie for realism, but this stretches it quite a bit.
is a classic like the minute you think about it too much it's like hey wait a minute yeah i also would say one of the more confusing elements of this film and this is sort of a behind the scenes thing is that the soundtrack here is very Ghostbusters coded. There's a lot of theremin, funny theremin happening. And...
What we're getting isn't Ghostbusters-style visual comedy. So it feels... slightly out of place for what the the movie this is attempting to be yeah it's sort of it does sort of feel like they were unsure that the audience was going to get that this is supposed to be funny. And for Sony, their idea is, okay, you have horror elements and you have comedy elements. The biggest, you know, one-to-one here is the movie that made us all the money just two summers ago in Ghostbusters.
But these are very different motion pictures. And I hadn't quite noticed how ghostbuster-y it is for no particular reason. That was the, you know, that was the vibe. Yeah. Then Kit discovers the Muffy Buffy kid pick on the deck. And so now this seed of twins has been planted twice. But she doesn't say anything to anybody else. It's like they're just waiting for more evidence.
When you've seen something that is obviously your friend has a secret fucking twin and you're not going to tell anybody about that? Okay. Also, Hal Jr. has brought a gun because of course he fucking... But when you invite a Texan to your surprise murder mystery weekend. How did he not shoot anybody? I also want to say Kit in this movie is dressed like an 80s woman stand-up comic.
Like she is one fedora away from an HBO happen hour special. She is sauntering around the back half of this movie in a button up shirt. With loose tie. Yeah, she's about to tell some jokes about hot flashes. She absolutely is. Just how disappointing men are and how terrible it is to try on bikinis. All the Kathy-themed favorites are going to come for it.
So the scene that we were alluding to earlier where Roner is still trying to get into Deborah Goodrich's pants happens here. She exits at one point. And he's just lying on the bed with this S&M mask on. When she comes back into the scene, he's not moving, mask still in place, hands over penis. We just talked about Blood Beach and where a rapist gets his penis removed by a sandworm and it's blood everywhere. And here a guy gets his penis removed and there's just like a dribble.
but he's dead somehow. Like there should be a lot of blood. You're not going to cover up that amount of blood with just two hands. Yeah. They, they like that. They just bring up, bring them, bring them up. yeah well that's the thing like a lot of horror movies we've talked about require impossible cleanups and in here they just don't make it a deal because all the murder scenes are pre-cleaned because they don't exist But this kind of leaves.
Kit and Rob to discover the rest of the clues. They eventually run into Hal Jr. and he has been hung and strung up, I might add. Not just hung, but strung up with his hands behind his back, hog tied to his feet. It's a whole fucking thing. Oh, yeah. And they also discover clues like the Barbie death tableau, which is. Like a corpse chorus in Barbie Ford. In the boat, the sheriff returned to the island to discover the explanation of Buffy's mental hospital origin.
And whoops, they can't take the boat back to the island because the keys are now inside the house. So they got to go back in. They get in through the basement window, and this movie literally pulls a Scooby-Doo eyes in the painting gag twice. Once was not good enough. They got to go for it twice. I love it. But that is when they discover Muffy's supposed head, which is.
behind that painting. And then it's just a real chase movie from that moment on until the reveal at the end that everyone is actually alive. And we have... What I do love about this little sequence is that Rob is still screaming, run, run. Another Friday the 13th thing of a guy in the basement going, screaming as his life is being taken out of him by Jason Voorhees. But this guy is just screaming for nothing.
Yeah. He's not really focused on himself for the most part. He's actually screaming for her to run. But even still, I think the constant Friday the 13th self-reference at a certain point. It does more damage than it does help. Yeah, I mean, you pay homage. There's certain points like, okay, now you're just paying homage. the whole thing um and so it is revealed to kit that this whole thing is ruse rob is eventually released from whatever weird closet he's in
And we get a party sequence afterwards. At the end of this, I think we are starting to find some clues of horror comedy. If you're going to really bring comedy, it has to be character based. And I do think they have character. What I don't think they have is a funny screenwriter who's really good at character-based jokes. I mean, everybody is very game, particularly the male actors. I think that they are all, if anything, some of them are trying a little too hard to, you know, be the...
You can only have so many dueling comic relief. And I think, you know, certainly Arch and Chaz are, you know, they're essentially the same. character yes and slightly different skins right there you know you know one's more just one's more like a preppy jock one's kind of Well, not quite a punker, but, you know, sort of, sort of, you know. New wavy. Yeah. Yeah. But they're still like, you know, the goofy, horny guy. that Arch is clearly gay and isn't ready to admit it yet.
No one can be leaning that hard into that stereotype. Arch is living in Vermont with his handsome bearded husband today. Yeah. And we're happy for him. He's doing great. He's doing great. I love that. for quote-unquote joking or Chesney's free now. Arch is free. So what we have here is, weirdly enough, a choose-your-own-not-death venture. I was going to say choose-your-own-not-venture. Yeah.
Choose your own life venture. And yeah. How about this? How about the choose your own joke venture? Choose your own joke venture. So of these non, what turns out to be non-deaths. What would you choose to be pranked on you and why? Up for bid, we have knife to the tummy, fall into the bay. You could have your face smashed into a pier.
You could be strangled in the boathouse. You could be snaked, snared, and beheaded. You can have your throat slashed and ringed in a well. You could have your penis removed. And apparently, that's all it takes. hung decapitation and Scooby-Doo painting eyes placement. And what is your choice, Gina Rankin? Well, obviously, I can't take Chad this way out.
So, you know, I do like the idea of being a Scooby-Doo painting. Okay. So I'm going to take that. Yes. I mean, the decapitation is going to be fast. And then the way you're found is fantastic. Exactly. Exactly. the amount of Mission Impossible face, you know, face replacement work is on almost a happy birthday to me level. Yeah, I was going to say, oh, I've got this. effects makeup I think and they're and they're coming to work and like a like a like a be you know you
an island Airbnb? Right, yeah. Well, if you're this good at it, you've been drummed out of the business for a... But okay, sure, why not? It's going to be hard to replicate. These people you had a ton of pictures and visual reference for. I don't know how he's going to do it going forward, but it didn't seem to be a problem for him, at least in this experimental. And for me, oh boy, I certainly do not want my face smashed and appear. And I don't want my penis removed.
Yeah, decapitation and Scooby-Doo painting. That's a real one-two punch. Yeah. I do not want to be ringed. That is not for me, everybody. I don't want to be in dark places for the rest of my life and only be released when somebody watches a videotape. All right. Well, let me tell you something. Come find us on Patreon. We have plenty of cool bonus episode content. It's really fun stuff.
And we have so much of it for you to explore that is exclusive to the site, so much more than we'll ever release anywhere else. And of course, rate and review us on your podcaster of choice. Talk back to us on Spotify or YouTube. Try to... outpace the goofs who don't realize what a podcast is on YouTube. It's become quite dire over there. It used to be funny.
quite understand that we are not actually showing the actual movie. Yeah, I don't know what gave it away that the New Kids episode we have. not to mention the fact that it is not the length of the movie also doesn't have the movie art. And once you hit play does not deliver the fucking movie. Of course. people talking about it's a podcast y'all i didn't decide to take away google podcasts google did they said i had to go to fucking youtube
What are you going to do? Anywho, we're on your other socials. We're on your blue skies, your threads, your Instagrams, Facebooks, and even on Tick E Talk. Gina, where can people find you on these here internet? I am, um, uh, Jesus, I can't speak. Uh, there's myself. It's ginawatchesthings.substack.com, which I write about movies and television and pop culture. And you can find me, and I've been on Blue Sky much recently either, but I'm generally there for Gina does things.
Excellent. Do it today, people. Check it out. And of course, sign up for Gina's... newsletter every week. It's fantastic stuff. I enjoy. It's a mystery to me. And when I get to read it on Friday mornings, it makes me very, very happy. Now, Josh Hollis does all of our artwork. Go to RevengeBodyMemphis at Bandcamp.com to find this theme and all of the remixes. Don't worry, folks. The body count and hilarity will continue. For myself and for Gina, bye-bye, everybody. Bye!