Student Bodies

Ladies and gentlemen, in order to achieve an "R" rating today, a motion picture must contain full frontal nudity, graphic violence, or an explicit reference to the sex act. Since this film has none of those, and since research has proven that R-rated films are by far the most popular with the moviegoing public, the producers of this motion picture have asked me to take this opportunity to say "Fuck you."

Student Bodies is a fascinating film to me for a number of reasons. I have always felt it was a comedy/parody, in the same vein of Airplane/Naked Gun, that came a little too early, best suited for a few years after 1981 when the gluttony of slashers had populated the theaters, and soon VHS rental stores that would spread like wild fire and become all the rage.

I'd like to kill the kid with the gum! 

 Its template for mockery are not as much Halloween as Friday the 13^th and films like He Knows You’re Alone, where a killer in rubber gloves, peeping on nubile teens and young adults, breathing loud enough for us to hear, would find a weapon and use it in taking out the youth of America. I think its ultimate attraction—towards high school kids and the faculty—was perhaps a bit too early, but there were enough slashers in and around 1980/1981 to poke fun at. But this point in the decade the slasher film—as we know it—was still in its infancy, but I guess for some, it had already wore out its welcome.

Hasn't there been enough senseless killing? Let's have a murder that makes sense!

 

The jokes in Student Bodies come fast and furious, not letting up for a minute, and in the true form of the 80s parody, you have barely enough time to either roll your eyes or let out a hesitant giggle before the next joke or gag would come. But by the time there’s both a Wizard of Oz or Carrie homage  at the end, Student Bodies has ran out of steam. Still, I consider it a valiant effort to tickle your funny bone, while having a grand ole gleeful time taking as many jabs at the identifiable tropes that populate slasher films as possible.

Dead men tell no tales, but they fart.

 

Plus, this cast of mainly unknown faces that never returned to film only adds to its cult. Especially Malvert the janitor with his long arms and legs, that tall preying mantis figure that often turns up at the oddest moments, his speak in third-person, with a really creepy quality that kind of instead of repulsing you was strangely appealing. When he “pees red”, needs a cross word puzzle answer, shows up at a football game with a blow-up doll, or steals the cheese (!) and keys from the principal to help the film’s final girl archetype (herself a non-stop object of constant parody), all of this gives way to some of the film’s funnier moments. Or maybe they are just plain surreal that all you can do is laugh and wonder what’s wrong with you for doing so.

Student Bodies parodies When a Stranger Calls..

Just a wee little bit of product placement

Not only does the film keep a record of the body count but lets us know if doors are unlocked or windows open! Suspects are identified by the same markers as the body count. Everyone suspicious at one point wears green gloves. Even a female teacher in anatomy wears the signature green gloves. The killer breathes ridiculously, and the film uses point-of-view just like slashers of the era. It also has the Casio piano scoring that we are accustomed to while watching slashers. It gets the look and feel of the slasher down to an exact science while, for the most part, not succumbing to the very exploitative parts that infiltrated the genre before and, definitely, after Student Bodies was made. 

The movie makes jokes about handicaps, funerals, sex, race(the scene where the unstable Shop teacher forces the African foreign exchange student to get in a garbage bag to test the theory on how long a person can live in one certainly would not make it in a movie today), and, of course, horror movies.

Like everyone else, even the dead love a parade.

Lots and lots of dead jokes. Oh, and hollow bulls, garbage, and funerals get guys hot. And the killer finds some interesting weapons to kill folks, such as paper clips, eggplant (now, that is something you don’t see in the usual slasher film!), and a chalkboard eraser (!). Oh, and the killer likes to garbage bag the dudes.

Any movie that awards the prom queen crown to the principal, has a wood shop teacher who, when aroused, cuts horsehead bookends, and a killer always stepping into gum whether walking up (all those) stairs in the house of a couple’s home to take out the babysitter or down stairs into the school basement, gets my seal of approval (not like any movie would want that, but anyway..). There’s even a scene where a guy goes upstairs to the boys’ bathroom to get a rubber while his prom queen gal waits, returns to find her dead (the crown platted on her skull), and decides, for old time’s sake, to have a final lay (well, it is interrupted by Mr. Killer, the Breather, but it’s the thought that counts)!

Hello, it's me, The Breather. You're probably wonder who I am. Who could I be? Could I be the innocent looking Toby? Would you trust a girl who looked like Prince Valiant in a plum sweater? Maybe I'm Dr. Sigmund, a man who was once arrested for corrupting the morals of a hooker. Then there's Malvert, with an I.Q. of a handball and the personality of a parking meter: violated! Could I be the principal Mr. Peters? A man who keeps cheese in his underwear to attract mice? Let's not forget, Ms. Leclair, English teacher by day and English teacher by night. Ah, Miss Mumsley; She eats 12 prunes a day and nothing happens. Nurse Krud and Ms. Van Dyke; what's in a name? Everything! And then there Dumpkin; a man who sleeps with his nuts in between horsehead bookends.

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I think this parody remains an affectionate part of many horror fans' memories, and finds its way into a lot of slasher fans' DVD/VHS library is how it emulates the genre we have a fondness for. If there is a genre worthy of mockery it is the slasher genre. I just find it intriguing that high school slashers--what this parody really lays into--weren't as prevalent as of 1981 as they would be (although, I guess that isn't exactly true, with such hits as Prom Night (1980) before it..) later. The characters and their nutty behavior might be another reason that I personally get a kick out of it, but I have to admit that by the end, the film's run out of ideas and kind of falls apart.

The film uses the "fever dream" excuse for the flawed revelation of who is/are behind the murders and dizzying commotion of madness that suddenly inflicts the character of Toby (Kristen Riter) as she retreats in horror from the faculty (in various disguises) and her undead fellow students throughout the school. I think this kind of feels tacked on and rather desperate for eking out the running time. But, while maybe a bit uneven as it is, I find myself really enjoying a lot of the "what was that?!" moments (the psychiatrist who is just as loony as those that visit his office; and the way he turns his wall's pictures and items on his desk in disarray only to question who had messed up his office, including a later scene where he wears his suit backwards, just wildly random); Malvert supplies most of them, and the principal certainly has plenty of lines that cross the boundaries of good taste.