Slasher Stop Off - Graduation Day (1981)

While I was watching “Graduation Day” (1981) I couldn’t help but think that this was ideal insomnia fodder for teenagers in the early 90s when horror was becoming less produced. Or maybe it was just right for cable stations at 1 AM when a few hours could be occupied with the likes of a lower tier slasher (probably not the shiniest endorsement for it unless you grew up with it, was a slasher fan in general, or was a teenager of that time period), obviously edited, fit right in.

I’m indeed a fan of the genre but “Graduation Day” isn’t among my favorites although it certainly has its share of admirers. I think Christopher George and Linnea Quigley’s presences in it is part of the allure, the setting, and the general feel of a high school year coming to a close in the early, early 80s has a lot to do with just why “Graduation Day” has slasher fans that celebrate it and even defend it. But most of its admirers would still tell you it is steeped in rich Velveeta as the presentation, music, editing (especially that opening sequence which could almost give a person a seizure it goes back and forth to the audience in the stands, the cheering athletes on the sides, Coach George pushing his runner, and the runners on the track with the unyielding cuts with no breath between them), and characters could all be considered quite low product value but appealing in their low-rent charms. 

Javelins are used to jab throats, garden shears to cut heads off, knives to slit throats, and spikes left on a mat to impale an athlete going over the high beam among the weaponry of choice. Coach George is quite an unapologetically grouchy authoritarian never letting up on his athletes, eventually fired and blamed for the death of a track student at the beginning of the film, having suffered a clot after finishing a race the winner. Patch Mackenzie is the older sister of the track sister who returns home from the military base in Guam to receive a special trophy (and the cap and gown) in honor of her death, with some words for George, holding him accountable for her death. Also reeling from the loss is the victim’s boyfriend, played by E. Danny Murphy, living with a grandmother who is overcome with dementia. Michael Pataki (“Sweet Sixteen”, “Dead & Buried”, “Dracula’s Dog”, “Grave of the Vampire”, and “Halloween IV”) is the principal who gets really fed up with the unruly youth about to graduate his school and the worried parents calling in to his office looking for why their kids are missing (the track team victims of the killer) while his assistant (EJ Peaker) tires of his dependency on her to do everything. 

Pataki, I got to say, should perhaps be given some serious love by horror and cult fans…he had quite an eclectic and interesting career! And talk about an incredibly busy career… Carmen Argenziano probably played every kind of cop imaginable, in this film hoping to locate the missing teens.

 Quigley hopes to graduate, one of her conquests the music teacher, always at his piano wooing the teen girls. When she isn’t unbuttoning her shirt for him (her buddies recording the teacher talking about his big “snake”), she’s smoking grass or making out with guys…Quigley, I read, was part of recasting because she was willing to bare her breasts. But Quigley was already refining her cute little wicked grin, flirtatious vibe, and rebellious ‘tude. There is this deputy who can’t even keep up with his badge, that threatens to get her if he finds her and the guy she’s ditching class with (sitting on a bench in the park) smoking grass again. The two of them mock him, of course. Quigley wasn’t yet the sexpot she’d later become, still quite relatively unknown, soon to be a VHS shelf starlet for video genre nerds like myself.

George becomes the most obvious suspect (*cough* red herring *cough*), eventually stumbling on frightened teen girls (one of whom is Vanna White!) who discovered the body of the gymnast in a locker, chased into the park woods near the school by Mackenzie, Murphy, and Argenziano. George doesn’t go down easy, either, as the much younger Murphy tries and fails to subdue him multiple times, with only Argenziano’s gun eventually stopping him. Not before Murphy goes into psycho plot twist exposition mode. The film’s true association with slashers in terms of twisted revelations has Murphy keeping Mackenzie’s sister’s corpse in his bedroom, completely decorated in cap and gown! Oh, and to give us a peek into Mackenzie’s domestic situation, her stepdad is a volatile asshole and her mom is his constant defender (and only one who seems to calm him down).

I think Herb Freed and the production had very little and it shows throughout the film. It feels very much like they had so little cash and worked around their limitations. They made a bucketload it seems, regardless. This genre, despite what the critics felt, was seemingly making a fortune and audiences were going to watch them. So that alone explains why regional producers and moneymen wanted in. This decade, particularly in its first half, just churned them out. I’ve covered several of them and barely scratched the surface. While there was money to be made, anyone who could fund a film project sure wanted to try. Of course, the response resulted in a lot of bad product made in a few weeks sort of imitating each other, many of the films hardly different from each other. “Graduation Day” has this protracted roller boogie dance where a band plays “Gangsta Rock” certain to amuse fans of that era…this alone will contribute to the “this is so cheesy!” label. 2/5