Scare Me On Fridays

Friday, April 1, 2011

The Most Low Budget April Fools!

This send up of April Fools horror is from a year earlier than the video remake I just watched. I gets everything from rave reviews for it's (mostly) all black cast, to the most awful reviews of the acting and special effects (many of the bad reviews come from people also say that that are African American). One thing is for sure, there is little on the web, aside from viewer reviews on movie databases. I haven't seen it, but from what I've read, it is based almost completely on the script from Slaughter High--only without the camp. We'll see.

Oh, Oh I Did Find This:

April Fools TRAILER DVD in stores 9.11.07 by hitme1tyme

Huffington Post has a rundown of media pranks of the day. They can be found here.

April Fool's Day (2008)--A Flimsy Remake

This bills itself as the remake of the cult classic we just watched from 1986. Really, it has as many elements in it from Slaughter High (also watched earlier), as it does from the movie it purports to be an update to. Honestly, though, it is also meant to be tongue and cheek, should be taken in that spirit, even the acting is pretty damn wooden. Well, it's getting on into the evening, got to go with the cheap stuff....

Nice Compilation! And--It's Totally True!

The Other 1986 April Fool's Day

This is the reason other April Fool's Day was renamed Slaughter High. Paramount had the upper hand in the matter and this was the bigger budget shoot, complete with much more exotic filming locations, expensive set pieces and an original score by a major soundtrack composer (Charles Bernstein (his other credits include Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)). I think it's a pretty smart, and underated slasher flick. I am glad to see that in the last few years it has steadily gained cult status. Some have also, rightly I think, compared it to a modernizing of Agatha Cristie's Ten Little Indians, with people dying as if they were in a Friday the 13th or Halloween movie, instead from exotic poisons in wine, etc.

For Gamers!

Goin' Low Budget

Although this is from 1986, the same year as April Fool's Day, and it is also known as April Fool's Day, this is pure lower budget teen schlock!! Finally, the uncut version to boot!

Egggslent!

Slaughter High - Clip by dreadcentral

[Thanks Dread Central!]

Now For The Silliness!

Got Get Some Joker Action In!

And what would April Fools be without The Simpsons??!

Congrats

CONGRATS TO ALL RANDO HATTON AWARD WINNERS!

The awards will be handed out at the Louisville WonderFest Convention on May 14 (would kill to be there!) Anyone going??

Chungking Express (1994)

The third and last artisinal April Fool film of the day, is a film by renowned experimental Hong Kong director Kar Wai Wong (although he was born in Shanghai). Chungking Express, is viewed as a comedy romance filmed through odd prisms of light and reflection. But there is, most intriguing to me, a very solid mystery element to it (I LOVE a good mystery!), splashed about with very garish scenes of crime and almost comic book violence. And yes, there is an April Fools Day.

This is the only blu-ray of the day; and I mention it only because it is the very first blu-ray released by The Criterion Collection. I haven't viewed it yet, but from what I've read it looks terrific, and so much of an improvement of DVD releases!

Next Of Kin (1984)

This is the Atom Egoyan (Canadian filmmaker of Armenian ethnicity), not the 1989 period crime flick starring Patrick Swayze.

The whole movie is an elaborate joke or pranks, as the main character is extremely disillusioned with his own family and their constant fighting. So, when he reads about this Armenian family that were forced to give up their son in infancy when they first entered Canada, he decides to pay them a visit...as their long lost son Bedros. Of course, it's all a fallacy...or maybe "fable" would be a better term since this is an Egoyan film. It does, however, have an April Fools Day, which, I'm sure was a deliberate attempt at referencing the actions of Peter Foster as a faker.

Even Mickie Can Get A Bit Nasty on April 1:

[Property of Disney]

The Assassination Of Jesse James...

By The Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Well it's April Fools Day, and this is the first feature up celebrating the famous day of pranks and elaborate jokes. So is playing a long and rather sophisticated western a Scare Me joke?? Maybe! Truthfully, there is a pretty famous April Fool Day in the film and in the real life of the famous outlaw. James was shot to death by Robert Ford on the 3rd of April 1882.

Incidentally, Syfy has some pretty decent flicks on throughout the day--not sure what most of them have to do with April Fools, but hey, they are still some low budget fun to watch! [As an aside, I'm still not sure what professional wrestling has to do with Science Fiction....but maybe that's just me.]

...and we will be getting down to some serious horror fun later on, with the classic 1986 slasher April Fools Day and the main feature.

THIS IS FUNNY