Classic Horrors Club

Only vaguely aware of Night School (1981), I don’t remember ever watching it during the Slasher Age or video store days. However, if you’d asked me, I could have told you it was Rachel Ward’s first movie. Her star shined brightly for almost a decade, then, although she kept working since then, I don’t notice anything that I’d call notable on her list of credits. She’s probably most recognized for starring in The Thorn Birds (1983) with Richard Chamberlain (the actor, not my podcasting partner.)

In 2009, Ward said she should have been naked more in films because it might have helped her career. She’s a little bit naked in Night School and has encouraged young female actors to be open to nudity if they want to make it in the business.

Breasts are sexy. I want to see them and audiences want to see them. If you’re going to be an actress or a model, it’s usually part of the package.

I’m not familiar with anyone else involved in the film, which always gives me the impression that it must be a low budget affair. That doesn’t seem to be the case here; if so, the cast and crew masked it well. It’s a solid effort with a compelling plot, some above average shots, and an entertaining execution. Pun intended, as the story revolves around a string of murders in which the victims are decapitated and their heads placed in water.

Night School is largely a procedural mystery with Lieutenant Judd Austin (Leonard Mann) investigating the murders. At times, the movie feels like giallo, but Astin isn’t inept. He does, however, hold his knowledge close to the vest so we can play along and be intrigued by what he might be thinking. That doesn’t last long, though, because we learn the motive so early that we know the obvious character pursued as the killer can’t really be the killer.

There’s another red herring, and while I don’t believe that Austin really suspects him, his partner, Taj (Joseph R. Sicari) is certain it’s him. Even if we don’t fall for the trick, it’s kind of fun to watch someone else do it. Ultimately, I kind of expected the true identity of the killer, but I was never certain.

Vincent Millett (Drew Snyder) is a womanizing anthropology professor at Wendall College, who, along with his research assistant, Eleanor (Ward), has an unapologetic respect for tribal rituals in which people are decapitated… and their heads placed in water. We don’t see the first murder, but learn about it when Anne Barron (Meb Boden), a student of Millett’s, is killed outside a daycare center.

She meets a unique death. While sitting peacefully on a good old fashioned playground merry-go-round, the killer, dressed in black and wearing a black helmet, rides up on their motorcycle and gives the contraption an increasingly faster spin. As Anne goes around and around, the killer pulls out their kukri knife and holds it closer and closer to her neck until she basically slices it herself.

On one hand, Night School seems like a standard mystery with a little gore added to keep up with the burgeoning slasher craze, but on the other, it doesn’t feel like it. In other words, the movie is consistently coherent, and no scenes feel like they don’t belong. It’s not a great film, but it’s a heck of a lot better than I anticipated. I wonder if I could say that about one of Ward’s next few movies, The Final Terror?