![]() Adding to his conflicted loyalties is girlfriend Theresa (Kimberley Beck). Mark is constantly pulled between David and his friends, as he tries to get David to tone down the criticism and the bullies to accept the new kid. David isn’t interested, having had an early run-in with the others – Bruce the ringleader, Paul (Damon Douglas) and Craig (Steve Bond). Mark has been trying to set David up as a member of their bullying group. When David (Derrel Maury) first arrives the only person he knows is Mark (played by Andrew Stevens, the only one of the cast I recognised, and yes it turned out he was in Dallas. I didn’t know any other names and it turns out three died tragically young – Lani O’Grady, Rainbeaux Smith and Ray Underwood, who played Jane, Mary and Bruce). As if society only then shines a light on this strange school. There are no adults around for most of the running time – parents, teachers, school head, police – until new boy David tries to blow up the Alumni Dance. Spoony microcosm movie#It’s actually quite a disruptive film, with those horror tropes designed to bring a flawed by intriguing movie to a teen audience. The deaths are shockingly funny and arranged so victims realise at the last minute what their fate is to be, but there’s no deranged killer stalking a girls’ dorm. Though it doesn’t go as far as many of that genre. Skinny dipping, beach sex, naked camping (students Spoony, Jane and Mary, a 1960s band name if ever I heard one) none are essential to the plot but equally none seem out of place. The school kids all look mid-20s and when you see the gratuitous nudity you’ll understand why. It’s designed to appeal to fans of teen horrors. We only rented it from our local video shop as we had gone to a school called Central High, though ours was single-sex and no one died. I first watched this around 1990 with my sister, and the Heathers similarities struck us straight away. There are no public displays of grief when their tormentors die instead they’re positively delighted the bullies have been bumped off. In a way it’s class war – like an exploitation Animal Farm as the rich kids are killed but their previously marginalised replacements turn out to be as bad. Of course in other ways this is very different. No not Heathers – Massacre at Central High, also known as Blackboard Massacre and released 12 years earlier than that coruscatingly sharp 80s satire. Eventually New Boy sets a bomb to explode at the school, and the only woman who can stop him is Sweet Classmate. And then new bullies move up to fill the vacancies. Spoony microcosm series#Soon a series of horrific deaths rock the school, but no one realises they are actually murders. ![]() Luckily he finds a near-kindred spirit in a sweet female classmate. A new student starts at a high school and discovers it’s ruled by a clique of bullies. ![]()
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