Caps Off, Heads Off: 5 Sensational Graduation Slasher Movies
Chad Collins
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Graduation season is either met with thunderous applause, the culmination of years of hard work, or incredulity as dozens of students amble across the stage still not quite sure how they managed to be there. In the horror world, however, graduation season means something altogether different. It means serial killers, dead sorority sisters, and games of hide-and-seek that end in enough bloodshed to make even Michael Myers blush. We’ll be counting down five of our favorite grad bash slashers here. These slasher movies range from remakes to indie delights, though all are certain to generate more gory thrills than any stupid diploma could.
5. The Pool
There’s no sense in being modest. Boris von Sychowski’s The Pool is one of the most accomplished Scream riffs to emerge in the years following Wes Craven’s meta slasher masterpiece. A gaggle of soon-to-be-A-listers including Isla Fisher and James McAvoy are graduating from an elite prep school in Prague. To celebrate their accomplishments, they opt to skip the sanctioned festivities to party at an indoor water park. Of course, a masked killer follows, and soon, the survivors are left to unmask the killer before there’s no one less. Featuring a fantastic water slide kill, a game cast, and some genuine suspense, The Pool coasts by on the novelty of its setting, its facetious tone, and some gnarly water-bound gore.
4. Sorority Row
Mark Rosman’s The House on Sorority Row is a masterpiece, no doubt about it. It’s a nasty, surreal, sometimes incredulous (looking at you, Jeanie) slasher from the subgenre’s heyday, and while it doesn’t quite match the likes of Halloween when it comes to slasher esteem, it was still relevant enough to warrant a remake. Stewart Hendler’s Sorority Row does exactly what a remake should do. Rather than follow the original beat for beat, Hendler’s 2009 reboot borrows the general framework—a sorority prank goes awry, leading to a collegiate cover-up—while carving out an identity all its own. It keeps the original’s bloody tongue-in-cheek tone while simultaneously resisting the new decade’s extremity inclinations, delivering a slasher that, while violent, remains wholly accessible. It’s fun, funny, mysterious, and even a little cathartic as the worst college grads ever get their comeuppance.
3. Last of the Grads
The newest entry on this list, Collin Kliewe and Jay Jenkins’ Last of the Grads does what the best indies should do. Rather than reinvent the wheel, Last of the Grads piles on the practical gore effects for a debut that doesn’t break any new ground but deserves mention alongside some of the better contemporary slashers. A bunch of high school seniors grapple with the expected anxiety, frayed relationships, and spiked punch as they spend their last night together at a school-sanctioned lock-in. Naturally, the Coast-to-Coast Killer, a mythic murderer, has decided to attend too, and soon, buckets and buckets and buckets of blood are spilled. It’s just a bunch of silly young adults canoodling, screwing around, and finding themselves at the tail end of long, sharp knives. Sometimes, that’s what graduation is really about.
2. Graduation Day
In Herb Freed’s Graduation Day, a track runner dies unexpectedly during a meet, horrifying the audience. Just two months later, the remaining seniors, curiously unfazed by their recently deceased classmate, prepare for graduation with sex, alcohol, and general small-town debauchery. Someone isn’t too happy about it, however, and soon, a random gaggle of teens are impaled with spikes, decapitated with swords, and slashed with pimped-out dodgeballs. Like The House on Sorority Row, Graduation Day is considerably more surreal than its meager slasher roots might suggest, so much so, the movie was a runaway success, grossing nearly $24 million against a $250,000 budget when released in May 1981.
1. Hide and Go Shriek
If it weren’t for all the murder and mayhem, the gist of Hide and Go Shriek would be pretty dang fun. While the politics of Skip Schoolnik’s slasher debut haven’t aged particularly well, it has enough going for it to overcome its dated sensibilities. Four couples of fresh graduates decide to spend the night in a furniture store for lots and lots of drinking and sex. One such grad suggests a game of hide-and-seek, unaware that none of these kids seem to know how to play the game. There’s some effort made to hide.
But for the most part, they simply split up to have more sex just as a killer sneaks in alongside them. They’re sliced, they’re diced, and while the gay panic sours some of the ordeal, it’s a premier example of the ‘80s slasher template. Like a violent game of Mad Libs, most low-budget slasher simply substituted locations and killers, keeping the general narrative progression the same. Kids drink, have sex, and die until the killer is confronted. Hide and Go Shriek doesn’t break the mold, though it is one of the subgenre’s more inspired offerings, especially as its popularity waned into the nineties.
Congratulations to all this year’s graduates, though remember: no pranks, no games, and no pools. Have fun, celebrate, and be safe!
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