Mutant Reviewers from Hell do
“But Muffy hasn't been in an institution in three years - she's been at Vassar!”

1986 PG / Comedy Horror Directed by: Fred Walton Starring: Deborah Foreman, Thomas F. Wilson, Amy Steel

Tagline

Don't let the joke be on you!

Summary Capsule

One mysterious girl. One mysterious island. Loads of mooching friends. And the most irritating holiday of the year... yeah, we're in for a deadly time!

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DVD

Justin's Rating: Pull my finger. PULLLL IT!
Justin's Review: I really suck at April Fool's Day.  You'd think that I, an impish individual with a penchant for ambushing people with air horns and slipping fake cockroaches into their breakfast sandwiches, would have this day wrapped around my pinkie.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  When April Fools comes around, I clam up under the extraordinary pressure of having to perform.  It's worse that it's a day where everyone expects tomfoolery and are increasingly on their guard.  Because of this, on April Fools I usually just lock myself in the bathroom and mutter to the toilet for the entire day.

"Hard to take serious, yes.  But so is PoolMan's kilt, and we've all learned tolerance of that as well. "

It's sort of the same issue for the makers of April Fool's Day, a quirky and fun 80's slasher/mystery starring some vaguely-recognizable actors.  You see, it's in the title that this whole film revolves around a prank-laden day, so the audience have their cute little radar dishes up and spinning.  However, the filmmakers are devilish foes, and use your increased paranoia to play with your expectations and assumptions.

Muffy St. John (yeah, I know — "Muffy"?), an eccentric rich girl, invites several college friends to her isolated mansion on a private island to celebrate her birthday.  (Cue thunder crash)  More unfortunate than her name is the fact that Muffy was born on April Fool's Day, which must've been absolutely horrible to her psyche growing up.  You know how strange adults can be when they think they're being clever with kids, yet they're really scarring them for life by pretending to have their thumb cut off and squirting ketchup packets everywhere.

Even on the ferry ride over, pranks and accidents start happening, and "Gotcha's!" mess with both the characters' and audience's minds.  It doesn't help that Muffy is a classical prankster in her own right, as her friends encounter dribble glasses and mysterious omens in their room.  But as the events of the weekend turn sour and people begin missing, the question is how many of the pranks are just pranks... and how many are lethal?  (Cue wolf howling)

April Fool's Day is not so much a straight-up horror flick than a blending of the spirit of 80's slashers (such as Friday the 13th), comedy and a whodunnit mystery.  Long before Scream, this film played with a satire of its own genre, utilizing many of the traditional slasher cues and tricks to fool the audience into seeing things that weren't quite there in the first place.  The comedy, in particular, is quite welcome and extremely witty in spots.  Most of the characters are goofs and broadly-drawn stereotypes (or badly-drawn broads) — I dare you not to like Biff from Back to the Future as a collar-upturning sex jockey.

As current horror trends tend to lean toward creepy Japanese freakfests (The Ring, The Grudge), it's downright charming to spin back to an era where they not only had outrageous fashion but also a sense of fun surrounding horror flicks.  Heck, I really want a copy of the cover art for April Fool's Day, where everyone's sitting around a dinner table and Muffy is standing with her back to us, butcher knife hidden behind her back and her hair braided in the style of a hangman's noose.  Hard to take serious, yes.  But so is PoolMan's kilt, and we've all learned tolerance of that as well.

A speedy running time and a unique premise that involves audience participation (at least in second-guessing the movie's and their own expectations), April Fool's Day leaves me satisfied that bloody pranks are better left to the professionals.  A definite one-time rent if you haven't seen it and want something offbeat in the genre.

And, by the way, this review marks my last on Mutant Reviewers From Hell.  As of today, I'm retiring and leaving the website to Kyle's capable leadership.  Thank you for all of your support and readership over the years, it means so much!

April Fool's!

Kyle's Rating: There’s so much to like, who cares it makes so little sense?
Kyle's Review: April Fool’s Day has always been a horribly impenetrable film for me. It’s like I enjoy it, but nothing really sticks with me afterwards. It’s weird to see Biff in a film outside of the Back to the Future trilogy, it’s cool to never really knowing what’s going on, and it’s absolutely fantastic to see Amy “Awesomest Friday the 13th heroine ever” Steel in another horror movie. It’s hard to recommend this movie for viewing, but it’s nearly impossible for me to dislike April Fool’s Day. Stupid perfect horror decade!

"A lot of these characters are cool and memorable to me, but it’s often just a thin line between like and dislike and it would be very easy for you to potentially hate every single one of these people."

Having done a little research into the film, it is interesting to find out that there was a whole lotta film that got chopped off the end of the film at the behest of moronic-as-usual studio freaks, who wanted (apparently) a nice happy ending that coincided nicely with everything that had gone before. This validates my thought-to-be-insane movie ramblings, since I remembered years and years before sitting under a table at an used book sale somewhere reading a novelisation of April Fool’s Day, and finding out it has a very different ending. I’m talking really, really different. So now I feel like I wasn’t insane after all. Good times!

There are entire lost and largely forgotten message board threads haunting the internet, arguing endlessly about whether or not the “true” ending was actually filmed or not and now sits rotting in a film canister in the Paramount vaults somewhere. Some evidence arguing for “yes the footage exists” includes a couple movie stills that are nowhere to be found in the film and are in line with the novelisation and the back of the current DVD release, which has an image of a certain character in a certain pose that again isn’t found in the film and again is in-line with that mysterious final act. Evidence against is some random dude’s secondhand interview with one of the film’s female stars (he isn’t clear as to which one) who claims that final material was never filmed. It’s a pretty cool controversy, eh?

All that matters for now is how the available version entertains you, and I have to say it’s pretty entertaining. That cast is really solid, and everyone plays their parts quite well. Deborah Foreman and Amy Steel are especially fantastic. Another cool thing is that there is a cinematography and look to this film that is inherently indicative of the slasher films of the 1980s that, if you like them (I do!) you can’t help but notice and getting down with. It’s just plain slasher fun, pure and simple.

That said, it’s not perfect. The implication of a trimmed ending and other strange post-production edits make perfect sense to me, considering the incoherence that runs consistently under the surface of the film and occasionally rises to the surface. A lot of these characters are cool and memorable to me, but it’s often just a thin line between like and dislike and it would be very easy for you to potentially hate every single one of these people. That occurrence would of course be disastrous for your viewing pleasure, don’t you think?

There’s so much fun and quirk to April Fool’s Day that it’s like I said: it’s nearly impossible for me to dislike it. You pretty much have to like slasher movies of its ilk to enjoy it, though. If you’ve seen every single Friday the 13th installment and you liked more than half of them, you’re probably ready to have fun with April Fool’s Day. If not, stay far, far away, because it definitely won’t be your cup o’ tea. Although it would be cool to tell you it was and then laugh at you after you watch it and hate it, because, hey: April Fool’s!

"Get it? Make like a tree... and LEAVE! hahahaha!" She's kinda cute when she's not psychotic How can anyone NOT love this screencap?

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• "Your fly’s open" never gets old
• The game of Stretch
• Who reads Paradise Lost on a ferry?
• Sporks!
• A & D are good picks
• "Let’s change the subject off of caring about our friend, shall we?"
• The light gag made me laugh
• As did the extreme sexual position of the couple
• The painting with the moooooving eyes

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

No thank you.

The History of April Fool's Day

Nobody can pinpoint the start of April Fool's Day (also called All Fool's Day). One of the earliest examples was in 1582 when the French threw a hissy fit at the reform of the yearly calendar (April 1 used to be the New Year's celebration). People were called "fools" for the next few years for not hearing about the calendar change, and were mocked or harassed. Over time, the tradition of practical jokes on this date spread to many countries. Each country boasts its own contribution to the day; for example, Scotland has a follow-up day (Taily Day) where they kick people in the butt (it's true!).

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

Where are the cast and crew of April Fool's Day now? I betcha wanna know! Director Fred Walton went on to do some non-memorable TV movies, Danilo Bach helped write Beverly Hills Cop 1 and 3, Deborah Foreman (Muffy) did a couple other roles in Waxwork and Lunatics: A Love Story, Ken Olandt (Rob) was in Leprechaun... geez, can you tell I'm just trying to fill out space for this page?

Groovy Quotes

Nikki: But Muffy hasn't been in an institution in three years - she's been at Vassar!

Hal: I’d like to plow your fields.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Scream
• Back to the Future
• Friday the 13th