Heads Will Roll!!!

Video Nasty #38

MAN IS THE ONLY ANIMAL THAT KILLS FOR PLEASURE

Terror Eyes

1981

A LESSON IN TERROR

Original Title: Night School

NTSC Runtime: 88:31

Directed by Ken Hughes

Written & Produced by Ruth Avergon
Starring: Leonard Mann, Rachel Ward, Drew Snyder
Body Count: 6
Region 1 DVD-R available from Warner Archives

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Slasher murders.

What was cut: Unspecified (at least currently) cuts were made when submitted for cinema classification on March 24, 1981.  76 seconds of "slashing" shots were trimmed when submitted for video release May 27, 1987.

Current UK Status: Terror Eyes has an 18 certificate and was released by Guild Home Video.

Terror Eyes was seized but was not prosecuted.

A day care worker is alone on the playyard merry-go-round after the last child goes home.  She is decapitated by a motorcyclist.  More decapitations follow, and the police are on hot on the killer's trail...but not so close that there can't be a few more murders before justice is served.

The last feature film from Ken Hughes (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Sextette), Night School is the second-least of the Nasties I have watched so far (the worst being Faces Of Death, see Video Nasty #2) for the very simple reason that it has nothing special to recommend it.  It's a run-of-the-mill police procedural.  It wasn't exciting, it wasn't technically inept in any way, it did nothing to surprise the viewer, even the reveal of the killer (the most important part of a whodunit, and it wasn't hard to figure out who the murderer is, even early in the film) was bland to the point of exasperation.  I watched this film SEVEN MONTHS AGO, and its mediocrity was such that I almost abandoned this project altogether, so badly did I not want to write about it.  But this project is too important to me to let this whole thing die because of one offensively bland and formula slasher film.

What really surprised me the most was that this film is rather well-regarded among slasher fans, so I was expecting SOMETHING.  The thing that takes a somewhat mediocre film over the edge into a place where it can garner real appreciation (the Canadian contemporary of this film, Happy Birthday To Me springs immediately to mind), and Night School just doesn't have that.  There's a handful of slasher sequences that fail to impress, and a shower/sex scene that isn't much better.  I feel sorry for anyone who picked this as their "gotta see it" over in the UK during the Nasty Panic.  They almost assuredly came away wondering what they'd fussed over.

So that's it for this one.  Warner Bros. will burn you a DVD of this film if you throw some money at them, but for once I'm going to suggest that cash stay in your pocket (I, thankfully, didn't pay for my copy, got it in a trade from a California tapehead who got the better end of the deal).  You could go out and get yourself a nice plate of sushi, and walk away a lot happier than I was after watching this one.  You'll be glad you did.  And I'll eat your leftovers, if you have any.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.