Another year, another April Fool’s Day come and gone without a single funny prank online. The day has lost its luster since the advent of the internet, but happily, we’ll always have 1986’s pseudo-slasher classic, April Fool’s Day, to remember how fun it used to be.
Director Fred Walton is best known for his feature debut, 1979’s When a Stranger Calls, and he made a career built on low-key suspense tales for theatrical release and television. His best film, though, is undoubtedly April Fool’s Day. Part slasher, part mystery, all fun – the film is a delight, even on repeat viewings, as it’s an attractive, entertaining, and smartly crafted ride for fans of good times.
Now keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary for…
April Fool’s Day (1986)
Commentators: Film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson
1. One of them recalls seeing the film in the theater and encountering “a certain anger in the audience” at the ending, as some people see it as a cheat. The consensus is that it was older viewers who were upset, while the youths actually liked the playful reveal.
2. There are conflicting reports as to the film’s origin. Some reports say writer Danilo Bach was shopping it around as a spec script, while others suggest that producer Frank Mancuso Jr. concocted the idea and then tasked Bach with writing it. Unrelated, but Bach also wrote the terrifically entertaining but severely underseen “90s erotic thriller” Escape Clause. Seek it out!
3. Mitchell says the slasher formula in the 1980s was to gather some attractive young people and then “watch them perish,” and he adds that he was part of it all as the co-writer of 1986’s Chopping Mall.
4. “It doesn’t rely on cutting, it relies on staging,” says Mitchell as a compliment towards Walton, who made this film because he was pretty much broke at the time.
5. It was filmed around Victoria, British Columbia, after earlier suggestions, including Martha’s Vineyard and Seattle, fell through.
6. The bit around the 18:45 mark sees characters taking a sex quiz from a magazine, and it was added on the day after Walton saw the cast members doing just that before filming began.
7. They compliment the film’s use of natural light, particularly with scenes overlooking the water towards dusk, and compare favorably to Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood.
8. This is an ensemble film, but they all agree that Deborah Foreman is the de facto star here, seeing as she was still riding high off Valley Girl. She auditioned for the film and was dismissed early on, but she kept track of casting and re-auditioned for the same role. This time, though, she leaned into the subtleties of the character’s evil twin conceit and won everyone over.
9. They talk about Walton’s “mathematical use of long takes” when building to and forming scares, and they even suggest it was an influence on films like William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist III.
10. They give a shout out to Cinephile Video in Los Angeles, which has a director’s wall dedicated to all the big names you’d expect – and Walton, too. Asked why, the store owners said they just wanted to shake things up with a great director you just don’t expect to see represented as such.
11. The film is devoid of nudity, and while that seems odd for a slasher – and may have contributed to genre audiences being unhappy with it – it’s also fitting as the end of the ’80s marked a more chaste period for horror movies.
12. The well scene was filmed on a set in Los Angeles, and the water was apparently so “fetid” that Deborah Goodrich developed an ear infection from her time in it.
13. Walton uses his camera to ratchet up tension and claustrophobia, and they point out some examples around the 1:01:08 mark. Hal (Jay Baker) sits on the stairs, shot so that their shadows resemble prison bars, and the next shot is made through the metal bars of a bedframe.
14. “This is a movie void of primary colors except for reds,” they say, adding that the reds are used as subconscious nods towards doomed characters. Arch is wearing red before he’s caught in the trap, Hal is sitting on a red carpet, Nikki is wearing a red robe, etc.
15. The film originally had an extended ending that featured Buffy (Foreman) actually being murdered, but it didn’t make the final cut – it’s another fake out, instead. It did, however, make it into the film’s novelization by Jeff Rovin, as that was based on the script. The book currently runs about $100 on eBay, which is unfortunate for me and my bank account.
16. They praise the film’s deep blacks – shout out to both cinematographer Charles Minsky and the recent 4K release from KL Studio Classics – as being atypical. Thompson breaks down the difference between legitimate dark and “movie dark,” which is dark-ish but lit so viewers can see what’s happening.
17. The great Amy Steel wears primarily baggy clothing throughout, and a producer allegedly approached her during filming to ask if maybe she was gaining too much weight on the film. “Well,” she reportedly replied, “you hired this amazing caterer, so whose fault is that?” I would have added a hearty “fuck you” to the producer, too.
18. While some people may be put off by the entire fake out, as it basically means the film’s events are all reset to zero, the commentators see it as a positive. For one, it’s a nice change of pace from the genre norm of dead teens, and another points out that the actual finale allows for Nan (Leah Pinsent), a character who has zero fun throughout, to finally have a laugh and a smile. “Even though it’s not a horror movie in the conventional sense, we got the thrills, and it was fun to experience a fright.”
19. They draw an interesting contrast between the ’80s and now, suggesting that today’s horror movies “are just so serious” while they used to be fun, entertaining times designed to be enjoyed as part of an audience. It’s a generalization, obviously, but fans of ’80s horror know it to be true as the genre definitely had a looser, more entertaining vibe back then.
Quotes Without Context
“In the ’80s, that was the decade of the dead teenager movie.”
“The one thing that’s actually real in the film is the sexuality, and the violence is all gags. That’s the fake.”
“There’s such a salad of bodies there.”
“If this movie had been made by Roger Corman’s company, there would have already been three to four nude scenes.”
“If I was to see this at a famous 42nd Street grindhouse, I don’t think I could see the actors for the grain.”
Keep up with more horror commentary breakdowns here.
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