The old “head-in-the-fish-tank” routine…
After celebrating the holidays with a look at one of my favorite gateway horror films Jumanji (listen) and the underseen holiday thriller P2 (listen), we’re wrapping up 2025 with a look at Ken Hughes‘ (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) forgotten 1981 slasher Night School.
In Night School, a motorcycle helmet-clad serial killer is decapitating a bunch of women enrolled at Wendell College and leaving their severed heads in water. Assigned to the case is Lieutenant Judd Austin (Leonard Mann), who begins suspecting womanizing professor Vincent Millett (Drew Snyder) as the possible culprit. Meanwhile, Millett’s teaching assistant and secret paramour Eleanor (Rachel Ward) is newly pregnant and struggles to break the news to him.
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Episode 367: Night School (1981)
Pull that severed head out of the aquarium and grab a pomegranate to take with you into the shower (seriously) because we’re discussing Ken Hughes’ Boston-set slasher Night School (1981)!
Join us as we go all in on this forgotten film, from its original title of Terror Eyes (get it?) to its notorious status as a video nasty. And on top of everything, it’s got a predatory lesbian character to boot!
Plus: lauding that “is the head in the pot?” diner sequence, wondering why no one gets killed at the titular school, and debating whether or not the killer’s M.O. counts as cultural appropriation (spoiler alert: it does).
Cross out Night School!
Coming Up Next: We’re kicking off the new year with a look at Alex Garland’s directorial debut Ex Machina (2014)!
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 446 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on Return to Silent Hill, The Creep Tapes Season 2, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Primate and – to coincide with Johannes Roberts’ killer chimp movie – we’ve got a brand new audio commentary on the 1995 adaptation of Michael Crichton’s Congo.
The post The Predatory Lesbian and Cultural Appropriation of ‘Night School’ [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.