Student Bodies

Now here's a cult item. In the late 70s/early 80s, a distasteful cycle of slasher films was invading movie theaters and premium cable. Each featured some anonymous assailant wielding an axe, or a cleaver, a pair of hedge shears. In 1981's STUDENT BODIES, our anonymous killer (and sometime narrator), The Breather, gapes at a table with the usual killing instruments, but opts instead for paper clips and eggplants. Oh, and horsehead bookends. 

The youth of Lamab High are being offed one by one, the victims all caught in the act of, how you say, intimate relations? "Sex kills" cries Malbert the Janitor, one of several potential suspects. Our heroine, Toby, is also a suspect, especially since everyone knows she's a virgin. She's also perceived as being envious of all the popular types who are getting killed. Her only real friend is a nerdy guy who, after she has an appointment with the school shrink, hopes aloud that she doesn't end up like Nicholson in CUCKOO'S NEST. 

It all sounds familiar? STUDENT BODIES has the plotline of any number of forgettables that littered (and still litter) theater screens. It is pretty obvious, however, that the filmmakers are attempting a spoof. I say attempt because for all of the amusing ideas, this movie doesn't really come off. This despite the fact that it was written and directed by a one-time collaborator of Woody Allen (in the "early, funny years"), Mickey Rose. It begins well, aptly making digs at WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, but falls apart very quickly afterward. The ideas ARE amusing. The Breather does just that, an exaggerated wheeze while explaining to viewers that he really would rather kill the kid with the gum after he steps in a pile of it. After each victim is dispatched, a body count number flashes on the screen. In the film's original ad campaign, it was announced that there are 13 and 1/2 murders. The 1/2? A fly. Yes. 

Also, in what is probably the only scene of its kind in film history, the movie stops and a guy behind a desk explains that R-rated films earn more money at the box office, and since STUDENT BODIES doesn't have the usual explicit sex or violence (like slasher films tend to), he proceeds to ensure that this film gets its R. I know. Sounds lame. It most certainly is, but that's part of its bargain basement charm. There's something about this movie that has had me returning to it over the years, though it was unavailable for some time (finally released on DVD last year). 

After my initial disappointment that this wasn't some sort of satiric classic, I began to see that even a movie with half-realized ideas and a not very favorable hit and miss ratio for gags has its own appeal. The time period I cited also saw a spate of killer-on-the-loose parodies like SATURDAY THE 14th and WACKO, neither of which were any better than this. STUDENT BODIES bombed at the box office but found a sizable following due to home video and cable. The latter is where I first discovered it, and though I knew even then that it was pretty bad, I knew I found something I'd be quoting for years. 

And so it came to pass, but finding another STUDENT BODIES quoter/fan is rare. Seems every other late-Boomer/early Gen X-er quotes CADDYSHACK at the drop of a hat. I mean how many people, even film geeks, have you heard reciting, "Who was Hamlet?" "His dog." "His dog?" "Wasn't he a great Dane?"