Graduation Day (1981) (Blu-ray Review)
DIRECTED BY: Herb Freed
STARRING: Christopher George, Patch Mackenzie, E. Danny Murphy
RATED: R/Region: O/1:78/1080P/NUMBER OF DISCS 1
AVAILABLE FROM Troma
There are certain ’80s slashers that you can watch and immediately understand why people are still talking about them decades later.
Then there’s Graduation Day.
Released in 1981, this is one of those slashers that gets brought up whenever people start digging through the bottomless pit of ’80s horror. And while I wouldn’t go so far as to call it terrible, I’d definitely put it toward the lower end of the ’80s slasher food chain.
It’s still fun. It’s still got the atmosphere. It’s still got a killer wandering around knocking off people who apparently didn’t receive the memo that surviving a horror movie requires making better life choices.
But compared to some of the second-string slashers from the same era? Graduation Day starts looking a little like the kid who made it onto the team because they needed somebody to fill the roster.
Take Madman or Humongous, for example. Neither one is exactly Halloween or Friday the 13th, but they’ve got enough personality, nastiness, and memorable moments to stick with you. Graduation Day doesn’t quite have that same staying power.
And I think a big part of the problem is the slashing.
You’d think a movie called Graduation Day would understand that the audience is here to watch people get murdered in increasingly creative ways. Instead, the movie sometimes seems almost embarrassed about the whole killing-people thing.
This was 1981!
You had a decade of slasher insanity sitting right around the corner, and here we are watching a movie that occasionally treats the actual murders like they’re an inconvenient appointment it needs to squeeze into the schedule.
The kills aren’t necessarily bad, but they aren’t particularly memorable either. There’s not enough gore or inventive carnage to make them stand out against the mountain of other slashers coming out around the same time.
And that’s a problem when your primary selling point is “Someone is killing people at graduation.”
I want more than a few murders and a diploma.
I want carnage.
I want stupidity.
I want somebody to hear a noise in an empty building and respond by walking directly toward it while the audience collectively screams, “YOU FUCKING MORON.”
And Graduation Day doesn’t always give me enough of that.
Then there’s the inevitable conversation about Vanna White.
If you’ve ever mentioned this movie around a horror fan, somebody will eventually tell you:
“Vanna White is in it!”
Yes.
She is.
Because apparently her uncle made the movie, and therefore this fact must be mentioned every single time the movie’s existence is brought up.
Just don’t get too excited.
She’s barely in the damn thing.
We’re talking roughly four minutes total.
Four.
Minutes.
That’s less time than it takes some slasher characters to establish their entire personality before being killed.
But hey, technically Vanna White is in Graduation Day, so congratulations to everyone who has successfully completed the ritual of mentioning it.
As for the new Troma release, physical-media collectors aren’t exactly getting a completely reinvented version of the movie here. The release appears to carry over MOST of (if not all) the extras and the same transfer from the 2014 Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray.
And honestly?
That’s perfectly fine.
Because the transfer already looked good, and if it ain’t broke, don’t fuck with it.
The picture has a nice presentation for a movie of this vintage, and it gives Graduation Day the solid visual treatment it deserves. The extras are also welcome, particularly for those who didn’t already own the Vinegar Syndrome release.
So while this isn’t exactly the kind of upgrade that’s going to have collectors throwing their old discs into the garbage, it does mean the movie continues to have a good-looking physical release.
And that’s probably the best way to sum up Graduation Day itself.
It’s fine.
Actually, it’s more than fine.
It’s fun.
It’s got that unmistakable early-’80s slasher atmosphere, there’s a mystery to follow, and there’s enough weirdness and murder to make it worth sitting through. But when you start comparing it to the better-known slashers—or even some of the lesser-known second-tier movies from the same period—it doesn’t quite have the personality or gore necessary to make it truly memorable.
It’s the cinematic equivalent of the student who graduates with a respectable C+.
Nobody’s failing you.
Nobody’s giving you a scholarship either.
You showed up.
You did the work.
You got the diploma.
Now please stop telling me Vanna White is in the movie.
I know.
She has four minutes.
Extras
- Classic introduction featuring Lloyd Kaufman
- Interviews with Patch Mackenzie, Herb Freed, David Baughn, Martin Jay Sadoff, and Linnea Quigley
- Commentaries featuring producer David Baughn and the hosts of ‘The Hysteria Continues’ podcast
- Coming distractions
