A Slasher Within a Slasher

I try to give Roger Corman’s films the benefit of the doubt. His movies weren’t in the same league or category as other films. He made cheap films that caught onto the trends of other, bigger waves in Hollywood. When barbarian epics like Conan the Barbarian became huge, Corman made Barbarian Queen and Deathstalker. When post-apocalyptic sci-fi, like Planet of the Apes and Rollerball were all the rage, he made Death Race 2000. After Jaws proved that giant sea animal attack films could get people in theaters, Corman produced Piranha. The man saw Hollywood’s trends and he tried to get on them, every time. It led to a long, large, diverse production career for the man, so it’s hard to argue that he was wrong with his methods.

His films didn’t always work, but there was also some charm to his productions. The slasher genre inspired more than one attempt from the producer, both with The Slumber Party Massacre in 1982 and then Return to Horror High in 1987. Neither of these films were particularly good, but for a certain kind of fan it was hard to argue with their gonzo charm. Of the two, Return to Horror High was far weirder and over-the-top. It’s a slasher comedy with a meta twist (long before meta-commentary in slashers was all the rage) and it tried to both be funny and scary at the same time. It didn’t really manage either, and its muddled plot certainly confused anyone who watched it, but that’s fine. It tries, and sometimes trying is enough to at least make something halfway watchable.

The film is focused on a production team making a slasher movie in an abandoned high school. Years before the high school, Crippen High, was the site of a series of murders. The killer was never caught, making it a prime story for a sleazy producer, Harry Sleerik (Alex Rocco), and his team to profit from. All they need is to get a film put in the can as fast as possible before Sleerik’s (meager) funds dry up. This despite the scriptwriter struggling to get Sleerik’s (lurid) vision; the lead star, Oliver (George Clooney), leaving the production right as it’s getting going; and many other cast and crew disappearing with no explanation.

They’re disappearing, though, because there’s a killer going through the production, killing just about everyone he can find, one by one. As more and more people get bumped off, it gets harder and harder for new leads Callie Cassidy (Lori Lethin) and Steven Blake (Brendan Hughes) to ignore. Could it be the same killer that stalked the halls of this high school five years before? And if so, did he return because of the film, or is there something even more nefarious going on? The only way to find out is to, somehow, finish the film.

My recap of the film makes some logical sense out of the movie but, trust me, the production is anything but. The film is told in medias res, with cops on the scene investigating the slaughter of the production crew, while we also cut back in time to as the film was being made and, via in-movie footage, the slaughter that happened at the high school before that. It’s an interesting plot device that works on its own, but as the film goes on and things get more twisty, with dream sequences and false endings thrown in, everything about the story gets muddled to the point where you aren’t even certain anything you watched even happened.

If the film were scary I suppose that would be fine. It would give the movie a kind of dream-like quality that would somehow make it work. But that’s not what the film actually manages. Its tone varies wildly, from comedy to horror, while never really sticking any of its marks. It opens on the scene of a slaughter, and then almost immediately plays it for laughs, with one cop (played by former Brady Bunch star Maureen McCormick) going way too broad in every scene. Sometimes it tries to rein it in, other times it doesn’t even bother, and it’s really hard to settle into a movie when you can’t even tell if it’s trying to be serious or not.

Take the opening kill with Oliver (sorry, George Clooney). We learn that Oliver has a part in another film and he leaves the movie early, only to then get killed off right as he’s leaving the set. But did he die? The opening scenes of the film make you think yes, and since he doesn’t die as part of the filming you’d say, “sure, he’s dead.” But later people also seemingly died not as part of the film but as part of the slasher’s plans, only to then appear later, fine and dandy, as if nothing happened. Did anyone even die in this film? It’s really hard to say, and that, too, sucks much of the life out of the film.

At the same time, though, the movie really isn’t funny. A large part of that is because the actors they hired for this are just bad. They don’t have the comedic chops for comedy (outside of Clooney, who leaves the film early, and Rocco, who isn’t given enough to do with his threadbare character). The film would play as a much better horror-comedy if it could nail its comedy tone, but much like with its horror this film seems lost any time it tries to be funny. Its jokes don’t land, and the actors can’t deliver the lines anyway, leading to a film that is neither scary nor thrilling, just kind of boring.

I hate ragging on a film this small and cheap because you want to rate it at a different level from bigger, better films. Return to Horror High was made on a small budget (although large by the metrics of Corman’s New World Picture’s studio) of $1 Mil, and with its huge cast and big set you can certainly see why it cost even that much. But the amount of money they spent didn’t really lead to a good film, by any measure, just one that tries really hard to get there despite everything working against it.

Is trying enough, though? In some ways, no. This film wasn’t good enough that I’d ever go back to watch it again. It’s silly without being fun, but its passing attempts at horror and gore never land. If it could have stuck harder in one direction or the other (more like Return of the Killer Tomatoes for comedy or Prom Night for horror) then maybe that could have worked. Better films have been made on smaller budgets, the films just have to know how to commit. Of course, those films also have better actors, and for some reason this film’s best actor, George Clooney, is bumped off in the opening act…

But Return to Horror High is a lot like a puppy dog, just wanting to be loved. It tries, and while it’s bad at it you find yourself hard pressed to be mad. It’s a bad movie, but lovably bad, in a way that makes you go, “aww, I know you didn’t get it this time, champ. Maybe next time,” as you scratch it behind the ears. I can’t say I’d recommend this movie to anyway, but I simply can’t call it one of the worst films I’ve ever seen because, for all its flaws it at least puts in effort. That ranks it far above plenty of Hollywood slop that doesn’t even bother to care.