April Fool's Day (2008)

Director: Fred Walton

Starring: Taylor Cole, Scout-Taylor Compton

Run Time: 88 mins

Certificate: 15

 

Plot Outline: A group of very rich and very spoilt teenagers throw a party but tragedy strikes when an April Fool's prank goes horribly wrong and a girl falls off a balcony to her death. A year later and someone is out for revenge and starts killing the friends off one-by-one. But who is it and how much do they know about what happened?

The Review: Long before Scream had been made, the slasher film had already been parodied to some degree in April Fool's Day back in the 80s. The novelty of the film and it's one trick-pony was that the characters were killed off one-by-one throughout the film in typical slasher manner and then it was revealed to be a big hoax at the end in a truly horrifying twist never seen since the days of Scooby Doo and the gang unmasking the monster only to find it was the only other character introduced in their episode. It was an ok film but one that could only really be watched once as long as you didn't know what happened. So how do you remake a film where everyone knows the twist at the end? Even though I hated it, it's like someone coming along and remaking The Sixth Sense and hoping everyone is shocked at the ending again. Well the answer is that you remake the film exactly the same and hope people aren't either stupid or have seen the original because if you are not stupid or have seen the original, then you'll know what happens from the opening scene. More importantly why would you remake a mediocre slasher film than no one had even seen in the first place? Are the studios that desperate to find new ideas?

If you've read some of my reviews then you can tell that I don't like a film from the off. I try and be as impartial as possible but sometimes my feelings just get the better of me. Why should I be this angry at watching something as bad as this? Did I really think that a second rate remake of a second rate slasher film was going to be anything other than a complete and utter turkey? From the opening scene, the film looks like one of those third rate American dramas like The Young and the Restless - you know the type, the ones where the characters are covered in so much make-up they are like walking cosmetics ads and where there is too much artificial light thrown into their faces to see how beautiful they look. Well that's the vibe you get from here right off the bat. The opening scenes play out painfully slowly and it seems like an eternity before the accident happens and the girl is killed. At least she had the sense to get out of the film as early as she could do. The film then shifts into I Know What You Did Last Summer territory where exactly one year on from the accident, the group begin to receive threatening letters. Why is it always one year on? Does it take a whole year for someone to plan out their revenge? What about six months? This is where the film falls into the clichéd traps of the modern slasher movie (yeah right, like it hadn't already - but that's beside the point!). But even then it still remains more of a mystery-thriller than an out-and-out slasher as the box would have you believe. The kills are weak and bloodless. There are no overly convoluted chase scenes. Sex does not equal death here because there isn't a sight nor sign or any nookie. I can't even remember anyone even doing anything stupid like investigating a strange noise. They just do absolutely nothing for the running time except drive around in flash cars, argue with each other and preen and pamper themselves.