April Fool’s Day Horror Movies Ranked
Another April Fool’s Day is upon us, which means it’s time to celebrate with some April Fool’s Day Horror Movies! There aren’t a lot of them to choose from, and the most entertaining of them were all were released in the same year (1986), but keep scrolling and check out how we have ranked the options, from best to worst:
APRIL FOOL’S DAY (1986)
It’s a lucky break that the best April Fool’s Day horror movie is also the one that managed to grab the title April Fool’s Day before any of its competitors did. Brought to the screen by When a Stranger Calls director Fred Walton, working from a script by Danilo Bach (who provided the story for Beverly Hills Cop a couple of years earlier), this one centers on a group of college students who are all connected to a wealthy girl named Muffy St. John (Deborah Foreman) in some way. They have been invited to spend the April 1st weekend at a St. John mansion on a private island off the coast of Maine… and once they get there, someone starts picking them off, one by one.
The casting for this movie was incredible. In addition to Foreman, you get Amy Steel (playing a “final girl” again, four years after Friday the 13th Part 2), Thomas F. Wilson, Ken Olandt, Clayton Rohner, Deborah Goodrich, Leah Pinsent, Jay Baker, and Griffin O’Neal, and the mixture of their performances with Bach’s well-written banter results in one of the best groups of characters to ever be featured in a slasher movie. It’s a lot of fun to spend time with these characters and watch them interact – and to see how they react when things get weird on the island and people start disappearing.
The story builds up to a major twist that some viewers found off-putting, but I’ve always loved it and found it to be the perfect ending for the film. There’s a really fun energy to it, and it makes April Fool’s Day truly unique among the slashers of its decade. I would even say that it makes the movie more satisfying than it would have been otherwise. You do have to accept a couple of leaps in logic, but that’s fine with me.
SLAUGHTER HIGH (1986)
Years ago, a group of jocks and popular girls pulled an overly elaborate April Fools prank on Marty Rantzen (Simon Scuddamore), the biggest dork at Doddsville County High School. The prank escalated to Marty getting a face full of acid while being caught in an explosion. The experience broke his mind and he was institutionalized. Now, on another April 1st, Mary’s tormentors have been invited to a reunion at their old school, which is abandoned and scheduled to be demolished. They settle in for a night of drinking booze, smoking weed, and snorting cocaine… but Marty is stalking the halls, wearing a jester mask and planning to murder the people who ruined his life.
Produced by Steve Minasian, who was one of the investors behind the original Friday the 13th (and he brought Friday the 13th composer Harry Manfredini to this project with him), Slaughter High comes to us through the combined efforts of writers/directors George Dugdale, Mark Ezra, and Peter Litten. The result is a messy movie that feels dirty and cheap, with a sense of humor that’s reminiscent of Troma movies, especially in how sleazy and unlikeable the characters are and how gross it gets at times.
The characters played by Michael Saffran, John Segal, Josephine Scandi, Sally Cross, Gary Martin, Donna Yeager, Billy Hartman, Kelly Baker, Carmine Iannaconne, and Bond girl / Hammer horror veteran Caroline Munro are, for the most part, pretty terrible, but at least they get taken out with some spectacular kill scenes. You not only get the usual bladed weapons, but characters also fall prey to spiked drinks that cause their guts to explode, get melted down in an acid bath, are electrocuted, and – the worst death saved for the least deserving – drowned in a cesspool. It’s a good time.
KILLER PARTY (1986)
The double fake-out opening of Killer Party is the best thing about the film. A funeral gone wrong with comedically over-the-top performances turns out to be a scene from a movie being shown at a drive-in. When a young girl in the audience starts being attacked by zombies, rock music kicks in and a band starts playing beside the concession stand, as this second stage of the opening turns out to be a full music video for the White Sister song “You’re No Fool.” When director William Fruet and writer Barney Cohen (who previously wrote Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter) get the actual story started, it focuses on the trio of Phoebe (Elaine Wilkes), Vivia (Sherry Willis-Burch), and Jennifer (Joanna Johnson), who is the most uneasy about the dark history of the abandoned frat house their sorority has chosen as a party venue.
Little time is spent building up the killer, the evil spirit of a frat boy named Allan, who died in a tragic guillotine accident on April 1, 1964. As the titular party comes to its end, Allan shows up to knock people off while wearing an old diving suit. The killer is more interesting without the costume, when his spirit is inhabiting the bodies of characters we know. Unfortunately, the kills in the movie are lacking. They happen very quickly and tend to be bloodless, as we get musical stings and cutaways instead of impact shots.
Fitting for an April Fool’s Day movie, there’s a silly atmosphere throughout Killer Party and a non-stop barrage of pranks and tricks. Oddly, the college students treat the day sort of like Halloween, even throwing a costume party. This is a really weird flick, with an unusual structure and pace, especially for a slasher. There’s so much random stuff going on that it’s tough to keep track of the story. It’s not particularly well made, it’s not satisfying as a slasher, but it has an oddball charm that makes it worth checking out.
INTO THE DARK: I’M JUST F*CKING WITH YOU (2019)
For two seasons, Blumhouse had a really fun series on the Hulu streaming service called Into the Dark. Each season consisted of twelve feature films that were released on a monthly basis, with each movie having something to do with a holiday or notable date that occurred during its month of release. This series gave us new horror movies set on Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, etc. In the mix was an April Fool’s Day horror movie from director Adam Mason and writers Gregg Zehentner and Scott Barkan: I’m Just F*cking with You.
This one stars Keir O’Donnell as Larry Adams, a bitter troll who leaves childish, vulgar insults on social media pages under the screen name Programming Flaw. On his way to the wedding of his ex-girlfriend, who is getting married to his cousin, he checks into the most “flamboyantly vile” motel he can find: a place called Pink Motel, which is coated in garish, colorful neon lighting. The guy working the front desk is Chester Conklin, played by Hayes MacArthur – and it’s MacArthur who really makes I’m Just F*cking with You worth watching with his performance as this obnoxious “good time guy.” Everything out of Chester’s mouth is a joke, but not necessarily one meant to amuse anyone other than himself. He likes to wind people up, then drop his catchphrase, which also serves as the title of the movie. Chester would be a nightmare to be around, but MacArthur is a delight to watch.
Chester makes Larry’s night at the Pink Motel a living hell, tormenting him with his sense of humor much like Larry torments people with his idea of humor online. But as the night goes on, the situation collapses into something much darker, and Larry begins to suspect Chester might be dangerous. He might have even done something to Larry’s sister Rachel (Jessica McNamee), who was supposed to meet him at this place… I’m Just F*cking with You is about a crappy person being forced to face who they really are. I didn’t like the ending, but I enjoyed the ride there.
WHAT ELSE?
Well, I wanted to have five entries on this list, but with the four movies above we’ve really already covered the most notable April Fool’s Day horror movies. If you’re planning a five-movie marathon, there are other options, but you’ll need to proceed with caution.
There’s a 2013 Spanish horror movie called Los Inocentes that was given the English title Bloody April Fools, but the story actually takes place on December 28, Day of the Holy Innocents, the Spanish equivalent to April Fool’s Day. Some viewers report having a “so bad, it’s entertaining” viewing experience with the 2007 movie April Fools. The most talked-about moment in 2023’s Pillow Party Massacre (pictured) involves a pillow fight, during which an actress called Jax Kellington tears her shirt open, Hulk Hogan style.
I can’t vouch for those movies, but I do have a piece of advice: when choosing which horror movies to watch on April Fool’s Day, stay far away from the 2008 remake of April Fool’s Day. It’s a horrendous disappointment, so pretend that it doesn’t even exist.
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