Horror comedies have been around for decades all the way back when ‘Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein’ had the two sharing the silver screen with Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi. And then Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder gave us ‘Young Frankenstein.’
In 2000, the Wayans brought us ‘Scary Movie,’ a crude but hilarious parody of horror movies that picked up on the resurrection of slasher movies following ‘Scream.’ Unfortunately two bad things happened. One the Wayans were screwed over by the Weinsteins. And two, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer got screen-writing credits even though it was just to avoid a lawsuit probably. It was later reported nothing had been used from a script they had submitted but ”Scary Movie’ was never intended to be a major hit. But it was and it spawned the same franchise it was parodying.
It grossed over a quarter of a billion worldwide the highest ever for a movie directed by a black director, as Keenan Ivory Wayans helmed the project, and his brothers Marlon and Shawn co-wrote and co-starred.
But ‘Scary Movie 2’ came out a year later and it seemed we had passed the point of no return. Friedberg and Seltzer used their screen credits to make some of the worst movies ever and basically killing the parody-spoof genre. Many of the jokes were tired by the second box office week. Even with David Zucker directing the third and fourth ‘Scary Movie,’ there was not much to laugh at.
But it hadn’t been the first time there was a rush to get numerous parodies out as quickly as possible. Like the slasher movies, most were produced cheaply with a bunch of little known actors who didn’t have much acting career later. John Hughes got his toes wet with ‘National Lampoon’s Class Reunion’ even though he said he was fired and the script was reworked with him getting sole credit. It wasn’t bad but you can only sit through it once every now and again. The Hudson Brothers went too clean with ‘Hysterical’ which was a precursor of the Friedberg/Seltzer flicks by making too many jokes and not having enough of a plot.
But before that, there was ‘Student Bodies.’ Produced on a cheap budget of $510,000 in the Houston area in 1980s, it was reportedly filmed during the 1980 SAG strike which was followed by the WGA strike. Paramount Pictures, which had released the hit ‘Airplane!’ put it in production in hopes of having as many films to release once the strikes ended. Texas was a right-to-work state and many of the cast is composed of people who had never acted before nor since.
Kristen Riter, who plays protagonist Toby Badger, left America for Europe where she got involved in music. Sara Eckhardt went to law school, became a judge in Travis County, Texas and is currently a state senator.
Mickey Rose wrote and directed the movie but Michael Ritchie was hired as a producer and suspected co-director. He had to be credited as Allen Smithee because of the strikes.
The plot involves a killer only known as the Breather, credited as Richard Brando but the identity has never been revealed, stalking students and faculty at Lamab High School. Just like ‘Black Christmas,’ ‘Halloween’ and ‘Friday the 13th,’ most of the action of the Breather is from his POV. There’s a running joke that every time a phone is picked off the cradle the Breather is heard. At one point, a bunch of saliva oozes out of the phone receiver.
There’s been some speculation the Breather was voiced by Richard Belzer but that has never been verified.
While the first part works as a parody of the opening sequence of ‘When a Stranger Calls’ as a title card reads “Jamie Lee Curtis’ Birthday,” the jokes fall apart in the second half. There is a running gag of a death count superimposed on the screen even though there’s hardly much violence or gore. At one point the Breather whose only seen wearing cleaning gloves and galoshes examines a table with guns, knives and other deadly tools before choosing a single paperclip to unbend.
Another scene cuts halfway to an older man, presumably meant to be a studio executive, dropping the F-bomb just to obtain an R rating as most R-rated movies are popular with younger audiences.
The movie is notable for the appearance of The Stick as the dimwitted Malvert the Janitor. Born Patrick Boone Varnell in Oklahoma, he stood at 6-foot-3 and had a scrawny build but actually had a certain flexibility with his arms and legs that made him look strange and not as human. This is Varnell’s only screen credit as well. He died of a heart attack in 1989 while living in the Dallas area.
Part of the problem with this and other parodies is that there is no solid story. Movies like ‘Airplane!,’ ‘Blazing Saddles,’ ‘Young Frankenstein’ and the first ‘Naked Gun’ worked well because not only was there a legitimate plot story that had a beginning, middle and end, the filmmakers and writers loved the movies they were parodying.
When a movie has a joke within the first five minutes of a dog meowing and then farting, you know it’s just going for cheap laughs. This movie needed a few more minds behind the camera to really get it to work well.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 