Just so...so bad

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Transfer student David (Derrel Maury) starts a new school where he finds that an old friend, Mark (Andrew Stevens), has fallen in with a gang who use fear and intimidation to rule the roost. Being a friend of Mark's, David is given the opportunity to become a member of the group, but after seeing how they operate, decides that he would rather show the underdogs that it is possible to stand up to their persecutors.Displeased with David's decision, head bully Bruce (Ray Underwood) and his cronies decide to teach the new guy a lesson by dropping a car on his legs. Crippled, and more than a little miffed, David responds by arranging fatal accidents for his enemies, freeing the other students from their life of oppression in the process. However, with Bruce and his pals gone, a new generation of bullies comes to the fore, and so David continues his murderous activities, ultimately deciding to blow up the entire school...Bit of a strange one this: Massacre at Central High starts off with it's protagonist David as a hero, valiantly standing up for the weak, but then gradually sees him transform into a twisted murderous psycho and the real villain of the piece. For a while, this is all fairly entertaining stuff, made all the more enjoyable by the presence of gorgeous Kimberly Beck as Andrew's curvaceous babe of a girlfriend Theresa (who provides not one, but two nude scenes!); sadly, once David slips into revenge mode, matters get just a little too unbelievable, writer director Rene Daalder seeming more concerned with conveying his political message rather than telling a viable story: the accidental but suspicious deaths attract no interest from the police; the scenes involving the previously bullied pupils becoming the school's new bullies are clumsily handled and rather laughable; and the further blatant murders appear to alarm no-one in the slightest (they even go ahead and hold the school prom, despite several unexplained explosions!).

This is a one-of-a-kinder - a so-called "slasher" with some rather frightening implications. Actually, it's not a slasher at all. Four or five people die some gory deaths and there are threats everywhere but it isn't truly violent in fact. It is a film that deals with adolescence, being one of the gang and mob rule and turns these concepts inside out.Although Daalder didn't care for the music score, it underlines the irony and sappiness of the period perfectly. In fact, it provides a certain claustrophobia which works quite brilliantly. This film is a sleeper.Curtis Stotlar

I've been waiting to see this for a number of years and finally found a video copy of it.It was awesome but a little strange.First of all not once are we introduced to any authority figures that a school(which is where all of it takes place) would have.No teachers,no principles,not even a school nurse!What the hell?Robert Caradine plays the hippie(who gets criticized for drawing swastikas,we are supposed to be on his side?).There is a fake James spader guy among the preppies who are in charge of the school.The dude from the Fury and 10 to midnight is old pals with the guy who resembles the killer in 10 to midnight(but it is not him). I was happy to see Rainbeau Smith from "Revenge of the cheerleaders" and thought it was strange when both her and her gruff voiced friend get raped and when she goes outside after being rescued she totally forgets to button her shirt back up!Later on they are both crushed by a boulder(along wit Carradine). Once the hero/psycho of the film gets his leg broken he goes insane and gets even with the sweater helmet haircutted preps of the high school(who would all later end up on Happy Days or Eight is Enough).He is also driven to kill by his good friend's(the Fury guy) girlfriend who he hates but likes at the same time(I was throughly confused by this).Another thing that is a concept only in this film when jocks go away nerds go into attack mode and try to destroy each other! In many senseless ways the locker bombing(1) the car blows up(a couple of times) and the weirdest the librarians hearing aid kills him and blood pours out of his ears.If you want to see hilarious murders and senseless violence done in a 70's schmaltzy way then check out this one.

This movie might have been somewhat decent, if it hadn't been for the terrible filming, lighting and sound recording. Half the time you couldn't recognise the characters or understand their conversations. You had to guess who they were and what they were saying (which, I have to admit, was pretty fun!).I also noticed that all the actors were at least in their thirties while their characters were high school kids. They kept on talking about "old friends" (how old could they be, if they were not older than 18???) and their time in jail!! This seems pretty impossible for someone attending grade 12. The story itself was not even too bad, but all the efforts were in vain due to the amateurish way in which the film was shot.