1982 Co-Eds in Horror
by Kristin Battestella
This oddly specific trio of 1982 films ups the fatal scares for the feather haired and short shorts wearing co-eds of the day. Familiar faces confront chainsaw killers and morgue mishaps in these diverting vintage horror escapades.
One Dark Night – Unlike today's perfect gradients, the grainy blue night adds eerie atmosphere to this 1982 Meg Tilly (Psycho II) and Adam West (Batman) hazing horror romp with psychic undead, coffins, and creepy crypts. Despite thunder, gothic gates, funerals, and tombstones; this is very slow in getting to the actual mean girls spending the night in the mausoleum initiation thanks to bizarre opening murders, coroner vans, and crime scene carnage largely told rather than seen. Police radio chatter, onlooking crowds, and news reports waste time repeating the electromagnetic phenomenon. Back and forth cutting to the teen babes in matching bad girl jackets and photo booth fun at the arcade are also unnecessary. All of the estranged family occult, life force photographs, energy vampires, and telekinesis theories should have been shown in the beginning, and we shouldn't meet the teenagers until the drive to the cemetery. Their frienemy peer pressure doesn't need jealousy over the jock – even if that meant losing the vintage mustang and sweaty basketball scenes with short shorts and tiny towels. Dares at the door, berating threats, and Demerol ruses provide cruelty amid classism toward the poor wannabes and racism toward the stereotypical scaredy cat, toothbrush chewing Black girl who's told she's a “real” sister. Crypt plaques, flowers, sympathy cards, pews, and candles set the morose scene for the fake frights as the cracked vaults and dark windows invoke the overnight spooky. The psychic evil feeds off the delirium, vicious tricks, and growing fears inside the mausoleum maze, and it's unfortunate that the trapped suspense is continually broken by unnecessary outside scenes – delaying most of the scares until the final twenty minutes. However, the levitating caskets, reanimated rotting, and gooey bodies are superb when they do happen. Chapel prayers and individual frights escalate with crumbling crypts, rattling objects, and metaphysical winds as the mean girls get what they deserve. It's bemusing that the biggest names here have the least to do, and behind the scenes problems resulted in different video versions. Fortunately, the fun house horror finale does a lot without much gore thanks to skeletons, zombies, worms, and purple glows making for some entertaining late night ooze.
Pieces – Christopher and Lynda Day George strike again in this Boston set, Spanish produced 1982 campus slasher. The 1942 quaint quickly turns to saucy violence, rage, and surprising splatter as our ten year old boy is not going to take it anymore. Forty years later, the creative power tools and collecting body parts resume thanks to bloody mementos of his mother and a fondness for nudie jigsaw puzzles. The murderous psychosis and disturbing social commentary beget groovy skateboarding and perky retro sweaters but the giggling, skinny-dipping babes don't last long thanks to chainsaws, creepy gardeners, and dripping bags in the freezer. This video nasty isn't shy in showing the head chopping gore, and we move from one crime to the next with swanky saxophone music, raunchy couples, and scene-chewing police trying to keep the killer publicity quiet. Deaths mount in the titular assembly of the perfect woman while Fame-esque dance classes, techno music, and leg warmers add nostalgia. Undercover tennis coach Lynda is on the case – contending with pesky newspaper reporters and “Bastards!” before more dancing leads to layered maze-like chases and thunder heralds the fatal anticipation. Despite nighttime lighting and dark killer silhouettes, we can see the equal opportunity nudity and everything in the limb losing elevator. Ironic marching band music, locker room showers, knives, and waterbeds make varied use of every campus opportunity. That curious lady reporter shouldn't sneak around alone, and cops vomit at the consequences. Sure, some of the acting is over the top. However girls are being sawed in half and the authorities are one step behind what the audience knows. The self-aware slasher pastiche does what it says on the tin and comes together for a bemusing finish.
