Synopsis
VIOLENCE-DRENCHED VARIETY
Maimed by bullies at a California high school, a new student engineers acts of revenge.
1976 Directed by René Daalder
Maimed by bullies at a California high school, a new student engineers acts of revenge.
Blackboard Massacre, Sexy Jeans, Massacre no Colégio, Les baskets se déchaînent, Masakra na Central High, Døden på college, Massaker in Klasse 13, Masacre en el colegio, Blue Jeans - Parte II, Убийство в школе, Massacro al Central College, Terror i Central High, Masacre en Central High, Les Baskets se déchaînent, 高中大屠杀
Despite what that title might make you think, this is actually one of the most unique exploitation films I've ever come across - and not a formulaic slasher. Coming out years before the slasher boom would even take hold, Rene Daalder's film actually utilizes the same gruesome level of murders but instead to examine the dynamics of fascism within an unruly high school.
David is the new student at Central High, but luckily for David he has an old friend there, Mark, who immediately tries to catch him up to speed with the school politics and bring him into his tight-knit clique. What David sees though keeps him away from this crew, as they run the school with their own…
An absolutely wonderful film. Earnestly insane. You think you know what kind of movie it is, then it turns the wheel harder into the wild, and then it takes the wheel and just flails it back and forth into an unrecognizable and uncategorized form of lunacy.
Massacre at Central High is about a morally-driven homicidal psychopath domestic terrorist who is kind of the good guy. It asks deep questions about humanity and about how the hero can become the villain, the underprivileged can become the privileged and how the haves will always bully the have-nots, even if who fills those roles is fluid. Peace is never an option. Crime, punishment and a god-like retribution will always play catchup to our sins. And it does all this within the poorly-acted flubbed lines, wildly unmotivated photography and jackhammer messaging that makes exploitation cinema so beautiful
Criterion just released this in their collection of High School Horror. Enjoy.
Fascism is a botched Triple Lindy. I've always been vaguely unimpressed by the idea that this is stealthily about authoritarianism hiding in plain sight or that it's somehow formally elevated above its exploitation roots. Since we never see any adult or law enforcement I'm not sure you can make coherent analogs to existing power structures, and so to me it's just about some asshole punks. Indeed they do get up to some gnarly mischief but they're also really just petulant jerks engaged in animal-pack games of dominance, and the women are mostly tokens. It's satisfyingly violent but not particularly thorny. Believe it or not the phony Italian spliced-hardcore version, SEXY JEANS, is uglier and sort of more on point. I dunno I don't really like HEATHERS all that much either.
criterion channel's entry into the shlock horror of the decade awards is a bloody mess of 70s styling and creative murderisation, and it's 100% pure art
Truly unhinged 70s afterschool special with “we live in a society” political undertones. Groovy.
If you fell asleep reading Orwell's Animal Farm with a TV blaring Heathers in the background, you might dream something as cynical, blackly comedic and weird as Massacre at Central High. Whether by design or by accident (when you're sitting in the dark watching the final product, how important is this distinction anyway?) a one-two combo of flat, monotone performances and atonal string music creates a layer of dreamy surrealism on top of the after-school special aesthetic. It's a strange affect that mostly works in the movie's favor. I have my doubts as to the veracity of Herzog's claim that he hypnotized the entire cast of Heart of Glass, but I would have no problem believing that the cast of…
Well, this was a welcome surprise and one of my top discoveries of the year. Definitely not what you expect going in the poster and the title are very misleading, it is very far from being a horror and I wouldn't call the events that unfold a massacre either. The Italian title is "Sexy Jeans" where they apparently add pornographic scenes yet is still a better title.
David (Derrel Maury) who is new at central high meets his friend from a previous school Mark (Andrew Stevens) where they were bullied Mark lets David know things are different now that he has got in with the bullies who run the school with fear. We see over the matter of a few…
Unclassifiable exploitation that nastily transforms an alien’s idea of an after-school special into a bloody, sexually aggressive treatise on cyclical fascism, interrogating who you perceive as the hero in these sorts of crude revenge stories anyway. There is no authority above these spoiled brats’ horny whims, as no adult is ever visible onscreen, even after several students are dispatched in gruesome, explosive fashion. Keep seeing folks compare this to HEATHERS, but I kept thinking about TOP OF THE HEAP, as this is surreal and sincerely sad and just so angry about the culture it exists in. Your big brother/bodyguard becomes an erratic agent of chaos. Everybody sells out. Nobody will really learn anything in the end. A great example of a cheap thrill assigning its own worth while still delivering the sleazy goods you pulled into the drive-in for.
Massacre at Central High is a captivating blend of mean spirited drama and violent exploitation. I always assumed this was a slasher but it really shines with how misleading it is. The first ten minutes feels like a jovial 70s sitcom before quickly switching gears into a bleak teen drama. The tonal shifts are just as jarring as they are entertaining. Characters are extra violent, the pranks are super elaborate and the deaths....oh the deaths!
Total 80s slasher deaths!!! Brutal, dramatic and graphic for the time they had me screaming of joy and excitement. So many explosions! That hang glider electrocution scene is an all timer wow! One minute it's Happy Days then BAM it's Class of 1984 BAM AGAIN it's Slaughter High.
That vicious classroom brawl holy moly!
That was a real brew-ha-ha. Were they fighting for real? Spaghetti lunch food fight whaaaaa????? These kids are nuts!
A sneaky little 70s gem that was ahead it's time.
"I think obviously somebody in this school in insane."
High school is lunacy. A carefully constructed jungle hierarchy. For most of us, the high school experience represents the most volatile age period of our lives and sometimes it reveals the worst of us, the worst in us.
An exploitation film in conception that dares not to just ask what if high school were Lord of the Flies, but states that it is and always will be... And though it inherently has the same social critique as the horrors/slashers of its time (a deceiving, bloody knife of a poster accompanying this film tricks us into believing it is one of these) - that by exacting revenge on your tormenter you become…
A horrible, godforsaken theme song (“Crossroads”) married to a largely horrible, intrusive musical score. Some of the most ham-handed and comically awkward editing and shifts of mood ever committed to celluloid. Acting as wooden and underwhelming as can be. Direction that might not make the final cut for an ABC Afterschool special. Preposterous circumstances, set-ups, and dialogue that become even more preposterous and beyond-the-pale ludicrous. Massacre at Central High has all this, plus a whole lot more.
And it’s an absolutely glorious spectacle to behold!
Want some Banshees of Inisherin style meditations on the nature of friendship mixed with your better-than-average musings on the symbiotic relationship between bullying and being bullied, not to mention that vicious cycle which violence begets?…
Death Wish + Animal Farm + Dazed & Confused + The Old Testament = This.
For real, this has way more going on in its head than a movie of this title should.