Graduation Day (1981)

Graduation Day

1981 | 96 minutes | 5.2 ★ (99)

Horror

Overview
After the death of a high school track star during a race, a mysterious killer in a fencing mask begins murdering her friends and teachers.
Release Date
01 May 1981
DirectingHerb Freed
Budget
$0.00
Revenue
$0.00
Stars
Christopher George Patch Mackenzie E. Danny Murphy

Videos

User Reviews

Wuchak

23 June 2021

**_Schlocky 1981 high school slasher, but entertaining_** After a high school girl falls dead from a blood clot during a 200-meter race, members of the track team are slain one-by-one. Patch Mackenzie plays the dead student’s sister, returning from the military, while Christopher George plays the harsh coach. E. Danny Murphy is on hand as the girl’s grieving boyfriend. “Graduation Day” (1981) is a cheap slasher that only cost $250,000. The high school setting is great for the genre, but “Prom Night” (1980) beat it to the theaters by 9.5 months whereas the parody “Student Bodies” (1981) debuted a few months after “Graduation Day.” Although not technically slashers, high school horror flicks “Carrie” (1976) and “Christine” (1983) are cut from the same cloth in spirit. The difference is that those films had considerable budgets while “Graduation Day” is decidedly low-rent; and it shows. Another issue is that the creators couldn't make up their minds if this was going to be a serious slasher or a campy parody. So they walked the balance beam between the two and it's an off-kilter vibe. But I got used to it and enjoyed the movie for what it is, a schlocky early 80's high school slasher. There are a several highlights on the female front, including Linnea Quigley (Dolores), Karen Abbott (Joanne) and Denise Cheshire (gymnast Sally). Even Vanna White shows up (Doris). The movie is overlong at 1 hour, 37 minutes, which is a tad too long to sustain a cut-rate fun slasher. Likewise, seven and a half minutes was probably a little too lengthy for the live performance of the song "Gangster Rock" by Felony, but it is a driving hard rock ditty and the sequence perks up the film. Besides, the movie kept switching between the live song/roller skating to the slayings in the nearby woods. Thus it’s assumed that the song either ran more around 5 minutes or the band simply did a longer rendition for the live setting, possibly because it was their local hit. Unfortunately, the lead singer, Jeffrey Scott Spry, committed suicide in March, 1992. Remember this: Once you’re dead, you’re dead for a looong time. The film was shot at La Cañada High School, La Cañada Flintridge, California, and nearby Pasadena (houses). GRADE: C+

Wuchak

23 June 2021

_**Fun low-rent slasher schlock from the early-80s**_ GRADE: C+

More Like This

Night of the Axe

A group of young adults, trying to enjoy a high school reunion party, are terrorized by an escaped mental patient obsessed with satisfying his...

That Halloween

On October 31, 1955 June & Frank Marsters met their grisly end when an escaped killer known as the Willow Woods Wolfman broke into their house. In...

The Fox Creek Carver

It has been thirty years since the last Fox Creek Carver murder. Assuming the killer's dead, four local college students go to the woods to conduct...

It's Just a Game

Brianna (Hannah Cohen-Lawlor) is a shy, bashful teen who is constantly getting humiliated by the other girls in her social circle. Her...

Ruin Me

Six strangers sign up for a slasher movie re-enactment, in which they are dropped into the woods and pursued by knife wielding assassins. But when...

Halloween

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween Night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of...

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Teenagers in a small town are dropping like flies, apparently in the grip of mass hysteria causing their suicides. A cop's daughter, Nancy Thompson...

The Faculty

When a high school newspaper photographer witnesses the murder of a nurse and sees her alive again, he decides to investigate the bizarre happenings.

Curse of the Slasher Nurse

A group of friends head out to a friend's cabin in the woods for a weekend of drinking and partying. In a secluded paradise, the friends start to...

Big Monster on Campus

A student receives a serial killer's brain in a transplant after being thrown into a pool with no water in it.

Mis XV

Karen is the shiest girl in the class, but something is about to happen. She's making a sweet sixteen house party. Three of her classmates are...

Trespassing

Centered around a young photographer who quickly finds herself eluding a trio of masked killers while trying to navigate an abandoned property with...

Perpetrator

Jonny Baptiste is a reckless teen sent to live with her estranged Aunt Hildie. On the event of her eighteenth birthday, she experiences a radical...

Brute 1976

In 1976, Raquel and her girlfriend have car trouble and break down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. At the same time, a group of...

The Killer in the House

Riley and her friends head to a remote cabin in the woods to study for finals. But they soon find their own lives will be put to the test by a...

I Know What You Did Last Summer

After an accident on a winding road, four teens make the fatal mistake of dumping their victim's body into the sea. Exactly one year later, the...

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

Ever since killing the Fisherman one year ago, Julie James is still haunted by images of him after her. When her best friend Karla wins free...

Scream 4

Ten years have passed, and Sidney Prescott has put herself back together thanks to her writing. However, her return to Woodsboro sparks the return...

iPsycho

Cat Vicious is a rising shock jock podcast DJ, with a nihilistic on air personality, who spends most of her show mocking and belittling her...

Jeepers Creepers 2

When their bus is crippled on the side of a deserted road, a team of high school athletes discover an opponent they cannot defeat – and may not...

Cast

Crew