April Fool's Day

*Blood* *Violent* *Strong Language* *Sexual Situations* *No Nudity*

*Gory*

1986/Color/90 Min./Paramount Home Video & Paramount Pictures & Hometown Films/Rated R

Director...........Fred Walton (Rosary Murders, When a Stranger Calls, II) Screenplay.....Danilo Bach

Music..............Charles Bernstein

Producer.........Frank Mancuso, Jr.

Executive Producer.....

Special Effects Coordinated by Martin Becker

Dramatis Personae

Harvey..........Jay Baker

Buffy/Muffy...Deborah Foreman (My Chauffeur, Valley Girl, Waxwork)

Nicki............Deborah Goodrich (Remote Control, Survival Game)

Rob.............Ken Olandt (Leprechaun, Super Force, Supercarrier)

Skip............Griffin O'Neal (The Escape Artist, Hadley's Rebellion)

Nan.............Leah King Pinsent

Chaz...........Clayton Rohner (Destroyer, Modern Girls, Nightwish)    

Kit...............Amy Steel (Friday the 13th, II, Walk Like a Man)

Arch............Thomas F. Wilson (Back to the Future, II, III)

Critique: Someone on Muffy's Island has a little problem and this film does a nice job of hiding who it is while planting plenty of psychological theories to keep the viewers guessing, all while maintaining a nice pace. The film plays on a number of hackneyed horror film vehicles in a fresh way. The result is that the viewer is constantly buffetted off balance as pet theories are exploded. This slick, seemless horror story is well directed and scary too and you'll never guess in a million years what's going on!

Plot Summary: Mary O'Reilly O'Toole O'Shay takes her friends over to Muffy St. John's Summer island home. They may as well have crossed the river Styxx for their chances of again dwelling among the living. Through a montage clips we see that Muffy has invited a rather diverse group to her party, the combination of real state college people and disgusting old money brats is a formula for tension. The party gets off to a lousy start when the first mate of the ferry is mutilated when crushed between the boat and the dock. Somehow the sophomoric fun gets back underway despite the specter of the hideously injured first mate. Dribble cups and whoopee cushions, even an El Explodo; some fun! While bedtime preparations are being made the junior achievement guy discovers a newspaper clipping documenting several local disasters taking the lives of a gaggle of local teenagers. When Skip goes out into the night to forage for wild cannabis he is accosted first by a flying cat and then by the killer. The party starts to fizzle when a pair making love on the dock see the very blue corpse of Skip drift beneath them. Time to call Constable Potter, who has an office in his home. Unfortunately the phone is dead. The water main is broken too and Muff has obviously lost her mind, her clothing has gone from long island princess to Bette Davis in clodhoppers and she's looking every bit the heroine addict. In an attempt to procure water, Nicki descends into the well to discover a bubbling chambre des morts. Finally Constable Potter calls. "Constable Potter listen man you gotta help us! Arch and Skip and Nan.." Skip has sunk and Arch is hanging around somewhere else and so on and so forth and so on the hypoxemics are turning up everywhere. The Constable advises them to stay together and particularly not to be alone with Muffy.