Reaction & Review | Graduation Day

Welcome, one and all, to "Full Moon vs. Troma" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be checking out a slasher film from 1981. That movie is "Graduation Day".

Now, much like with a lot of movies I've covered in this marathon so far, I don't really know a whole lot about this movie. I found it at one of my local video stores, and I bought it, mostly because it had Troma's name on it. But it also advertised a couple of the cast members on the front cover for the DVD. I'll talk about those cast members in a bit, but first, I should probably tell you what little I do know about the film itself. From what I read on the back of the DVD case, the plot is about a high school track team being killed off by somebody, and it could be someone related to this track team. So basically, it sounds like a murder mystery combined with a standard slasher film. Which, admittedly, isn't entirely new or different. But it could still prove to be interesting.

Now, I should probably mention those cast members I brought up a moment ago. One of them goes by the name of Linnea Quigley. Who, at the the time that I bought this movie, I had no idea who she was, other than being advertised as a "Scream Queen B-Movie Legend" on the front of the DVD case. But then I happened to remember that she was one of the stars in another movie that I covered for this marathon a few weeks ago, which turned out to be "Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama". And that movie kinda sucked. At least, to me, it did. Mind you, she was one of the only few cast members who even tried in that movie, but that isn't saying a whole hell of a lot, because even she still kinda sucked in that thing. However, I am not gonna let one questionable performance get in the way here, because she could still be pretty good in this movie. Granted, I don't know what her role is at this time. But I will find out eventually once I start watching the movie.

Now the other cast member I wanted to bring up is somebody that you may remember if you're someone who watches game shows. That cast member's name is Vanna White. And if that name does sound familiar to you, she is the one who turns the letters on "Wheel of Fortune". A show that I use to watch a LOT as a kid, and that show holds a lot of memories for me. And she's been doing that job for over 4 decades. Which is insane, mind you, and she's still doing it to this day, at least at the time that I'm writing this Reaction & Review. Now some of you might be thinking why in the hell would you cast somebody who's barely acted, and that her only real experience is turning letters on a game show? Well, that's not really fair, because she's had some acting credits in a few movies and TV shows. Aside from showcasing prizes on "Wheel of Fortune", she had a cameo appearance in that kinda shitty "Double Dragon" movie, and she was also a guest star on an episode of "Married...With Children". And that last one, I'm gonna tell you, she was fantastic in that episode. And if you have never seen it, go find that episode somewhere and give it a watch. Like I said, she was great there, and it gives me enough confidence that she'll hopefully pull off something decent here in this movie.

But then again, I don't know really know if this movie is going to be any good at all. I'm hoping for it to be good, but I could also imagine this movie sucking on a whole host of levels. I'm hoping that's not the case, but it could still happen. So the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is going to be any good at all, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Graduation Day".

4 minutes later

You know, guys, that would win probably would've been more convincing if the editing during that scene wasn't noticeably shit. I'm going to assume that was meant to be intentional. Still wasn't really that funny. I'm gonna give this thing a chance, though, in hopes that it will get better.

20 minutes later

All right, guys, I'm kinda curious about something. Is this movie gonna get interesting at some point? We are almost a half an hour into the film, and, aside from one kill, nothing of interest has happened. I'm genuinely hoping it's gonna get more interesting as the movie continues. But as of right now, I'm starting to have my doubts.

20 minutes later

So, a couple of these students were pranking this music teacher with a tape recorder that they played down near the pipes. And as soon he finds it, the two ran off and closed the door behind them. Possibly locking him in there, too, but I have no idea if that's the case or not since he never bothered to go after them like a sensible teacher would. Guys, I normally wouldn't be asking for too much from a movie, but I would, at least, like SOME kind of explanation as to what's been going on. And so far, this movie's not really giving me much of one. It's just leaving me more lost and confused.

9 minutes later

OK, you know what? That was actually sort of a creative kill. Just attach a football to the back of a blade and then throw it at the football player's stomach, impaling him in the process. It's not a great kill, mind you, but still, it is sort of creative. So, at least, there is that.

2 minutes later

I just saw a drawn picture of Prince John from Disney's "Robin Hood" on one of the walls of this room sucking his thumb. I have no idea why that's there. I will say, though, that it definitely caught me by surprise.

2 minutes later

Holy shit, this guy's singing REALLY sucks. I know you guys can't hear this for obvious reasons, but this rock song that's playing right now fucking sucks. And that mostly attributes to this god-awful singing that this guy is giving out. It is just PAINFUL to listen to.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Graduation Day". And thank Christ, this fucking movie is over. Let me go ahead and shut this thing off...OK. Dear god, where do I even start? Well, before I actually talk about the movie itself, I have to address a minor thing first. I didn't think I'd have to do this twice in one marathon, but I have to in this case. You guys remembered when I bitched about "Panther Squad" having a false runtime? Well, "Graduation Day" follows suit. Because this movie is not 90 minutes long, despite the fact that the back of the DVD case states it as approximately 90 minutes long. The real runtime, according to what I looked up, is 97 minutes long. There's about 5 minutes of extra footage, followed by about 2 minutes worth of credits. I know it may sound trivial to some people for when I complain about a movie's runtime, but I hate being lied to, especially when a movie such as this states that it's about 90 minutes long, when it's actually off by about a fraction of it's official runtime! So, to anybody who wants to put their movies out on DVD and Blu-ray, please more honest about your movie's runtime, otherwise, you get movies like this where it's not even close to what it's suppose to be advertising as their official runtimes.

Now...fucking hell, I haven't even talked about the movie itself yet, and I already have stuff to complain about. Holy shit...OK. Let's move past that bullshit, and actually delve into the movie itself. Let's start with the writing. So, I mentioned earlier about this movie playing itself off as a murder mystery, while also being a slasher film at the same time. I will that, at the very least, it does live up to being a slasher film, as we get a ton of kills in this movie. And all of it centers around this track team. Because at the very start of the movie, one of the track team members named Laura ends up winning a race. But shortly after she wins, she ends up collapsing on the ground, and she ends up dead due to a blood clot in her artery. And then it leads into everyone involved in the track team later being killed off, because of reasons that I won't try to spoil...though I may end up doing so later on. I'll get more into that in a bit. But anyway, this leads into two months later, where our main character, Anne, is coming back home from Guam, because she is a member of the U.S. military. And she's back home to attend graduation day, but mostly because she's trying to find out the circumstances of her sister's death and who might've been responsible for it. Which we barely get any information about up until around the 50 minute mark of the movie, mostly because of this film's terrible pacing.

In fact, let's actually get into that problem, shall we? This movie's pacing is just shit. To start with, most of, if not all of the kills in this movie are just spaced out. Where within the first, I'd say, 10 minutes or so, we get our first kill from our killer. And then we have about 25 minutes worth of padding, because nothing of interest happens within that time frame until the next victim, and then the football player, and so on so forth. Now when these kills do happen, they are sorta cool. But it's just that getting to these kills is sort of a chore to get to because of all this unnecessary padding. The worst case in this has to go this one scene involving a music teacher. So, he's playing music to several of these female students, two of which are being played by Linnea Quigley and Vanna White. The one played by Linnea Quigley, I guess, has a thing for the music teacher because she starts removing her shirt and begins to kiss the music teacher. And then the scene just...ends. He tries to get her to stop this, because someone could come in and catch them in the act, but she ends up locking the door before she continues advancing on the music teacher. I don't know what this scene was suppose to serve, other than the fact that Linnea Quigley has tits, I guess. I don't know, but it was fucking pointless. But that's not who I want to complain about, I want to complain about the music teacher. So after all that happens, we come back a little later involving him where he's just playing the piano. And then he hears a noise. First time he hears it, he does nothing. Second time, still nothing. And by the third time, he gets up to go check out where the noise was coming from. Which then leads him into a dark room involving pipes. He tries to find out who's making these noises, which then leads into some people talking. In reality, it was just a tape recorder playing. Now, I already mentioned this scene earlier on, but like I said, after he discovers the tape recorder, two of the students. run off and shut the door behind them, leaving him there, thus ending the scene. So...what exact purpose did that entire scene serve? The answer is fucking nothing! It NEVER gets brought up again, and it only exists in order to pad the movie out, which is fucking disgraceful in and of itself.

Now, let's get into the other problem with this movie's writing by talking about the killer in the room. Guys, I have a bit of a pro-tip for anyone who wants to write a mystery story involving a killer. You see, it's perfectly fine to have red herrings. Because that's a basic common trope with mystery stories involving killers. But DON'T make your red herrings too fucking obvious. Otherwise, you get movies like this where they're basically coming out and saying that THIS person is suppose to be the killer, when they're actually really not. So, like I said earlier, I may end up spoiling who the killer is here. And if I end up doing so, then I'm sorry. But since this movie is not trying to be clever with it's writing, I'll probably have to end up spoiling it anyways. So, this movie is basically coming out and saying that coach Michaels is the one who is responsible for Laura's death. And when Anne confronts him about what happened to her sister, he tells her that he had no reason to kill her because she was one of his top track team members. He also implied earlier that he loved her, which doesn't really go anywhere. But then Anne points out that he pushed her like a machine, to which was the reason why Laura died of a blood clot because coach Michaels supposedly pushed her too far into becoming the best. Which then gets Anne the idea that she knows who killed her sister. And like I said earlier, this movie does a really poor job in making you believe that it's coach Michaels who is responsible for Laura's death, and the recent killings of the track team members, but it obviously wasn't him. Now I knew in the back of my mind who the killer already was, but I was still interested to see how the movie was going to play itself out. But then I remembered reading the back of the DVD case for this movie, and it basically comes out and describes 4 possibilities as to who's been doing the killing. It's either Anne, which makes no sense since she just came home as soon as the killings started to happen. Coach Michaels, who I already talked about in great detail. Some campus policeman, who's seen as a bit shady, but is also barely in the fucking movie. Or it might be Kevin, who is the boyfriend of the deceased Laura, and is also one of the track team members. And judging by my descriptions, if you don't figure it out who it is by the time the movie reveals the killer's identity, then I'm sorry, but you're about as stupid as this movie is. Because this movie is just so bad at trying to pass itself off as a mystery. Which may or may not have been this movie's intent, but it just does such a half-assed job of presenting it's killer.

Guys, there's no way for me to come around without saying that the writing in this movie is fucking terrible. There are no characters worth caring about, the story here is just poorly, poorly done. And the pacing here is also kind of a deal breaker as well. I honestly can't think of any positives when it comes to the writing, because it's just that bad. Now as for the acting, well...I can't say it's horrible, but it's not great either. I will say that Linnea Quigley, when compared to her role in "Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama", actually does turn in a better performance here. Her acting is nowhere near as wooden as she was in that movie, so I can at least give her some marks here. Vanna White is BARELY in the fucking movie, so I can't really gauge an opinion as to whether or not she was any good. Now, there is one other member of the cast that I do need to make mention of. And in order for me to explain this, there's an introduction video at the start of the movie presented by Lloyd Kaufman. And he talks about the most of the noteworthy cast members that are in the movie. One of them he mentions is an actor by the name of Christopher George, who plays coach Michaels in this movie. Kaufman also mentions that you may remember Christopher George from his performance in "El Dorado" starring John Wayne. And when he mentioned that movie, I had to look it up, because I wasn't sure about what role he played. Well, it turns out that he played Nelse McLeod, one of the antagonists from that movie. And my mind just blew up, because "El Dorado" is one of my favorite Westerns of all time. And I didn't even know about his name up until Lloyd Kaufman mentioned "El Dorado". So...yeah, that was something of a revelation. But anyway, as for Christopher George's performance in "Graduation Day", it's fine. I really couldn't find any faults with his acting. I will say, though, that from between the 14 years from "El Dorado" and into this movie, he apparently gained quite a bit of weight. Which, I don't know if he was required to gain weight for this movie, or if that's just how he naturally looked like when aging. I don't know, but the point is, he turned in the best showing in this entire movie. Everyone else ranges from being kinda hammy, to being sorta wooden. It's not the worst acting I've heard, but it's nowhere near the best. So the acting here is barely above average here.

Special effects here involving blood and everything looks decent, especially coming from a low budget movie. Now obviously, none of it is great, but considering that this movie had a budget of around $250,000, we're not really aiming for the stars here. And also, you have to consider that this movie came out in 1981, so $250,000 was probably a pretty big budget for it's time, unlike nowadays. But anyway, blood effects in this movie are decent. The makeup effects involving certain dead bodies are OK, but they're nothing to write home about. So overall, the special effects here are kinda decent at best.

Camerawork here is OK, save for a bit of shoddy editing that happened at the beginning of the movie involving Laura's win. So, I mentioned earlier that the editing during that bit was shit. And that's mostly because they just reused the same footage of Laura coming towards the finish line, but not crossing it. And not only did it make that scene look kinda like shit, but it also contributed to the unnecessary padding that this movie already has. Lighting here is decent, but it could've been fine-tuned in some areas involving darkly-lit rooms. So, it is something that you have to take for what it's worth. The sound-mix here is mixed fine. The music here is really good, save for one song. And, oh my god, this song is just shit. Not only was this song shit, but it ALSO was responsible for padding the movie out. So, during this part of the movie where this song plays, we get treated to Linnea Quigley being one of the next victims for our killer. And from before that happens, we get this song that plays during a dance party, and this song SUCKS major balls. Mostly because the people singing it don't know how to fucking sing. Not only that, but it goes on for FAR too long, because, like I said, it plays during the dance party, and it also transitions to Linnea Quigley's character, who is being stalked and later killed by the killer. It lasts for about 6-7 minutes long, and it is fucking grating as shit, because of how bad that song really is! And even before that, we actually had a rather decent soundtrack for this movie. But that one song almost overshadows all of the other songs in this movie because of how ungodly bad it was. And that it lasted way, WAY too fucking long. So yeah, overall, the music here is pretty good, save for that one shitty, fucking song.

So anyway, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Graduation Day"? No, I can't. Because this film is just so poorly written, and the way that it handles who our killer is is just so fucking obnoxiously bad that it almost hurts to watch. I honestly can't recommend this film to anyone who is a fan of Troma's films, because this one almost has no charm to it. The only thing that is sorta charming is getting to see the guy who played Nelse McLeod to be in a Troma flick. But that's more of a personal bias than anything else. And even then, it's not enough to make me want to rewatch this movie again just for him alone. This movie is just terrible based solely on it's fucking writing. Now admittedly, it's nowhere near as bad as something such as "Vegas in Space", which is the worst Troma film that I've ever seen. But that's not saying very much, considering that "Vegas in Space" was the only other bad Troma film that I had seen at the time. And it looks like I can add "Graduation Day" to that list of bad Troma films that I've seen so far. Again, not the worst Troma film, but it's also really fucking bad, too. So, I guess you win some and lose some in this scenario. And unfortunately, that is the case with "Graduation Day". Now...I gotta find something better to watch. And seeing as how Christopher George was in this movie, and that he was in "El Dorado", I'm gonna go and watch "El Dorado" right now. Because that movie, to me, is a classic Western that I never get tired of watching. So, I'm gonna go and do that next. And as for this movie, well, it can go graduate itself into being traded off, because I have no desire to ever watch it again.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.