VOTING CLOSED – WINNER: PSYCHO BEACH PARTY
But since the final tally was only one vote apart, I’m going to review BOTH of them!
Thanks to everyone who voted!
Formulaic plots encourage parodies; there being nothing more formulaic than a body count horror film, it’s no surprise that there have been comic riffs on the genre almost since the moment it broke out. This week, I’ve gone the route of favoring a wide chronological range, ranging from a movie that came out when the “slasher film”, as a concept, had barely made itself known, to a film from the bedraggled end of the golden age of slashers, to a film that came out after the rise of the self-mocking horror film, when parodies would seem to be almost redundant. Let us go now, and enjoy seeing the mockery done on our behalf, rather than having to do it ourselves!
Psycho Beach Party (2000)
From IMDb: “Spoof of 1960’s Beach Party/Gidget surfing movies mixed with slasher horror films stars Lauren Ambrose as Florence Forrest, a not-so-innocent girl in 1960’s Malibu…”
Return to Horror High (1987)
From IMDb: “A few years ago, a mysterious serial-killer caused panic on [sic] Crippen High School. The killer was never caught.”
Student Bodies (1981)
From IMDb: “A killer named the Breather tallies up a score of teenage bodies in this scathing parody of slasher films.”