Massacre at Central High (1976)

          When the black comedy Heathers was released to considerable acclaim in 1988, some movie fans cried foul because Heathers appeared to cop its plot from Massacre at Central High, only with an ending that felt timid compared to the climax of the earlier picture. That said, Heathers boasts verbal wit and visual style that Massacre at Central High cannot match, since Massacre at Central High suffers from shortcomings including cheap production values and inconsistent acting, so in some ways the latter film improves upon its predecessor, whether the association between the movies was accidental or deliberate. In any event, watching Massacre at Central High today is a very different experience than watching it during the mid-’70s, when Massacre at Central High was originally released, or even the early ’80s, when I first encountered the film on cable. What once seemed like an outrageous revenge fantasy is now, sadly, an everyday reality—so if you or someone you love has felt the impact of a school shooting, chances are you will find Massacre at Central High sensationalistic and unpleasant.

          The movie opens with the arrival of a new student at a generic suburban high school in Southern California. David (Derrel Maury) doesn’t know anyone at his new school except Mark (Andrew Stevens), a classmate from a previous institution. Luckily for David, Mark belongs to a powerful clique of young men who rule the student body through intimidation. Yet David is an iconoclast with no stomach for bullies, so he rebuffs invitations to join the ruling class. This puts David’s old friend Mark in a tough spot, and it prompts the other bullies to make an example of the new guy. The bullies attack David in an auto garage, disengaging a hydraulic lift and dropping a car onto his leg. Once David recovers, he seeks revenge by murdering the bullies, one by one, until Mark realizes what’s happening and forces a confrontation.

          Writer-director Rene Daalder takes a highly stylized approach to the film’s storytelling, so virtually no adults are depicted onscreen; Daalder’s vision of American high school is that of a frontier where the strong make the rules and the weak resist at great peril. Some of the “kills” that Daalder stages are absurd, including an elaborate sequence revolving around hang-gliders, but the head of narrative steam that Daalder develops is potent. Furthermore, Daalder achieves that rare feat of actually changing the movie’s focus from one character to another midstream—David is introduced as the underdog hero, and then he morphs into a psychotic villain while Mark assumes the hero’s mantle. Tricky stuff.
          Make no mistake, Massacre at Central High is a low-budget B-movie, complete with a couple of leering nudie shots and a raft of underwritten supporting characters. (In an amusing bit of cinematic irony, one of the bullies’ victims is played by Robert Carradine, who later starred in 1984’s Revenge of the Nerds.) Rendering these criticisms somewhat moot is Daalder’s determination to follow his outlandish premise all the way to its logical conclusion, visiting dark places that most teen movies of the same vintage fear to tread.

Massacre at Central High: GROOVY

The Fury (1978)

          Apparently hopeful that lighting would strike twice in terms of creative inspiration and box-office returns, director Brian De Palma followed up his breakthrough movie, the 1976 supernatural shocker Carrie, with another horror flick about killer psychics. Yet while The Fury has bigger stars and glossier production values than its predecessor, it’s so far-fetched and gruesome that it lacks anything resembling the emotional gut-punch of Carrie. That’s not to say The Fury is devoid of entertainment value—it’s just that De Palma badly overreached in his attempt to blend elements of the conspiracy, horror, and supernatural genres into a sensationalistic new hybrid. Written for the screen by John Farris, who adapted his own novel, the convoluted movie pits former friends Ben (John Cassavetes) and Peter (Kirk Douglas) against each other. They’re both secret-agent types, and Ben is exploring the possible use of psychics as trained killers. One of Ben’s star pupils is Peter’s adult son, Robin (Andrew Stevens), although Ben expects even greater things from Gillian (Amy Irving), a gifted but troubled woman Robin’s age.
          You can probably guess where this goes—the young psychics fall in love even as they realize they’re being manipulated, Peter tries to rescue his son, and corpses hit the floor when the psychics get pushed too far.

          This being a De Palma picture, one is unwise to expect restraint on the part of the filmmaker, and, indeed, the movie’s finale involves a human body exploding. Moreover, despite the sophisticated contributions of cinematographer Richard H. Kline and composer John Williams, nearly every scene in The Fury ends with the cinematic equivalent of an exclamation point. Hell, the picture even features two performances (provided by Douglas and Stevens) distinguished by actors indicating intensity by flaring their nostrils. Regarding the other leads, Cassavetes sleepwalks through a paycheck gig as per the norm, and Irving elevates her scenes with the delicate sensitivity that distinguishes most of her work. None of the major performances is particularly good, per se, but each is lively in a different way, so at least De Palma achieves a certain overcaffeinated tonal consistency. Considering its assertive direction, colorful cast, and outlandish storyline, The Fury should be memorable in a comic-book sort of way, but ultimately, the picture is as anonymous as the silhouetted models featured on the poster—instead of delivering unique jolts, it’s Carrie Lite.

The Fury: FUNKY

Las Vegas Lady (1975)

Unless you’ve got a soft spot for one of the leading actors, or nostalgic affection for vintage footage of Sin City, there’s little reason to explore the low-budget heist thriller Las Vegas Lady. Ineptly written, poorly acted, and unattractively photographed, it’s a tedious mélange of clichés strung together by a vacuous storyline that the filmmakers can’t even bother to present coherently. The gist of the piece is that Lucky (Stella Stevens), a longtime resident of Las Vegas, agrees to rob the “bank” for a high-stakes card game on behalf of a mysterious benefactor. She recruits a trapeze artist (Linda Scruggs) and a waitress (Lynne Moody) for help, then struggles to hide her activities from her boyfriend (Stuart Whitman), a security guard at the casino Lucky plans to rob. As with most drive-in dreck from the Crown International assembly line, Las Vegas Lady makes very little sense. Since Lucky seems to be friendly with virtually everyone in Vegas, why can’t she make a regular living? And since her boyfriend just put a deposit on a ranch outside of town, why doesn’t she just leave Vegas with him to start a better life? More importantly, given that Lucky is not a career criminal, why was she recruited in the first place? (The only credential she ever mentions is that her breasts can distract men, which is true enough.) The picture’s wheezy plot is merely a set-up for a twist ending, but the twist is even more befuddling than what came before: Once you discover the identity of Lucky’s benefactor, you’ll wonder why he went to so much trouble. Anyway, everything in this movie is thoroughly dull and inconsequential, and the excitement level is dangerously low from the convoluted opening to the silly shoot-’em-up climax. Stevens looks great and Whitman provides a comfortingly macho presence, but their appeal isn’t nearly sufficient to justify enduring this movie. (The rest of the cast is forgettable, though Stevens’ son, future B-movie hunk Andrew Stevens, appears briefly.) In the vernacular of its location, Las Vegas Lady rolls a snake-eyes.

Las Vegas Lady: LAME