HoopTober 8: Mosquito Takes Mandragon

Movie 14
3rd of 8 films from 1981

I've heard it said that once your genre starts getting parodied, that's the death of it. And given the slew of self-conscious and semi-parodical slasher films that hit us in the late 80's, that makes a kind of sense. But Student Bodies is an overt parody of the conventions and tropes of slasher films, and it was released in 1981 - the year in which slasher output reached its absolute pinnacle. It's actually quite amazing that someone would latch onto the foibles of a genre so quickly, and that makes me want to laud this film. Unfortunately, it's really not very funny.

I mean, it's not through lack of trying. This film tries to be to slashers what Airplane was to airline disaster films - the gags come thick and fast with no concession to any kind of storytelling integrity. That's fine in concept, but time has shown us how devilishly hard that is to pull off. These film makers weren't quite up to the task.

It has its moments. The first time a student leaves a window unlocked and a caption appears, pointing at it and saying "UNLOCKED", I laughed. Unfortunately, the film then repeats that joke about five times, and it becomes tiresome. There are definitely some moments worthy of laughing in this film, but given the sheer quantity of jokes, that was bound to happen. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. And even the biggest dickhead at the pub will make you laugh if he talks for long enough.

That's what this movie is, really. Of all the slashers we know, Student Bodies is that loud, overly self-conscious one who never shuts up and is constantly irritating, even though it makes us laugh from time to time. I admire its gumption, but the execution is less than stellar, I'm afraid.

Final thought - Kristen Riter is incredibly cute and I'm sad she never appeared in another movie - she's actually pretty damn good in this, and conspicuously more talented than the rest of the cast.