Graduation Day

Plot synopsis:
During a high school track meet, Laura (Ruth Ann Llorens), a female runner, is pushed by the crowd and her demanding coach (who keeps screaming "move it, move it, move it!"). Apparently the pressure is too much for Laura who collapses right after crossing the finish line and breaking a 30 second 100 meter race. Upon examination by the coach and her teammates, Laura is dead.Some days later, Anne Ramstead (Patch Mackenzie), returning to town on leave from the U.S. Navy, is getting a ride into town from a sleazy truck driver. She asks to be dropped off when she sees a girl running by. The girl, Paula, runs into a wooded area with her earphones on. Someone is following her, and a pair of black leather gloves starts a stopwatch. The unseen person catches up to Paula and slits her throat.At the Midvale High School, the track team is waiting for Paula to show up so they can have their class photograph taken. Coach George Michaels (Christopher George) decides to have the picture taken without the student. Meanwhile, an unseen person places a photo of the track team and after circling Laura's face, crosses out Paula's face.Meanwhile, Anne arrives home to visit her mother (Beverly Dixon) and her crabby stepfather, Ronald (Hal Bokar). Anne and her mother discuss the death of their sister/daughter (who happens to be Laura). When her mother asks how long will she be visiting, Anne replies that she will be leaving after graduation day. Anne goes upstairs to her room to unpack her things, including a gray sweatshirt and a pair of black leather gloves.Later, another track member, named Sally (Denise Cheshire), is walking through the wooded area and she has an encounter with Anne, who is looking for the auditorium. Anne reacts strangely towards Sally who points out the direction to the auditorium. Later in the auditorium, Sally arrives where she sees Anne already there watching the students having a graduation rehearsal, with Anne as a special guest. Sally points out to her friends about her encounter with Anne earlier and states: "Boy, that girl is weird!"Afterwards, Anne goes to visit Laura's boyfriend, Kevin (E. Danny Murphy), at his house. Anne sees how odd Kevin is, claiming that his parents are away and his grandmother, who spends all the time in a chair in the living room watching TV, is stone deaf. Kevin shows Anne a photo album of Laura, and Anne gives Kevin one of Laura's track medals which he thanks her for.Another day or so later, Sally is in the locker room when the lights are shut off. She runs into two 'mean girls', named Doris (Vanna White) and Joanne (Karen Abbott), and frightens them. Sally searches the area, but finds no one. A little later, Sally the gymnast arrives in the gym area where Coach Michaels is there with a photographer to take a few photos of her doing a routine on the gym bars, but she is not able to concentrate apparently due to memories of Laura's death. Sally tries to concentrate despite Coach's encouragement words: of "don't disappoint me", but she continually fails. Sally heads back to the locker room and after showering and shaving her legs, the killer arrives, wearing a gray sweatsuit, black leather gloves and a fencing mask. The masked killer then murders Sally by stabbing her through the mouth with a sword. The killer again has the stopwatch and stops it after 30 seconds.Later, the ill-tempered Principal Gugilone (Michael Pataki) is in his office arguing with his secretary. After the secretary walks out, he pulls out a switchblade knife from his coat pocket and uses it to slice an apple to eat. He puts the knife into his desk drawer, where there's various knifes as well as a stopwatch.Meanwhile, Dolores (Linnea Quigley) is on a park bench with her boyfriend Tony (Billy Hufsey), smoking marijuana and kissing when MacGregor (Virgil Frye) the school 'narc' shows up and says he had better not catch them with drugs again. He takes the joint away from them, and after Dolores and Tony walk away, MacGregor re-lights the joint for himself to smoke.Anne goes to the school metal shop to see Coach Michaels. The coach is angry about being blamed for Laura's death which resulted in a blood clot in her heart after finishing the race. Michaels says to Anne, "I didn't kill your sister! I loved her!" Anne leaves, still indignant towards Michaels.In the wooded area, another member of the track team, Ralph (Carl Rey) is running with his football gear, tossing a football back and forth. The two mean girls, Doris and Joanne, are there and they playfully toss the football into some trees. As Doris and Joanne run off, Ralph goes into the undergrowth to get his football where the masked killer is there, with a football affixed with a fencing blade. Ralph goes behind the trees and says to the killer "Hi. Gimme my ball". The killer abides, giving Ralph his football right in the stomach. Ralph withers on the ground for a minute before he dies as the killer again has his stopwatch and stops it at 30 seconds.That night, there is a skating party for the students. They are roller skating to the tune of Gangster Rock, played by a band of men donning black and white makeup. Tony and Dolores head away from the party into the woods for make out and when Tony goes off to answer the call of nature, he is decapitated by the fencing masked killer with a pair of garden shears. Dolores is then attacked by the killer who chases her though the woods as the band Gangster Rock continues to play, drowning out her screams. The masked killer catches up to Dolores and murders her with a sword.The next morning, parents continue to call Principal Gugilone about their missing children. The principal, believing that the kids are out "raising hell" takes it lightly. Just then, Inspector Halliday (Carmine Argenziano) arrives to talk to Gugilone about the missing kids and says that he is here to investigate.Pete, another track team member, is seen on the track field pole vaulting. While completing the run and the vault over the bar, he lands on the mat with metal spikes hidden underneath it. The killer, standing nearby with the stopwatch, again stops it at 30 seconds.Inspector Halliday goes to speak with Coach Michaels who tells him that six students from his track team have been reported missing. But the coach is angry and tells the police inspector that he has just been fired by Principal Gugilone over Laura's death and of the bad publicity the school has been getting. Inside Coach Michael's desk are a pair of black leather gloves and a stopwatch.In the locker room, Doris and Joanne find Sally's dead body stuffed in a locker. Coach Michaels is nearby and checks the body. Kevin runs into the room after running into Doris and Joanne running out of the locker room screaming. Seeing Michaels standing before Sally's body, Kevin believes that the coach is the murderer and begins a struggle. Coach Michaels subdues Kevin and runs away from the school while Kevin gives chase. Doris and Joanne run into Inspector Halliday where the two scared teen girls tell the inspector that the coach murdered Sally.Out in the wooded area, Kevin catches up to Coach Michaels where they discover the dead body of Kevin, still lying on the ground and impaled with the fencing blade. Coach pleads his innocence, but Kevin angrily raves, "You killed Laura! You all killed her!" Kevin then admits to the murders and pulls out a hunting knife and a stopwatch and claims that because Coach Michaels pushed Laura during her track training and that she died, all of Laura's teammates, as well as the coach, deserve to die. Kevin claims that he and Laura were going to be married after graduation and have a future together, but all of that changed in 30 seconds during her run down the track which led to her death. Michaels and Kevin struggle on the ground for the hunting knife and the coach manages to get the hunting knife away from Kevin. Just then, Inspector Halliday shows up and sees Michaels standing over Kevin holding the hunting knife. Assuming that the coach is responsible for all the killings, Halliday shoots and kills the coach. Kevin then tells Halliday a concocted story about the coach bragging to him about killing all of the track students and the inspector buys it.Sometime later, Annie goes over to Kevin house to visit him to see how is he holding up after his brush with Coach Michaels. When no one answers the door, she lets herself in and heads up stairs to find him. Up in Kevin's bedroom, Anne finds the decomposing corpse of her sister in a rocking chair and wearing a gold-colored graduation robe. Kevin shows up and reveals that he stole Laura's body from the grave and claims that he and Laura were to be married after the graduation ceremony and that nothing (not even Laura's death) was to prevent that. When Anne backs away in terror and refuses Kevin's request to give Laura's corpse a kiss, he becomes violent once again and screams "You're as bad as the others!" Realizing that Kevin was the killer and not Coach Michaels, Anne strikes Kevin when he attacks her and he falls out a window with Laura's body. Anne runs away as Kevin picks up Laura's corpse and takes it back inside his house.Anne runs all the way back to the school and to the deserted track field where Kevin pursues her. Using her military training of hand-to-hand combat, Anne takes on the hunting knife-wielding Kevin in which the fight leads from the track and field to under the bleachers. There, Pete's dead body is shown with him still impaled to the spikes. After getting the upper hand, Anne kicks Kevin who backs into the spikes lodged into Pete's corpse and Kevin finally dies when he falls to the ground and stops moving.After giving her statement to the police, Anne goes home that night and while sleeping in bed, sees the blooded and undead Kevin walking into her room with a hunting knife. Anne screams but stops when her mother walks in and turns on the lights. 'Kevin' is revealed only to be her drunken stepfather. Mrs. Ramstead takes her drunken husband out of the room, while Anne still lays in bed shaken clearly traumatized by her encounter with Kevin.The next morning, Anne impassively says her goodbye to her mother and leaves town on a bus to return to the US Navy with the "Graduation Day" banner still up over the town's main street.

Tags: cult, murder, violence

Review:
Of course, everyone's a suspect, including the girl's odd, but tough, older sister, Anne (Patch Mackenzie), who's home from the Marines (or army, or whatever) to accept a post-humous award for her, and the hard-ass track coach (Christopher George), who most everyone blames for the girl's death.
Still, it was nice to see an entire stage performance from the rock band Felony (I've never heard of them either.)  The direction shows some attempts at style here and there -- it doesn't always work, but it never hurts to try, I guess.HIGHLIGHT:  This is probably worth renting if only for the fact that it's probably the only time you'll ever see game show co-hostess Vanna White and B-movie scream queen Linnea Quigley sharing screen time (albeit, all too briefly) ...
GRADUATION DAY is not a "good" or original film by any stretch, but it has plenty that others of its ilk do not and is pure entertainment from start to finish!Laura, a young high school track star, accidentally dies, prompting someone to start killing off the entire team for revenge.
The black-gloved and sweatsuited killer keeps a picture of the team in a locker to X out the faces of those dead and kills characters in very silly ways (a pole vaulter jumps on spikes, a lanced football, a fencing sword through the neck...) So, who exactly is responsible?
GRADUATION DAY starts off at a high school track and field competition, where a runner named Laura Ramstead (Ruth Ann Llorens), drops dead after winning a race.
Pretty lame and awful slasher about someone killing the members of a high school track team after their star runner dies during a meet.Christopher George gives a hilariously over-the-top performance as the track team's coach.
It's a typically divine CG performance, and if you are a fan of the man/the legend, you should run right out and grab a copy.But we watch slashers for the murders (you know it's true), not the performances, and Graduation Day fails to deliver on most counts (there is one really good kill).
I'll start by saying that I am a huge fan of the slasher movies of the early 1980s; flicks such as "Friday The 13th", "Final Exam" and "The House On Sorority Row" hit the spot rather nicely."Graduation Day" was one of the first films in this category.
However, the day before graduation -- and literally minutes after the sister appears on campus -- one of the track team is brutally murdered in the college grounds.Her body is not discovered immediately, and so the usual pre-graduation celebrations are taking place.
Or is someone else hiding a terrible secret?"Graduation Day" is a wonderful movie; full of suspense, above average acting and some ingenious plot twists.
On the whole, though, these are certainly not major failings and do not impair the film overall.In summary, I would recommend "Graduation Day" to anyone fond of whodunit slashers like "Final Exam", "Scream", "I Know.." and "Prom Night".
I was willing to dismiss all the bad reviews and watched this movie anyway It's admittedly better than the 1984 turkey Fatal Games, which had a similar plot about gymnastic athlete students killed in a high school but fact is that the first real memorable and successful high school slasher flick was the one making fun of them all - Scream in 1996.The major problem with this movie is the lack of characterization.
When the killer's identity is revealed it's just a big "So?"But there were a few characters that I found enjoyable in this movie like Linnea Quigley who has a small role in this movie but has fun with it, and the main heroine Anne (Patch MacKensie) which at first was kinda boring until she performs kung fu on the killer towards the end which was brill, and the Principil and the Secretary sub plot was enjoyable too.The murders are OK but nothing specialSo, this isn't very good but is still fair if very forgettable entertainment.
It begins to look suspiciously like Anne is inflicting her military training on the hapless students, but if you've seen more than one slasher movie, you'll know that there's bound to be a twist in there somewhere I do agree that Graduation Day is probably the daftest of all the period slashers.
Why, of all the slasher films to come out of the early '80's, that Graduation Day is so well remember I will never know.
Graduation Day is a far cry from some of the better '80's slashers, but it isn't the bottom of the barrel either.After a high school track star literally runs herself to death, someone begins to kill the remaining members of the track team.
Graduation Day is the classic 1981 slasher movie directed by Herb Freed, whoever the hell that is.
"Graduation Day" centers on a southern California high school where the track team's star athlete dies during a race.
Her Navy sister arrives in town after the event, and the remaining track athletes begin getting picked off one by one leading up to the high school's graduation day.An early follower of the slasher trend that dominated the early eighties, "Graduation Day" has the distinguishing element of being anchored in a significant event in any teenager's life—their graduation—but the truth is, the film could have realistically taken place at any point in the school year, as, save for one plot point, the graduation date plays a very insignificant role in the narrative.
The finale has a couple of grotesque moments, but the showdown is ultimately anticlimactic, all things considered.Overall, "Graduation Day" is one of the more middling slashers of its era; it's certainly not the worst, but it's not among the best either.
I have seen all of these films, and out of all the popular 1981 slashers "Graduation Day" is by far the worst.What "Graduation Day" amounts to is an exercise in poor, low-budget film-making with bad acting, bad writing, pointless characters, pointless scenes, unneeded nudity, cheesy dialogue, and an experiment in editing that didn't work so well.
Why aren't these deaths famous among the genre like the deaths in more popular slasher films?"Graduation Day" tries hard to be a great and unique film, but there is just an element of logic and pacing missing that really ruins the whole experience.
Alone") and there is a bit of suspense, plus it delivers just what fans are looking for (blood, gore, nudity, sex, and nostalgia) but "Graduation Day" will not be remembered as one of the all time greatest slasher films ever made.
A dodgy musical interlude goes on FOREVER, and of course it wouldn't be a slasher film without the twist endings.Director Herb Freed seems intent on making his film as sleazy as possible given the constraints of the day; his camera lovingly lingers on his actresses (including a young Linnea Quigley) as they strip off and inevitably find themselves murdered soon afterwards.
The cover says taut suspense, heart-stopping shocks and mystery are all awaiting Graduation Day. I found none of the above in this movie and I feel that it was a waste of time to watch.One scene that did make me laugh was at the end of the movie.
"Graduation Day" is a low budget slasher,which marks an early appearance of Linnea Quigley.The killer with black gloves is murdering the members of a running team at Midvale High.The events seem to have something to do with the tragic death of a star track runner after she crossed the finish line during the big race mere weeks before.Is it her coach or perhaps her surviving sister that's doing in the team?
"Graduation Day" fails in almost every way as a successful slasher.It is devoid of tension,lacks any intentional humour and the characters are one-dimensional.In fact it's easy to understand why the movie was later distributed by Troma.However it is still far from being the worst slasher flick ever made.There are some cheesy songs and the cast is surprisingly decent.The kills in the film are pretty creative and quite gory for example a high-jumper is killed by a well-placed bed of spikes.7 out of 10..
Just to offer a minimum of originality, all the victims in "Graduation Day" are promising athletes and members of the same track of coach George Michaels (awesome name!
Dull horror films takes us through the final days of high school, and the school's track team starts disappearing one by one.The teams star runner drops dead from a blood clot, and someone starts to take revenge.The movie isn't gory enough to say it's a worthy rental.
Hard to find and little known (even though the IMDB says it made $24million) slasher flick about several track team members falling prey to a killer right around graduation.
Seems these murders are linked to the sudden death of a track star.Really low-budgeted (watch the very last scene) pic with all your usual cliches, dumber then usual characters, and poor effects still manages to be entertaining (actually one of my favorite slashers).
The "death by football" sequence must be seen to be believed, and since it's tied in with the murderer's uniquely benign garb, it unfolds as one of the more absurd killings ever portrayed in a slasher movie.Special mention has to go to Felony, who are by far the most atrocious band to ever appear in a splatter film, and are also a legitimate contender for most atrocious band ever, period.
Their song "Gangster Rock" occupies a full six minutes of the film's running time, and the two murders that take place during this epic performance lose much of their mojo because of the prominence of the tune in the foreground.Appearances by Vanna White and Linnea Quigley may be of minor interest to some viewers, although White's major scene spotlights some of the worst acting you'll ever see, and it's hard not to giggle when you hear the future Wheel Of Fortune letter-turner utter the timeless line, "you scared me so bad I wet myself." Quigley's presence is somewhat confusing since her character is played at other times in the film by another actress (apparently the other girl wasn't okay with the nude scenes her role required, so Quigley was called in to pinch strip).The film incorporates a fair amount of intentional humor into the mix, some of which is surprisingly funny.
Even the most seasoned slasher film buff probably hasn't seen a movie that features a high school security guard who hides joints in the chambers of his revolver, so Graduation Day definitely gets a point or two for originality.The splatter is fairly minimal here, and the murky camera work renders most of the carnage unfortunately vague.
Even if you guess who the maniacal fencer is before the big reveal, this last bit of sickness is an effective and chilling punctuation mark on an otherwise rote slasher outing.The film goes on about seven minutes too long, and Graduation Day would be far more effective if it concluded with the morbid gut-punch mentioned above.
The final showdown with the killer seems tacked on and cliché now, and a little ambiguity would have served the film well.However, Graduation Day is a very enjoyable offering despite itself, and the end result certainly doesn't settle anywhere near the bottom of the 80's splatter movie barrel.
But there's an murderer is killing those, who are in the track team before Graduation Day. But there's plenty of suspects...
including Laura's older sister Anne (Patch MacKenzie), Coach Michaels, Principal Guglione (Michael Pataki) and Laura's Boyfriend (E.Danny Murphy).Directed by Herb Freed made an passable slasher movie in the wake of "Friday the 13th", although the violence in the movie is lame and unimaginable.
"Graduation Day" is for the die-hard fans of slasher movies of the 1980's, although this movie is actually more of a suspense thriller.
"Graduation Day" turns out a bare bones teen slasher -- featuring a very lousy musical sequence with a very lousy band playing & also quite a bit of entertaining experimental cross-cutting -- that might still be worth it for fans of the same old slashing formula.
Graduation Day (1981) * (out of 4)A high school track coach (Christopher George) pushes all of his students but in particular one who he wants to finish a race in thirty second.
Flash forward a bit and soon all of her team mates find themselves being stalked and murdered.GRADUATION DAY was released during the Golden Era of slasher movies and was reportedly made on a budget of just $300,000.
After high school Track & Field athelete, Laura Remstead, dies of natural causes during a race (an event that is shown multiple times, in slow-motion none-the-less), an unknown killer is murdering all the people who were on that same aforementioned team close to Graduation Day (hence the name)in this laughably inept slasher flick.It brings absolutely nothing new (or even good) to the slasher table, instead opting to merely unleash the most god-awful song I've heard in quite some time with ' Gangster Rock' being played in a roller-disco party that went on far too long.Eye Candy: Denise Cheshire & Linnea Quigley get topless My Grade: D-.
The sister of the girl who died shows up, and the moment she does, the members of Laura's track and field team begin being murdered in horrific ways.
IS the killer Laura's sister Anne, the intense track and field coach, or someone else entirely?I had mixed feelings about 'Graduation Day'.
Laura's death causes her sister, Anne, to return home from the Navy as a set of grisly murders occur among a group of clowny high-schoolers.Viewers can expect the usual cast of losers to appear...almost like film producers meet in a dark alley to swap actors and actresses enabling a healthy rotation of amateurism.
Just like the movie.....I had to keep checking how much time was left and couldn't wait to "Graduate" to a better film..
Here, all it manages to do is bog down the plot and make the murder sequences feel like they can't come soon enough.In the end, if you're really into these old '80s slashers, by all means, check it out, if only to say you've seen it.
~Spoiler~I'm somewhat of a fan of the early slasher flicks, and with Christopher George attached I had hope that Graduation Day might be a decent watch.
Graduation Day. High school female track star dies of a blood clot after winning a race with the community in an uproar against Coach George Michaels(Christopher George playing him as a major butt-head who is VERY demanding of the athletes under his watch).
Her boyfriend Kevin (Murphy) is in shock from it, and soon a black gloved killer starts picking off other track team members in typical Slasher movie fashion.
Most of the time Graduation Day is displaying terrible acting, practically no script and way too many scenes involving cast members singing along to a bad songs!
With no suspense, atmosphere or timing bad examples like this movie is what quickly killed the Slasher film by the end of the decade..
Laura's older sister Anne (Patch Mackenzie) takes some leave from her job in the Navy to accept a special award dedicated to Laura during graduation day, however she might be a bit lonely during graduation as someone is going around killing off the members of the track team.
Wheel of Fortune hostess Vanna White has a very, very small role.Graduation Day is an OK slasher from the 80's, it's certainly not the best example of it's kind but it's far from the worse & I'd rather watch this than most of the modern offerings that look like they are shot on digital video camcorders.
Six months after high-school sprinter Laura dies during a race, a killer begins to murder the rest of the track team using a variety of sports equipment as weapons: that's the daft plot of early 80s slasher Graduation Day, a lacklustre addition to the genre that offers very little in the way of style, originality or decent gore.What it does deliver, however, are some stunningly awful musical interludes, a few familiar faces (including an early appearance from scream-queen Linnea Quigley), and a smattering of nudity (a prerequisite of any slasher movie!).So forget the death scenes—they're lame and rather bloodless—and instead enjoy the movie's more memorably crap elements: the rapid editing that can induce migraines and epileptic seizures; the roller disco, which is accompanied by a prolonged heavy rock song, ' Gangster Rock', as performed by the unforgettably awful Felony; an impromptu jamming session by the school's students; Christopher George hamming it up as chief red-herring Coach Michaels; and the cheesy music teacher who letches after his female students (who, for some reason, find him quite irresistible?!?!).Towards the end of the film, the action picks up a little, with the discovery of the slaughtered kids' bodies under the bleachers, and a quite twisted scene featuring Laura's corpse in her cap and gown, but it all comes way too late in the day to save this film from mediocrity..
And oh yeah, Coach Michaels (Christopher George, Gates of Hell/City of the Living Dead, Day of the Animals, Mortuary, Pieces, pretty much every movie that I watch that doesn't have Michael Pataki in it, so this is a rare crossover), who isn't allowed to coach any longer, despite the fact that it was a blood clot that really killed Laura.Hey look!
After their star cross-country runner dies after a race, the members of a track team are stalked and killed by a mysterious masked murderer seeking vengeance for the girl's death.From the beginning of this film, it was quite obvious it was not going to be very good (at least as far as true quality goes).
But, this film has the first 'death by football' scene I've ever seen.Sex/Nudity: There was a bit of nudity (I mean, Linnea Quigley is in it, after all), and some overly horny high schoolers, but nothing to excess.Cool Killer(s): If you think leather gloves, stop watches, track suits, and fencing masks are cool, this one is for you.Scares/Suspense: Not really any at all.