Rich Muffy (Deborah Foreman) invites her college-aged friends to her island estate for a weekend of pranks. But when people start dying, it isn’t clear what is an April Fool’s joke and what is real murder.
April Fool’s Day is the result of a major studio meddling in the Slashers sub-genre. It was hardly the first time a major studio backed a psycho with a blade flick, but normally, the executives leave it to the edgy incompetents and only poke their heads in when it’s time to pick up the cash. Not so here.
Most Slashers are made with the artistic eye of a drunk weasel and with that skill of an obsessed chimp, possibly obsessed with that weasel. The scripts are scrawled by myopic twelve-year-olds in the attempt to impress fourteen-year-old boys who haven’t had a date…ever, and then handed over to those chimps who choose their shooting technique based on having only partly opposable thumbs and trouble walking upright. When you have absolutely nothing going for you, even this collection of misfits knows that exploitation is the way to go. So, there’s plenty of blood, twisted on-screen murders, and several busty co-eds who suddenly feel the need for a shower.
To anyone with even a passing acquaintance with film, Slashers are an embarrassment, and no studio exec wants to be embarrassed. So, with a waive of the studio resources magic wand, April Fool’s Day is transformed into what passes for a respectable film. It has actual production values. The picture isn’t grainy. The camera normally is pointed in the right direction, and while the acting doesn’t even reach that of the average Kevin Costner piece, it won’t cause the view to cringe or break out laughing. Naturally, in a respectable picture, all that nasty exploitation has to go. No onscreen blood. No intestines flopping on the floor. And not the slight peek at naked, nubile flesh. And with those, no point in seeing this.