6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 3.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.2 |
A girl invites her college friends up to her parents' secluded island home, she just forgot to tell them it just might be the last time of their lives.
Starring: Jay Baker, Deborah Foreman, Deborah Goodrich, Ken Olandt, Griffin O'NealHorror | 100% |
Mystery | 11% |
Teen | 4% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
5.1: 2979 kbps; 2.0: 1611 kbps
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
I can remember browsing the aisles of my local video store and always became intrigued when I came across the VHS front cover of Paramount's April Fool's Day. The image of a skinny young woman with a long pony tail in the shape of a hangman's noose raising a champagne glass with her right hand and hiding a butcher's knife behind her back with the other hand roused my interest. In front of her are a bunch of jovial college students ready for a seemingly nonviolent party. "A female slasher film" is what I imagined. "More terrifying than Halloween, deadlier than Friday the 13th" is what the tagline reads to Jeff Roven's novelization to Danilo Bach's screenplay. Actually, April Fool's Day is more of a critique and commentary on the slasher genre than it is a gore-infested romp.
Vassar College coed Muffy St. John (Deborah Foreman) is acting as hostess to an April Fool's weekend getaway at her family's summer mansion off the coast of Hyannis. She's invited eight of her friends to stay at this palatial estate. Straitlaced Kit (Amy Steel); her serious boyfriend, Rob (Ken Olandt); jokester Arch (Thomas F. Wilson), his pranking friend and St. John's distant cousin, Skip (Griffin O’Neal); Chaz (Clayton Rohner), the outgoing videographer; preppy Hal (Jay Baker); sexpot Nikki (Deborah Goodrich); and restless Nan (Leah King Pisent). The group's trip gets off to a dismal start when a young ferryman goes overboard and is sandwiched between the narrowboat and the pilings at the island. A speedboat takes the victim to a local hospital, his face scarred with lacerations. The friends make it to the St. John's summer home where Muffy has plans of fun and mayhem for them. Each is a victim of an innocuous practical joke: a whoopee cushion, leaking wine glass, exploding cigar, and spraying faucet. But when Skip makes a late-night trek to the boathouse, things take on a more sinister turn. His friends can't find him the next day and soon others begin to disappear. Is the island being stalked by a serial killer?
All gathered around for a candle-lit dinner.
April Fool's Day arrives on North American Blu-ray for the first time courtesy of Scream Factory on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 which comes with a slipcover and new artwork by Yannick Bouchard. The Australian edition that Shock released last fall present the credits in the film's original 2.35:1 aspect ratio but the remainder of the picture is cropped to 1.78:1. Thankfully, Scream has maintained the native 2.35:1 from the opening credits through the end. The "home movie" footage shown at the very beginning (see Screenshot #20) is windowboxed and shot with a Panaflex camera equipped with a zoom lens. The print is derived from an older 2K scan but looks very clean with well-saturated colors. I didn't notice any aliasing during the daytime scenes, which was present on the DVD. Film critic Terry Lawson, then writing for the Journal (OH) Herald, observed that cinematographer Charles Minsky has shot it in "muted browns and golds instead of utilizing the standard Polaroid look." The scenes in Victoria, B.C. where it was filmed (same locales as Five Easy Pieces) maintain that look. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Goldstein describes the movie's lighting as "delightfully inventive, especially the gauzy, eerily illuminated look of Muffy's sprawling manor." This description applies to the outdoor nighttime shots and DP Minsky states in a new interview on the disc that he added smoke. Scream has encoded the feature with a mean video bitrate of 36000 kbps.
The 89-minute movie receives twelve chapter selections, three less than Paramount's 2002 DVD.
Scream supplies a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround remix (2979 kbps, 24-bit) and a DTS-HD Master Audio Dual Mono track (1611 kbps, 24-bit). I focused mainly on the 2.0 mix and found a variance in the dialogue levels. The pitch of spoken words fluctuates and I found myself turning the volume up more often than not. If you have similar inconsistencies on your sound system, I'd recommend switching to the 5.1 track. Nature sounds provide occasional ambience and are dispersed fairly well. Composer Charles Bernstein's score fares a little better. A light theremin introduces the main (and recurring) thematic motif. Bernstein incorporates electronic sounds and childlike melody to go with Muffy's jack-in-the-box toy. There's also suspense cues that closely mirror Harry Manfredini's scores. Varèse Sarabande released a vinyl album containing a half hour of Bernstein's score back in 1986. Twenty-nine years later, the soundtrack label put out a limited edition CD for only one month as part of its LP to CD subscription series. Remaining copies are very scarce.
The optional English SDH identify the speaker and do a good job of transcribing the dialogue.
The front cover of Paramount DVD case had the dreaded "Widescreen Collection" banner, implying that it'd likely be a complete bare bones (which it was). Scream has recorded five new interviews:
I was waiting to see April Fool's Day after all these years and consider it an entertaining and funny takeoff of the slasher film that could have been bolder in its execution. Scream Factory has put together a nice Collector's Edition with an attractive transfer and inconsistent lossless audio. The label includes a handful of new interviews that offer worthwhile tidbits here and there but substantively are not of the same standard as many of their other releases. I thought that there could have been some follow-up questions asked of Fred Walton, including his last feature, The Rosary Murders (1987), and the reason why he left Hollywood shortly thereafter. It would have been better if Scream had been able to get interviews with other actors in this ensemble horror-mystery. Still, a SOLID RECOMMENDATION for April Fool's Day.
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