This is a very clever eighties horror with a very memorable movie poster and video cassette cover of a girl with her back to the camera, hiding a knife behind her back in one hand, toasting her friends that sit around a table, with a glass of champagne in the other hand, with her long hair tied into a noose. I mention the cover because this was what first made me rent the film. It’s a great visual image.

The story revolves around a group of nine college students staying at a friend's remote island mansion begin to fall victim to an unseen murderer over the April Fool's day weekend. They’re all going to rich girl, Muffy’s Spring Break party at her parent’s very isolated mansion on a deserted island.

On the way over to the island strange things start happening quickly. April Fool’s Day tricks are played, a very real accident happens, and each individual finds odd and macabre objects in their bedroom which somehow relate to them. Soon, one of the party members who has been acting strangely, disappears. Only to show up under a boat house while one of the couple’s are making out. The friends all come to the very certain conclusion that a killer is stalking them, and they need to get off the island. However, the boat doesn’t come for days, and who is the stalker that seems to be picking them off one by one?

The director is Fred Walton, the same guy who directed ‘When a stranger calls,’ proving in the first twenty minutes that he could tell a very freighting story. (The opening scene of ‘when a stranger calls’ was the inspiration behind the Drew Barrymore opening scene in ‘Scream.’)
Where ‘When a stranger calls’ lost it’s interest after the amazing opening scene, ‘April Fool’s Day’ is fast and quirky, keeping you hooked right up until the very exciting and tense ending.

The movie doesn’t take itself seriously and the humour is used brilliantly throughout, allowing us to let down our guard and bond with the characters before they meet their untimely deaths. Walton plays on the friends’ relationships, their dreams for after college and offers more optimism. Sadistically funny and at times quite horrifyingly shocking.

The location is great, creating tension throughout the film with its creepy props. The movie constantly defies audience expectation and keeps us glued to the screen to see what will happen next. One of it’s greatest attributes is it’s darkly comic humour which makes for some great suspense and an out of this world, sadistic last fifteen minutes of the movie

Amy Steel (of ‘Friday the 13th: Part 2’ fame) is fantastic, as are all the characters, but Amy Steel has a fantastically real way of portraying fear, which sucks you in and makes you believe her performance. Deborah Foreman is also brilliant as Muffy, the head of the house, setting up her April Fool’s Day jokes and then changing in mood as things become all too real.
A fantastic eighties horror, which will entertain you widely and keep you biting your nails right until the credits role.