Day 23- Bad Mascot! Bad!

I blame Hal Holbrook.

You see, Hal's picture is on the box for Girls Nite Out (1984), and because of this, I thought, "Hmm. This movie might be OK. Would Hal Holbrook star in an inferior movie? Surely not after The Fog and Creepshow. Boy, I sure like Hal Holbrook- I'll check this out!". I'd like to say that this was better than Graduation Day, which as you may remember is the lowest scoring movie thus far in Shocktober. However, Graduation Day had the novelty of Vanna White and the amazingness of the football with a sword attached, and thus it is far, far superior to tonight's piece of schlock. Not good schlock, but bad, bad schlock. Damn you, Hal Holbrook! Damn you to HELL!

My guess is that Holbrook got blackmailed into doing this movie. His son David also appears in it, so maybe that's got something to do with it. Maybe some sleazy producer told him:"You want your son in this picture, Holbrook? Then you gotta do it, too!". Yeah, yeah- maybe Hal didn't want to, but then his son whined alot, like Francis in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, and so Hal gave in. He does seem really, really miserable throughout the proceedings. It's rare when he actually appears with someone else in a scene: he's usually filmed alone, as if he shot all his scenes in one day to get them over with. You can see the embarrassment in his eyes when he's forced to deliver lines such as "My daughter was about your age, then she met a guy like you. Now she's dead.". Poor thing. He suffered as much as I did.

The night after the DeWitt University basketball team wins an important game, there's an all-night scavenger hunt on campus. Someone murders the school mascot and steals his costume. The killer wears the bear costume, fashions "claws" out of steak knives, and slashes the victims at the locations where the scavenger items are hidden. Now this sound like it could be fun, right? Yeah, that's what I thought, too. Well, tough luck! It's just a dull little movie- nothing like having the killer call the girls "slut" and "whore" before doing away with them for good viewin'. With the exception of the school mascot, the victims are exclusively female. Is the fact that the killer is female too supposed to make up for the whiff of misogyny? Bleh.

The most notable thing about this movie is the soundtrack, which has actual real songs you may know! While it's not uncommon on soundtracks today, I can't offhand think of another slasher from back in the day that used licensed songs exclusively. Of course, their budget wasn't that big, so you get to hear all the songs (including Do You Believe in Magic? and Yummy Yummy Yummy) at least twice each. Woo hoo! One can never get enough of the Lovin' Spoonful in a horror flick.

You know, I think I'm letting Hal Holbrook get off too easily. This movie stunk! I want my 90 minutes back! If you see that guy, punch him in the back of the head for me, would ya? I give this 1-and-a-half out of 10 fists shaken in rage!!.