Massacre at Central High(1976)d/Rene Daalder

Nearly everybody has seen Heathers(1989),the film that launched Christian Slater's non-career as a Jack Nicholson imitator,but relatively few saw the film that that particular film spoofed in doing so.Former Russ Meyer cameraman Daalder's small tale of revenge generated a cult following for many years,playing on the midnight circuit and enjoying a re-release during the slasher heyday of the early eighties.A nifty little picture about high school pecking order and what power does to one's behavioural interactions with his or her peers once it has been achieved.Adequate performances by a cult-esque cast of actors,inventive deaths,some gratuitous nudity(in Italy it was released as "Sexy Jeans"! with hardcore insertions),and a script full of twists combining the horrors of adolescence with a political subtext, make this one for your dvd player that comes with recommendation by ol' Wopifex himself!

David(Derrel Maury)doesn't look at high school in the conventional way.
David(Maury)is a transfer student to Central High,a school terrorized by an elite clique of rich snobbish bullies.After reuniting with Mark(Andrew Stevens) who he'd attended another school with previously, in the student lounge,he realizes his former friend is part of the problem group.Mark begs him to enjoy his status at the top of the pecking order with him,but the fringe benefits are short-lived as David cannot stand idly by and allow the other students to get bullied for no reason.He beats the antagonists in a fight,rescuing Mary(Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith) and Jane(Lani O'Grady from Eight is Enough!) from certain rape in an empty classroom.He is smitten with Mark's girlfriend Theresa(Kimberly Beck),and when Mark catches the two skinnydipping in the ocean at night,his jealousy leads to indifference when his gang takes revenge on David as he's repairing a bullied student's car in his garage,crushing one of his legs under a bare drum rotor.When he is later released from the hospital,he does not implicate the students in his unfortunate accident.He has other plans entirely for them.

Forecast for that crushed leg:Limpy followed by prolonged periods of gimpy.
One by one,the bullies fall prey to David's ingenious plans of revenge.Severed hangglider cords lead to high tension wire electrocution,empty pools serve as a waterless grave,as Mark realizes his friend is behind the murders but guilt disallows him to report him to the authorities.Once the bullies have been eliminated,the victimized students now vie for the positions of power,becoming bullies themselves.David sees that the downtrodden he once championed are in reality no better than the elitist thugs he'd murdered,causing him to snuff the latest wave of social climbers.David finally decides to destroy the structure itself with explosives during the school dance,but when Mark and Theresa show up at the dance and refuse to leave,he has a change of heart,removing the bomb and blowing himself up outside the school instead.

Might wanna make sure there's water in the pool before you go diving in next time.
The movie looks at the social infrastructure from all angles,the far-left,the-far-right,before settling into a nihilistic warning:there's a fine line between utopia and dystopia afterall.Stevens went on to a career in movies and television,Beck later starred in Friday the 13th:The Final Chapter,sadly Lani O'Grady and Cheryl Smith both lost their lives due to drugs.A solid movie that still satisfies thirty-plus years later,though it has become something of a holy grail to horror fans,as it has yet to be released in America on DVD,leaving collectors to scramble for grainy old VHS copies or bootlegged discs.You won't be disappointed when you snag your own screener,as it merits a very respectable Wopsploitation scale rating of:

The explosive end to the Central High dance.