DON'T MESS WITH ANOTHER MAN'S GUINEA PIG
★★★☆☆ (Good for One Viewing)
Director: Larry N. Stouffer
1974
Horror High is an adorable little horror flick with creatively creepy shots and a tight script that moves the film quickly, but covers all the bases. I almost turned it off because the first ten or fifteen minutes are riddled with blips from poor audio feed and film quality issues, but I’m glad I stuck around. Because of the camera they used, Horror High feels like industrial films teens watched in school in the 60s, and this adds a little extra something to make it stand out among other low-budget horror stories we now know by heart. This isn’t a movie made by people whose priority was to cash in on the genre—you can tell great care went into the details. It was a delight to watch just to see what the director would do next with what little he had.
Vernon (Pat Cardi) is a geeky high schooler whose passion is his research on guinea pigs. Unfortunately, this interest in science leads to bullying in gym class and being dismissed by teachers find him tedious. One bright spot in Vernon’s life is a pretty girl named Robin, who happens to be dating Vernon’s most fervent bully. One day tragedy strikes. While protecting the guinea pig in question—Mr. Mumps—our budding scientist kills the janitor’s beloved pet, which causes the janitor to force Vernon to drink his own experiment.
Without giving too much away, the very first shot in the film sets up the theme; Vernon goes from mild-mannered nerd during the day to beast by night. Although Horror High‘s creature has a tired motive used elsewhere (Slaughter High, Killer Nerd), the movie offers surprises here and there. Yes, we know who’s the next cadaver (English teacher who destroys Vernon’s science paper, the gym teacher who threatens him) and you see Robin’s crush on the dork coming from a mile away, but you don’t mind these things because the script throws in a curveball or two. That takes me to Lieutenant Bozeman.
The cat-and-mouse dialogue between Lieutenant Bozeman (Austin Stoker) and Vernon is fantastic. Unlike so many films where cops are fifty steps behind in a ham-fisted way to create tension, the tension here comes from the fact that Bozeman’s eyes are wide open. He notices every detail, he points out Vernon’s discrepancies with a coolness that tells the kid to watch his back. Even when Bozeman doesn’t suspect Vernon, he suspects everyone else. The audience gets nervous for the student whenever Bozeman is around because we know he’s the smartest person in the room.
Watch for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment at the end when a police officer (in a close-up) says his lines and then does an unintentional I Dream of Jeannie nose twitch before glancing off camera to make sure no one noticed. The director leaving the shot in the film tells me he has a great sense of humor, a key ingredient for an easygoing monster film. That’s not to say this movie is all laughs. A school closed up for the night is already a terrifying set piece, but there’s one shot at the end that made me jump; it’s chilling and unexpected and most importantly, simple. Compare Horror High‘s use of camera angles for frights to The Thing (2011) remake, a “movie” that cost $38 million and felt trashy and cheap and wouldn’t scare Grandma unless bad CGI offends her. When filmmakers complain about budgets, or students wonder how they can create a project with nothing, they need to look to movies like Horror High, where the technical skills pay the bills.
GENRES: Diverse Characters, Monster/Creature
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