During WWII a soldier receives a Dear John letter from his gal back home. Seems she found herself another man to love. After he returns home and finds her in a clinch with her new man during a graduation dance there’s really nothing he can do but put a pitchfork through them both. Of course after this the graduation dance is cancelled indefinitely.

Thirty-five years later (you knew that was coming) the current crop of students foolishly decide to resurrect the spring dance, eliciting the ire of the killer who must again don his WWII uniform and relieve people of their body fluids. You know the rest; a plucky fabulously feathery-haired girl and a sheriff’s deputy wearing skintight pants must search for clues to solve the mystery and save their lives.

I’ll warn you, this movie is boring. A lot of this comes from poor editing. The director let the tension build only to cut away at the wrong moment then cut back to show nothing had happened in the interim. Many scenes were way too long. An exchange between the deputy and a redneck hotel clerk should have taken about one minute. It played around five minutes and felt like twenty. Also a lot of the dialogue made no sense. For example, our main girl who is also a journalism student starts working on the they-never-found-the-killer-35-years-ago-what-if-he’s-still-around? theory BEFORE any bodies are found or anyone is even thought missing! The town sheriff isn’t around because he can’t start the season until he takes his yearly fishing trip. What?

Pardon the pun but this movie has some killer deaths thanks to Tom Savini. No matter what the other weaknesses are, the deaths are fabulously gory and lingering. One shot shows the killer drive a knife through some guys head. We see the killer grinding the knife in….and grinding…and grinding...then grinding some more while the guy struggles and struggles to get away. I actually started getting a little uncomfortable. Savini also has a chance to get his exploding head groove on with typically excellent results. Honestly the kills are really the only reason to watch this movie. Well there are boobs too.

In fairness, this movie came out in 1981 when the tried and true slasher formula was still new and exciting. The director, Joseph Zito, and Savini would team up again to make Friday the 13th part 4 with more profitable and well known results.

The actors are nothing special but no one is really bad and they all get the job done. I recommend this movie to slasher fans. The kills are some of the best I’ve ever seen and are worth the price of a rental. Heck you could even fast forward through all the boring stuff if you wanted.

What’s the one thing you can count on to see in an 80’s slasher featuring a dance? A kick ass rock band of course! What’s better than a kick ass rock band? A kick ass rock band singing a song titled “Disco Blood!”

The kills get 10 out of 10. The movie as a whole gets 6 out of 10 creepy old guys who grab girls from the bushes but are never really explained.