Graduation Day Movie Review

Trailer here.

Graduation Day is a 1981 horror movie directed by Herb Freed and starring Christopher George, Linnea Quigley, Michael Pataki.

A girl called Laura dies on the running track during a meet. A few months later, her sister Anne, arrives back in town to attend a graduation ceremony at the high school where her sister will be honoured. She is in the Navy. She sees one of Laura's friends, Paula. She is jogging through town. Someone is following her. She gets killed by the person. Paula's teammates are waiting for her. When she doesn't show up, they have to take their team picture without her. Anne calls to see her mother. She looks around Laura's room. Anne's stepfather isn't happy to see her. Someone has a photo of the running team and is crossing off Paula's face. Anne goes to the graduation ceremony rehearsal. She visits Laura's boyfriend, Kevin. She gives him the graduation present that Laura had bought for him.

Coach Michaels(George) is hard on the running team. He expects perfection. He yells at one of the girls, Sally. She is alone in the locker room and someone is in there with her. It is the killer who has a fencing sword. She ends up dead. Anne blames Coach Michaels for Laura's death. She thinks that he pushed her too hard. Another member of the track team meets a grisly end. Principal Guglione(Pataki) gets calls about missing students. An Inspector Halliday shows up at the school to investigate. He is interested in the students and what has been going on. The principal thinks that it is a prank. The inspector thinks that maybe they are off somewhere partying.

More students start to die. The inspector goes to see Coach Michaels. He asks him some questions. The coach gets fired. Sally's dead body pops up . Coach Michaels finds it and people think that he is the killer. Kevin chases him and they have a fight. Coach Michaels runs, Kevin follows and so does the inspector and Anne. The coach finds another body in the woods and Kevin is revealed to the killer.

He is bitter because of Laura's death. He tries to kill the coach too with a knife. Coach Michaels gets the knife when the inspector arrives and shoots the coach as he thinks that he is the killer. Anne goes to see Kevin and she goes up to his room where Laura's body is sitting. Kevin catches her and admits to digging her body up and bringing her back to his house. He tells her that they are getting married. Anne is horrified. Kevin turns on her.

She pushes the body and it forces Kevin out of the window. He isn't dead though and he carries Laura's body back into the house. Anne runs back to the school. Kevin is there. They fight and he chases her. She finds the dead students. Kevin gets impaled on a spike and he dies. Anne leaves the town after her ordeal. This was a fun slasher with a little bit of gore. I liked that it was a mystery also and there were lots of suspects. The characters were generic, but I don't think that it matters much. I liked this movie. It is an entertaining 80's slasher and I recommend it to fans of the genre. I will give it a 5/10.