Also circulating overseas under the punning title "Terror Eyes", "Night School" is a low-budget exercise in terror offering very little diversion or novelty for fans of the already-glutted "psychotic slasher" genre. Quietly slipped into domestic release by Paramount via its deal for Lorimar product, film is strictly grindhouse filler.
Set in Boston, tale concerns a mysterious killer who decapitates women at a local night school. Police detective Judd Austin (Leonard Mann) is on the case, with prime suspect a Professor Millett (Drew Snyder), known to be sexually involved with his students, including the murdered girls. His anthropology research assistant Eleanor Adjai (Rachel Ward) is also his pregnant live in girlfriend and pic's central plot figure.
Story is resolved with the revelation that the murders are being committed as demonic rites akin to that practiced by primitive tribes. In an uncomfortable open ending, the crimes are pinned on Millett, who is killed by Austin while trying to escape and the real killer goes free.
Schematic nature of the script is not helped by helmer Ken Hughes (in potboilers after his interesting British career) who emphasizes the unpleasant nature of the murders while too tastefully the explicit gore which makes such exercises marketable. Lead player Leonard Mann completely lacks animation, making his functional role merely a source of irritation. Amidst the unsuccessful black humor (gags such as a waitress victim's head ending up in her cafe's beef stew next day), pic's only virtue is to introduce (and undress) a very beautiful new actress Rachel Ward. Stymied by a role filled with red herring material, Ward's acting is unimpressive here, but her striking screen presence has already earned her leads opposite Burt Reynolds and Steve Martin.
Pic's technical credits are strictly routine.
My review was written in October 1981 after a Times Square screening.
Set in Boston, tale concerns a mysterious killer who decapitates women at a local night school. Police detective Judd Austin (Leonard Mann) is on the case, with prime suspect a Professor Millett (Drew Snyder), known to be sexually involved with his students, including the murdered girls. His anthropology research assistant Eleanor Adjai (Rachel Ward) is also his pregnant live in girlfriend and pic's central plot figure.
Story is resolved with the revelation that the murders are being committed as demonic rites akin to that practiced by primitive tribes. In an uncomfortable open ending, the crimes are pinned on Millett, who is killed by Austin while trying to escape and the real killer goes free.
Schematic nature of the script is not helped by helmer Ken Hughes (in potboilers after his interesting British career) who emphasizes the unpleasant nature of the murders while too tastefully the explicit gore which makes such exercises marketable. Lead player Leonard Mann completely lacks animation, making his functional role merely a source of irritation. Amidst the unsuccessful black humor (gags such as a waitress victim's head ending up in her cafe's beef stew next day), pic's only virtue is to introduce (and undress) a very beautiful new actress Rachel Ward. Stymied by a role filled with red herring material, Ward's acting is unimpressive here, but her striking screen presence has already earned her leads opposite Burt Reynolds and Steve Martin.
Pic's technical credits are strictly routine.
My review was written in October 1981 after a Times Square screening.