EVIL JUDGEMENT - There's a smidge of discord about this Canadian giallo / slasher that had me intrigued. The characters are 'off', events roll by at random as if in search of another script - a tramp pisses in his soup, a hooker and her friend do a jig in a restaurant window just cos it might perk things up for a couple of mins. It's about a down-on-her-luck dancer who's always blowing up with her schmuck of a boyfriend; when her best mate convinces her she'd be better off on the game, they head off to a big mansion for a threesome with a judge followed by some throat slashing. Pace is baggy and the tone is out of whack - sometimes it feels like a domestic drama that's been gate-crashed by an Argento wannabe with a thing about blue gel, but then it swerves into police conspiracy and judicial corruption (and back). An odd fish, but I like odd fish.
NIGHT SCHOOL - Another slasher. This time the killer has a gimmick - they're into biker gear and collecting heads. If nothing else, you should stick it to the end to hear their motive, it's hilarious. 'Night School' takes a fairly by-the-numbers approach to what was a tired formula even by 1981, weaving a police procedural and a subplot about a lecturer's many affairs around a set of slightly anaemic kills. It has a few cards up its sleeve. The gore may be lacking, but there's a theatricality to the way some of the kills are set up that brings the occasional note of strangeness, with odd scenes such as the roundabout head chop, or the one where a severed head floats slowly to the bottom of the tank in a darkened aquarium. The presence of people like Rachel Ward lends an air of fake class, and there's something really nice about the overall look, wintry browns framing twisted trees and Hitchcockian staircases. If you want a full throttle slasher look somewhere else, but this is a competent murder mystery that hides its derivative nature and basic silliness behind a few tasteful moves.
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