April Fool’s Day (2008/Sony DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C- Feature: D
During
the 1980s original slice-and-dice slasher cycle, Friday The 13th film series producer Frank Mancuso Jr.
tried to retool and twist the trend a bit with his 1986 production of April Fool’s Day, but it instead became
one of the most disappointing, dumb attempts to continue/save the trend. While he went on to produce better genre fare
and left his longtime home of Paramount Pictures, he has decided to revive the film
as a straight-to-DVD remake with a duo of directors with a name like The
Butcher Brothers.
The 2008
revisiting is the same prank-goes-wrong-turns-to-murder mess, but this time, it
looks like an episode of a teen/yuppie Aaron Spelling (90210, Melrose Place)
episode gone wrong in every respect of the word. As compared to those formula shows, the
people here feel like one-dimensional mannequins, you never believe anything
you see and the obsession with reproducing video (low and high def) is more
like filler as if this modernizes a dumb idea.
The result is a VDD quickie with some money in it. Too bad it has no script and the Brothers
don’t know the meaning of suspense. See
the original first, if you must see this one.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is soft throughout, looks like it was
shot on video (sometimes a generation or two down) and is loaded with motion
blur throughout. The Dolby Digital 5.1
mix is weak, obviously not created to utilize multi-channel and is on the weak
side. Extras include previews for other
Sony DVD product.
- Nicholas Sheffo
