You’re sitting there in 1986. You just spent five bucks on a ticket to see the new slasher everyone’s talking about, April Fool's Day. The poster shows a group of friends around a dinner table, but one girl is holding a bloody knife behind her back. You expect a body count. You expect a masked killer. Honestly, you probably expect another Friday the 13th clone because that’s what the 80s did best.
Then the movie happens.
It’s basically Clue with better hair and more shoulder pads. Directed by Fred Walton, the guy who gave us the "the call is coming from inside the house" chills in When a Stranger Calls, this flick is a weird, tonal shapeshifter. It starts like a typical "teens at a remote mansion" setup. Muffy St. John (played by a wonderfully quirky Deborah Foreman) invites her college pals to her family’s island estate. She’s obsessed with practical jokes—dribble glasses, whoopee cushions, the works. But then, people start vanishing.
The Twist That Divided a Generation
If you’ve seen the April Fool's Day movie, you know the "big" reveal. If you haven't, well, spoilers ahead, but the title is kind of a massive hint.
The kills are brutal... until they aren't. We see a severed head in a toilet. We see a girl fall into a well full of bloated corpses. It feels like a high-stakes nightmare. But in the final act, our "Final Girl" Kit (Amy Steel) bursts into a room only to find the entire cast alive, well, and sipping champagne.
The whole thing was a dress rehearsal for Muffy’s new business venture: a mystery-weekend resort.
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People hated it. Or they loved it. There was no middle ground in 1986. Some audiences felt betrayed, like they’d been sold a bill of goods. Imagine buying a ticket for a rollercoaster only for the ride to stop ten feet up and have a guy tell you, "Psych! We're actually just going to look at some nice scenery." That’s how the horror purists felt.
Yet, that’s exactly why the film has survived as a cult classic. It was doing "meta-horror" a full decade before Scream made it cool. It wasn't just a slasher; it was a parody of slashers that actually respected the genre enough to play the tropes straight until the very last second.
What happened to the "Real" ending?
There’s a legendary bit of lost media lore here. The original script and a rough cut of the film actually had a much darker ending. In that version, after the big "it was all a prank" reveal, one of the friends—Skip—actually does go crazy and tries to kill Muffy for real because of a family inheritance dispute. Paramount executives reportedly hated the dark turn. They wanted the "fun" ending to stay fun.
If you look closely at some of the old promotional stills or the back of the original VHS box, you can see shots that aren't in the final movie. Fans have been hunting for that "Skip's Revenge" footage for decades. It’s the holy grail for 80s horror nerds.
The Remake That... Well, It Happened
Fast forward to 2008. The "remake" trend was in full swing. The Butcher Brothers took a stab at reimagining the April Fool's Day movie for a modern audience.
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It didn't go great.
Instead of the playful, Agatha Christie-style mystery of the original, the 2008 version went the I Know What You Did Last Summer route. It’s about a prank that accidentally kills someone, followed by a revenge plot a year later. It lacks the charm of the 1986 version. It’s meaner, slicker, and somehow much more forgettable. Even with Scout Taylor-Compton (who played Laurie Strode in the Rob Zombie Halloween movies) in the lead, it just couldn't capture that weird, campy magic of Muffy’s island.
Why the 1986 Version Still Works
- The Cast is Actually Likeable: In most 80s slashers, you’re kind of rooting for the killer because the teens are obnoxious. Here, the chemistry feels real. Thomas F. Wilson (Biff from Back to the Future) is surprisingly charismatic as Arch.
- The Atmosphere: The isolated island setting is gorgeous but claustrophobic. The cinematography by Charles Minsky makes the mansion feel like a character itself.
- The Score: Charles Bernstein (who did the music for A Nightmare on Elm Street) delivers a soundtrack that keeps you on edge even when the "kills" are fake.
If you're looking to watch this today, you've got options. It's often streaming on Paramount+ or available for a few bucks on VOD. Kino Lorber even released a 4K UHD version recently, which makes those 80s neon colors pop like never before.
Honestly, the best way to experience the April Fool's Day movie is to show it to a friend who has no idea what happens. Watching their face during the "champagne reveal" is a prank in itself. It’s a movie that demands you don't take it too seriously.
How to Watch It Right
If you want to dive into this sub-genre, don't stop at just the 1986 classic. Pair it with Slaughter High (also 1986), which is the "mean" version of an April Fools movie where the prank goes horribly wrong and people actually die. Or check out Killer Party, which was filmed around the same time and has a similar "is this a prank?" vibe.
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But if you want the gold standard of holiday-themed meta-horror, Muffy St. John’s island is the only place to be. Just watch out for the jack-in-the-box.
To get the most out of your viewing, try to find the Scream Factory or Kino Lorber Blu-ray releases. They include interviews with the cast where they talk about the "missing" ending and the bizarre experience of filming a horror movie where nobody actually dies. It’s a fascinating look at a time when Hollywood was trying to figure out what to do with a genre that had become too predictable.
Check your local listings or streaming apps—usually, this one pops up right around late March for obvious reasons. Grab some popcorn, maybe some fake blood for the living room, and enjoy the one slasher that actually likes its characters.
Actionable Next Steps:
Check your streaming library for the 1986 version of April Fool's Day. If you're a physical media collector, look for the Kino Lorber 4K edition to see the deleted scene stills and behind-the-scenes galleries that explain the original "dark" ending. Once you've watched it, compare it to Scream to see just how much Wes Craven might have owed to Fred Walton's little prank movie.