Teacher Shortage

source: Teacher Shortage

After arriving at a high school, a man learns a group of teachers is forced to attend a weekend seminar at a co-workers' house which turns into a troublesome situation when a deranged serial killer arrives looking to seek revenge on a prank gone wrong years earlier and tries to get away alive. This was an incredibly enjoyable effort. Among the more impressive aspects here is the main setup involving the group at their main seminar meetings. The idea of getting together under the pretenses of improving their students' chances at school, including strategies to enhance their ability at scoring higher instead of actual learning and their resistance to those tactics, creates a fun setup here. The veiled commentary on the current status of public schooling, forsaking the actual teaching in favor of finding ways to get them to graduate, offers up a fantastic topical entrance point as the back-and-forth conversations offer enough to get acclimated to the characters in a fun way. As well, the film has a lot to like with the stalking scenes here. As these feature the striking use of red filters to evoke stylish giallo-like sequences, the stalking here is quite fun with ambushes in the school, at one of the teachers' house or the final attacks at the bar showing some great technical skills. The ability to be at ease with both the extended stalking and far shorter outbursts where the suddenness of the killer appearing has a great balance, keeping the pacing up in between everything while doling out stylish kills and plenty of suspense, is the best part of the film. The other positive aspect to like is the entire motivation for the killer to start their rampage. The initial prank from the post, changing the picture in the yearbook that everyone sees and laughs at, manages to serve as a worthwhile and humiliating inciting incident that's appropriately traumatic being followed up nicely by the scene in the bathroom taking the broken glass and committing suicide. What works as a simple, believable prank that would've been positive to pull off and serve as the proper overarching factor to spur her suicidal reaction but also serve as a reason to launch the actual rampage later is fine if simplistic slasher setup, giving this a lot to like overall here. There are a few minor problems here. The first problem here is the clueless rationale for going after the teachers for the prank that was committed. The far more likely targets would've been the people who put the prank together originally or the ones who let it happen, yet the rationale here to not only plan out the rampage as is but also try to sell what's going on here as the proper motivation to begin the rampage is somewhat underwhelming. An attempt at making it connect doesn't make sense with what it wants to pull off as the jumbled delivery is clunky and awkward, furthering that aspect even more. Some might find the red filter for the kills confusing, but beyond that, there isn't a whole lot wrong here. Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.

This movie, imo, is almost as bad as it can get. Keep in mind I think a throwback slasher like Varsity Blood is a great example of a well done throwback style slasher. Unfortunately there's not one redeeming quality I could find in this movie. The acting was absolutely dreadful, with the exception of having cast Brinke Stevens and Tamara Glynn who were underutilized anyways. It's not fun to do a completely negative review and I give a LOT of leeway to slasher movies because there's really nowhere fresh to take the genre, but a nicely done homage to the past can be a great watch. This is just a dreadful film.

Definitely has a low budget indie feel to the movie, but the violence in it was awesome!! I love these little slasher films whether they are bad or not. This one was sort of bad, but absolutely did not disappoint me at all! Excellent to see Tamara Glynn (Halloween 5) in this!