Horror or not? #1 April Fools Day Hey guys, so there has been a lot of arguing on here as to whether certain films should be considered a horror film or not, so I thought it would be fun to throw out a poll here and there to see what people think. I know there is no true answer as there are't any set rules to what qualifys a film to be horror, but I thought this would be fun anyways. So yeah, give your opinions why or why not, and what you think is necessary to qualify a film. Poll#1 April Fool's Day There has been a recent controvery over this one, so I thoghut I would start with this one and move on to the bigger ones, ie. Jaws, Alien later.
Of course it's horror...it's a story about a slasher committing murders...the twist ending doesn't change the rest of the film.
I think it is, as stated in an earlier post (Hall fo Fame #21). PS Workshed don't think I'm trying to prove anythign haha, I'm just curious what people think and maybe someone can convince me differently.
April Fools Day is "horror" by default, but only because it doesn't fit in any other genre. That it qualifies as horror, however, has no reflection upon it's quality and IMO, the movie is an absolutely worthless waste of 90 minutes. It's a complete cheat, even more offensive than the tired "it was all only a dream" cliche.
It's clearly a horror movie. I can't imagine why this would not be considered horror. It's a slasher with a late twist. Happens all the time.
I'd say yes,it is a horror film,though it also is poking fun at the slasher genre.It's kind of a precursur to the "ironic" horror films of the 90's,such as SCREAM,which had scares but also kidded the slasher cycle.It's comic,but it is horror.
As Maybrick said, only by default. There is nothing remotely "horror" about this film upon a second viewing.
I don't see it that way. I see it as more of a throwback to the earliest horror movies where there always had to be a logical non-supernatural explanation for the monsters. Vampires and the like always turned out to be normal people or petty criminals trying to scare people off the premises to find the loot. You know... Scooby Doo kind of shit. April Fools Day isn't ahead of it's time so much as waaaayyy past expiration date.
I agree, it was way before its time. I talked about that in another thread. An underappreciated film. Everybody made a big deal about Scream. But AFD went almost unoticed. I give it credit for trying to be different. From my other post: "Movie studios were constantly trying to reinvent the "slasher" with new twists because moviegoers basically had seen it all before."
While I'd disagree with you as to the films quality,as far as your analogy,it's a valid argument.Taken in it's context,though,during the 80's slasher cycle,it wasn't exactly typical of it's time.
Yeah, this is horror. The ending doesn't really change the experience of watching it. Though the film does completely, utterly lack any kind of point- whatsoever. It begins with one of the more memorable quasi-jump scares of my rental days and the ugliness of that opening never translated into something deeper going on in the life or times of the character/s played by Deborah Foreman. Seriously... the movie could have been about any-thing, it didn't have to be so shy. A traumatic childhood. Economic woes. Fear of abandonment. Sibling jealousy / guilt. Trying to play this as a party movie with a "dark edge" only works if these people are capable of having fun for a period longer than 60 seconds. Most of the scenes early on are piss-poor half-assed John Hughes or just the characters either being obnoxious and/or not getting along. Then the movie naturally adds the obvious excuse to keep that going for another 40+ minutes. But, yeah, it's a slasher film in execution. In tone.
