



Cheerful Halloween (1978) ripoff which takes the usual slasher genre signifiers and makes them more suspenseful than horrifying. There is no nudity or big jump-scares or even any extreme gore; just some funny gags, a likeable cast and a little style. It even quotes TS Eliot! And there's a really outstanding premise...
A schizo-serial killer is murdering seniors at a US High School; but only those with sexually experience. So in order to save themselves the teenagers must lose it before they are next. Naturally, Cherry Falls is a small town in Virginia! So it reverses the standard genre dictum which rules the promiscuous kids die first.
Brittany Murphy plays a popular good-girl who is dating but not yet gone all the way. And then is dumped at exactly the wrong moment. There's a convivial support cast of brats, babes, bitches and the usual suspects who mostly look about 10 years too old. Plus a few ex-faces among the parents and teachers.
It all unravels in the denouement, which often happens in this sort of film. I'd rather warmed to the deranged psycho before the mask slips, which I suppose is the point. This is unexpectedly imaginative and quite thrilling, with a few laughs. I'm not a huge fan of the genre, but it's my pick as the best slasher film I've seen.