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Home | Film Review: Getting Schooled (2016)

Film Review: Getting Schooled (2016)

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SYNOPSIS: 

In 1983, a group of High School students in a day of detention must run for their lives when a teacher in a wheel chair turns out to be an ex black ops soldier having a murderous flashback.

REVIEW: 

I want to start off by saying… Happy Friday the 13th everyone! And in honor of this holy Holiday what better way to review an 80s style slasher. Also a note I’d like to add. I first heard of this movie when director Chuck Norfolk sent me a link to the trailer asking for my input. I told him I enjoyed it and asked him who the blonde actress was (Morgan Tyler) cause she stood out in it. He told me who she was and a few months later she became my co host for my radio show. So lesson learned filmmakers… ask everyone to check out your trailers. Ya never know what may happen…

With that being said here we go…

Have you ever thought to yourself… would The Breakfast Club have made a great slasher film?  The answer to me is in Getting Schooled. An 80’s throwback horror comedy. It’s not a spoof like Scary Movie. It’s just a horror movie with comedy. More satirical in nature.

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The film starts out showing you it’s in the 80s. So what do we have? 5 kids dressed in 80s clothes coming to school on a Saturday. A lot of TV and movies have done tribute to the Breakfast Club. My favorite being the TV show “Dawson’s Creek”. This movie however gives you a different feel.

Sure there are the stereotypical kids… The Princess, The Jock, The Outcast, The nerd, and the Burn Out. But it’s the way they are treated in this movie that makes it different. At one point it almost even seems Meta. With them actually mentioning the stereotypes. Normally winks to the audience like that would annoy me but it was subtle enough not to make me even notice it until after I finished watching it and dissected the film.

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The acting by all the characters were really well done.  Ron Jeremy as a janitor was awesome to see but was kind of hoping he’d be in it longer. Maybe his twin could come back for a sequel. Haha.

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Now the killer (I can say who it is because it’s no mystery from the beginning) is a Vietnam vet having war flashbacks. Kind of like PTSD before it was ever really diagnosed.  He’s in a wheelchair which hasn’t been done much in horror. At first when I saw he was in a wheelchair my first thought was, “Okay come on… what’s gonna be so scary?” But they really made it work.

The death scenes were a lot of fun. Not gonna go in to who or how people died but I will say a few you won’t be expecting it. I think the one thing that disappointed me was one of the characters died way too fast that it seemed like they got the short end of the death stick. But that’s really my only complaint.

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All in all I thought it was a very clever film. Lots of jokes and jabs at 80s films and even a few references to Apocalypse Now. I really hope people get a chance to see it soon enough because I think this would be a fun little flick to turn on late at night when watching Netflix. Netflix and Kill perhaps?

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