Horror High (1973)

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

When horror movies have socially maladjusted kids getting abused by popular football players while showing how attractive girls can still fall for them, they're playing directly to their demographic. How many fright fans felt the same way or endured the same stings and arrows as the hero of this film?Everybody beats the crap of Vernon. His fellow students hate him. His teachers despise him. Even the janitor. His only friend is Robin (Rosie Holotik, Nurse Charlotte from Don't Look in the Basement), who is dating the main football player who abuses him. And his other friend, the mouse known as Mr. Mumps? Well, he's taking a mind-altering potion that Vernon's developed that makes the little fella super violent. In fact, it makes him so brutal that it kills the janitor's cat, who flips out and smashes the little fellow and forces Vernon to drink his own potion.Pat Cardi, the actor who played Vernon, was a busy child star, playing in over 100 TV shows and appearing as a young chimp in Battle for the Planet of the Apes. He grew up to create and found MovieFone, which in the pre-internet days was how people discovered what films were playing in theaters.Austin Stoker (Assault on Precinct 13, Abby) plays the detective who comes into the school once Vernon starts killing. The murder scenes form a proto-slasher vibe while the music is crazy, with primal power chords accentuating big moments (think the guitar sound from the Torso trailer). It also features Pittsburgh Steelers star "Mean" Joe Greene in a small role. If you live here in the Steel City, you need no introduction to Mean Joe. If you live elsewhere, he's the player who threw a jersey to the kid in the Coca-Cola commercial. He's also in The Black Six, one of the first all-black biker films, along with other NFL names like Gene Washington, Mercury Morris, Lem Barney, Willie Lanier and Carl Eller.At heart, this is a Jekyll & Hyde story (it's Carrie before Carrie, too) but told as if it were a 1950's teen monster movie refilmed through a 1970's doom-laden lens. Its script comes from Jack Fowler, who is really J.D. Feigelson, writer of Wes Craven's Chiller and Dark Night of the Scarecrow.The film - also known as The Twisted Brain - was shot in Texas and released by Crown International in March of 1974 to the drive-in circuit. It really picked up its cult cache thanks to frequent TV airings. Code Red put out an uncut version on blu-ray in 2009, following a Rhino release of the TV version of the film. They're both rather hard to get now, but worth seeking out. I found myself really liking this film, despite its budget and relative silliness at times

My thoughts on Horror High-First a few observations and then I will report what I discovered about the History of this film.Observations:* Austin Stoker played Lieutenant Bozeman in this film, Last year in the YT Horror Movie Discussion Group we watched the movie "Ruby" and Austin Stoker played the police officer/brother-in-law in that movie. *Austin Stoker's Lieutenant Bozeman plays the worst game of cat and mouse with the main character, Vernon Potts. His Columbo-style questioning of Vernon leads the viewer to believe that if Stoker's character really suspected Vernon as strongly as the questions he asks seem to indicate, then this case could have been cracked a lot earlier if Lt. Bozeman had just assigned a police officer to track Vernon's whereabouts. * Some people may think that Vernon is a somewhat sympathetic monster. Think again. Why does the whole school start the movie calling Vernon "The Creeper". What did Vernon do prior to this movie to earn that nickname? Vernon was only forced to drink the chemicals once. Every other time thereafter, Vernon willingly drinks the chemical concoction to solve some rather trivial and minor problems in his life with murder. *The janitor, Mr. Griggs, must be a complete idiot. After beating Vernon viciously and then forcing him to drink what could be deadly chemicals, Mr. Griggs tells Vernon that he is going to beat him some more and then take him to the police. Who would the police arrest in that scenario? *Please tell me that somebody else noticed the bushy mustached white police officer angrily twitch his mustache when Lt. Bozeman tells him that he can't "tie up" Coach McCall.Short History of the Movie:*Lots of 50 and late 40 year olds have seen this movie. But many remember the movie being titled with a different name. This movie was popularly shown on late night monster television shows in the early 80's under the title "Twisted Brain". *This movie began production in 1973 during a time when Independent movie productions were becoming popular. This movie was not made by a big Hollywood studio but instead by a company, Horror High Ltd. that was formed by James Graham, the producer of this film. James Graham may have produced this movie soley as a vehicle for his hot girlfriend, Rosie Holotik (plays Robin Jones), to advance her acting career. Rosie was a Playboy cover model in 1972, acted in Horror High in 1973 along with two other B-horror films in 1973 and then never acted again. *This movie seems to provide the same local pride to Irving, Texas (where the movie was filmed) that Pittsburgh feels for "Night of the Living Dead". This movie was filmed exclusively in Irving, Texas during a fast two week shooting schedule. The school used as the setting was a High School for unwed mothers according to a Pat Cardi (Vernon) interview and the actors were not allowed to talk to the students or even look at them for fear of losing the location. *James Graham took advantage of the fact that a lot of professional football players that had went to college in Northern Texas lived in the Irving area. Mean Joe Green, Joe Niland (Coach McCall), Abner Haynes, Calvin Hill (Cleveland Browns RB), Billy Traux, D.D. Lewis, and Craig Morton (Broncos QB in Super Bowl XII) all played characters in this movie. This made filming difficult as fans hung around the sets for autographs. According to Pat Cardi (Vernon), Joe Niland (Coach McCall) would have young Pat Cardi over to his Irving mansion after shooting ended for the day where he had "babes running around the place like hot and cold running water" and young Pat Cardi would get so drunk that it would disrupt shooting the next day. *The movie cost $100,000.00 to make and only made less then $20,000.00 when it was originally released in and around the Dallas area in 1973. James Graham's High Horror Ltd. entered into a distribution agreement with Crown International Pictures and that allowed the movie to travel far and wide so that Variety magazine reported in May of 1974 that it "hit top grosses nationwide". The movie was pushed by Crown International Pictures for the next decade as it was a frequent second feature at drive-ins all the way into the early 80's. One practice employed by Crown International Pictures was to re-release old movies with new titles (Independent producers complain that this was an effort to hide box-office receipts), so this movie was released in different parts of the USA and worldwide with different names: "Kiss the Teacher...Goodbye!", "The Devil's Bible", "The Devil's Beast", "Experiment of the Death Devil's Beast", Werewolf Massacre". *Early promotion for this movie had a Drugsploitation angle. The early tagline for this movie was "Watch Vernon turn on...and then kill". Later once Austin Stoker enjoyed some success in the cult classic "Assault on Precinct 13" the marketing shifted and the tagline became "The man who survived Precinct 13 is Back!" But former child star, Pat Cardi (Vernon), wishes that the movie would have been promoted more along the angle of "I was a teenage Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde", which it never was promoted in that fashion.

"Horror High" aka "Twisted Brain" is as bare-bones as any seventies independent flick can get. This is not a very good film, by far not, yet it might be an enjoyable watch for fans of obscure exploitation horror. It's basically a cross between an avant-la-lettre slasher movie (because of the high school setting & the systematic killings) and a contemporary re-imagining of Robert Louis Stevenson's famous "Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" story.For the biggest part the screenplay of "Horror High" sticks to its guns, which is good. And it's a simple story: Vernon Potts is the nerdy high school whiz kid that gets picked on by everybody (teachers & students alike). Since he's good at chemistry & biology, he invented a potion that occasionally transforms him in a murderous maniac. Thus Vernon has the abilities to exact his bloody revenge. The killings are mildly amusing and the overall atmosphere of the film is gritty enough. However, at one point the screenplay takes a sudden and completely unnecessary side-jump introducing Vernon's estranged father & his girlfriend. A completely redundant padding scene that goes on for too long, since the father character is never mentioned again afterwards. Vernon also gets an obligatory love-interest thrown his way: The girlfriend of a bullying jock student. She falls for Vernon's intelligence, naturally."Horror High" is a curious effort altogether, not only because the film is so obscure, but also because it foreshadows many high school slasher films to come over the next decade. At the time, the 'slasher rules' of contemporary horror cinema weren't even established yet. Sadly the execution of the film, as well as the acting, is severely below par. Not a lot of talent & money were involved. But there were a couple of other elements that made this viewing more interesting to me, like the use of many bizarre sound effects (e.g. shredding distorted guitars). The soundtrack itself also becomes funky & rocky at times. Every now and then inventive camera angles were used and the use of conveniently placed flashbacks (re-use of footage) to 'enhance' the narrative provided some amusing chuckles throughout. Again, I can't call this a good movie by any means, but I can imagine it a worthwhile watch to lovers of strange & vintage, moody & atmospheric exploitation horror. Don't expect nudity in this one, though.

Wow. I am amazed I went beyond the opening song with this film. After all, the song was just horrible in every possible way--whiny, bad and dreadful. Was this a portent of more awfulness to come or was this low-budget film actually worth seeing?The star of this film is a nerdy high school student (who, incidentally was 23 when the film was made). He's mistreated by his teachers, the janitor and his classmates. Like such to be Vernon Potts and you know that based on the title of this film that eventually all these people will have a major butt-kicking coming by the end of the film. But, in the meantime, we are treated to scene after scene of the most ridiculously nasty treatment of poor Vernon. Subtle this isn't.Later, a deranged (and horribly acted) janitor freaks out and forces poor Vernon to drink some formula he's been working on in the lab. And, not at all unexpectedly, Vernon is now a crazed killer beast. I love how incredibly stupid and cheesy the first act of retribution is--when he shoves the janitor's head in a conveniently placed bucket of sulfuric acid (I always have a few sitting around the house for just such emergencies). When Vernon has recovered, he's covered in blood and hides the evidence of his atrocity. Is this the last killing by good ol' Vern? Well, considering it's only the 25 minute mark, I doubt it.By the way, speaking of sulfuric acid in this murder scene, I noticed that the label on the drum was MISSPELLED!! Talk about sloppy!! Surely a chemical supply house can spell sulfuric!!The next day, the police come to the school to investigate the killing. This apparently was prompted when one of the kids in chemistry class opened the giant drum of 'sulphuric acid' and bits and pieces of the janitor and his cat were floating in it.There's more to it than this, but frankly it's all so dull and pointless I'll just wrap it up now. Overall, the acting, writing, special effects and direction totally suck. There really is nothing of interest or value in the film other than small parts played by Dallas Cowboys running back Calvin Hill and quarterback Craig Morton and linebacker D.D. Lewis, as well as Pittsburg Steelers defensive tackle Joe Greene and Chuck Beatty. It's interesting for anyone who watched football back in the 1970s--otherwise I have no idea why anyone would want to see this stinking film. Also, I hope I didn't miss any other players who were in the film--I'm trying my best considering that I was pretty young back then and my crazy old man memory isn't perfect!Worthless--a complete waste of time.