Bloody
  April 
       Fools 

Slasher Trash with Panache?

Review:JA Kerswell

Short and sometimes sweet, the Spanish BLOODY APRIL FOOLS riffs off ‘80s slasher SLAUGHTER HIGH (1986)—a film that initially had the title APRIL FOOLS DAY (until it was changed to avoid confusion with the Fred Walton movie of the same name). A group of teenagers take refuge in an abandoned hostel after their travel plans go awry—but aren’t aware that it was the site of a tragedy 15 years earlier, and a prank-loving killer still stalks the grounds to punish all trespassers. Veering between seriousness and black comedy, it risks over-familiarity in its efforts to ape the classic age of the slasher movie. However, there are enough left-field choices to keep things interesting—not necessarily a surprise, given the film has twelve directors.
 
Back on 28 December 1998 at the 12 Hills Hostel, a nerdy teenage boy is lured to a boiler room after being tricked by another group of boys that a girl has invited him there for sex. However, he is locked in and humiliated. The situation gets even worse when the girls in the block next door take a shower, which fills the room with burning steam which scalds him to death.
In the present day, a group of fun-loving, sex-obsessed teenagers (straight from ‘80s slasher movie casting) find their ski trip derailed after the resort is closed due to unseasonably warm weather—although, suspiciously, none of them looks like they are dressed for skiing! At something of a loss and debating whether to head back to the city, during a pitstop, they find a sign for the very same 12 Hills Hostel. Despite locals at a gas station warning them that the place is now abandoned and should be avoided, they head there to party the night away. All apart from one of their number, Ines (Paula Malia), who elects to catch a bus home—only to fall foul of the first prank by being bitten by a snake hidden in her luggage and getting splatted by the very bus she was hoping to catch.
 
Once off to the hostel, they get down to partying and pairing off for sex. Alex (Mario Marzo) has a crush on Eva (Charlotte Vega), which the group’s bad boy Cristian (Àlex Batllori) is intent on blocking by seducing her himself. They are rocked when one of their number, Chino (Enric Auquer), is found in agony in a pool of blood—only for it to turn out to be an elaborate practical joke. However, as the teenagers return to their partying ways, someone is intent on making sure that joke isn’t funny anymore in the deadliest ways possible … 

It is fair to say that BLOODY APRIL FOOLS doesn’t outstay its welcome at just shy of 70 minutes. The film zips along at such a pace that the audience doesn’t really have time to ponder its numerous absurdities and potential plotholes (such as how does the killer have time to plan elaborate deaths on the off chance a group of teenagers stumble across the hostel?). The Spanish title refers to "Día de los Santos Inocentes" (Day of the Holy Innocents), which is the equivalent of April Fools Day outside of Spain—although it takes place December 28 (which rather negates the international title). The first half is something of a slasher movie setup's greatest hits, which admittedly risks unfavourable comparisons to other examples from the Golden Age—most obviously the Shelley-that-Cried-Wolf from FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART III (1982). Its tribute goes as far as to include a good splattering of gooey gore and even topless nudity (from both sexes). However, curiously, for a film that aims to pay tribute—rather than satirise—classic slasher movies, the film’s killer is a shadowy presence for much of its running time, and it eschews some elements usually associated with the subgenre, such as chase scenes. Rather, the teenagers are offed in often ludicrously bizarre and unlikely ways via pranks such as filling a car with angry bees. This approach eventually pays some dividends with a number of inventive scenes. Most notably, a deliriously injured woman who fingers the hole in her head to something approaching a bloody sexual climax. Plus, the pair trapped in a room who are slowly suffocating to death but can’t stop giggling because it has been filled with laughing gas. And the guy impaled through the eye after being poked via a glory hole in a bathroom.
 
BLOODY APRIL FOOLS was a product of the Spanish film school ESCAC, which trains students for a profession in the film industry, and it boasts pretty good production values considering. It had twelve directors—which possibly explains its slightly disjointed feeling as, apparently, they shot sections of the movie independently from each other (for ten minutes or so, it even switches into a found footage movie shot on an iPhone). It is actually a small miracle that it hangs together as well as it does. However, whilst this team approach risks cohesion, it gives the film a kind of frenetic energy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, some of the people involved have gone on to carve a name for themselves in the industry—most notably Carlos Alonso Ojea (who directed the Netflix slasher KILLER BOOK CLUB). Charlotte Vega appeared in the WRONG TURN (2021) reboot, and Diana Gómez (of the head wound orgasm) appeared in Netflix’s highly successful MONEY HEIST.  
 
Whilst not entirely successful, the film employs and subverts slasher movie expectations in equal measures—and is topped off with a pleasingly cynical '70s-style ending.  

BODY COUNT 11: 
Female 5 / Male 7

1. Male is scalded to death
2. Female is bitten by a snake and hit by a bus
3. Male is impaled through his eye
4. Female slips and cracks her head open
5. Male is stung to death by bees
6. Male is set alight
7. Male suffocated with laughing gas
8. Female suffocated with laughing gas
9. Male is shot dead
10. Male is shot dead
11. Female is shot dead

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