To quote my late mother ‘They talked some kind of funky about this movie’.  Even before this movie was released to its Direct-to-Video lifespan and those chosen few who get pre-release copies, a list that inexplicably I am not on, the reviews were nothing less than scathing for this movie ‘April Fools Day’.  Believe though that I’m not here to bail it out or anything because I’ve just seen the movie and it IS pretty bad, I mean it’s not even good a little bit, it’s just not quite as bad as I was led to believe. 

It’s April 1st, which can’t be a good thing in any movie, and we are in some upper crust region of Charlotte North Carolina where the young beautiful and rich are preparing for the coming out party of one of their own as Torrence (Scout Taylor-Compton) is about to become a debutante, or a woman, or something… as if I would actually know what purpose a coming out party for rich people would serve.  The beautiful but incredibly bitchy Desiree (Taylor Cole) is planning the gig for her friend but Desiree has some other plans for the evening as we will soon learn.  Regardless, our future victims include Desiree’s womanizing brother Blaine (Josh Henderson) who Desiree is none too happy with since he controls the estate and forces her to drive a year old SLK 500’s.  Asshole.  We also have Beauty Queen Barbie – and bitch – Barbie (Alexa Motley) and her future senator husband – and idiot – Peter (Samuel Child).  There’s also studly homosexual gossip columnist Charles (Joseph McKelheer) and lastly there’s Ryan (Joe Egenger) who isn’t rich at all but just some cat they seem to be cool with who videotapes everything.

So when the lovely Milan (Sabrina Aldrige) shows up at the party it is apparent that Desiree hates her something awful because… well because she’s just a hateful person it would seem.   So Desiree has a plan for her brother Blaine to seduce Milan, who spends her days working with mentally challenged children, so she can get some videotape of her whoring around and make her the shame of Charlotte.  Though her plan seems

to be going well to start, considering Blaine is like Mister Super Playa, things go horribly wrong and Milan dies in an unfortunate fall, largely because somebody drugged her drink, which wasn’t necessary because she was about to give it up anyway.  The question is which one of our rich kids drugged her drink.  You see one year after that April 1st tragedy somebody wants revenge and it looks like it might be Milan herself, but damn if we didn’t think she was dead.  Well whoever it is, one by one our bratty debutantes are biting the dust as the mystery deepens into who is doing this public service.

I hear that this is supposed to be a remake of the 1986 slasher flick of the same name, though this has absolutely no relation to that movie, which I vaguely remember, other than the fact that Frank Mancuso Jr. produced both movies.  I don’t even know what you would call this movie because it’s not really a horror flick since there’s not even one remotely scary moment in this thing and the blood factor is extremely low.  Maybe it’s a mystery thriller, but I challenge anybody not to figure this out in like the first twenty minutes because as it goes on it just gets more and more obvious what’s going on.  So obvious in fact that I was trying to trick myself into thinking that something else was going to happen because it was so apparent.  Quite honestly it’s more like one of the ‘Wild Things’ sequels or something along those lines, only without the nudity, which this movie had absolutely none of despite the cast of beautiful full bodied women.  Thus we have the reasons why ‘April Fools Day’ is a poor film since it’s not lurid, scary, mysterious or funny, it’s ultimately pointless and I can’t think of any justifiable reason to watch it.

Now with all that being said and with us recognizing that there is no valid reason to watch this movie, it does have some things working for it in case you happen to catch it on HBO 10 or something one night.  The production values are very high and the movie absolutely looks great.  The Butcher Brothers, as the directing team is called, might not know how to make a very entertaining movie, but they do know how to shoot a pretty picture.  The cast are all very attractive, despite the fact all the women inexplicably kept all their clothes on, with star Taylor Cole being particularly easy on the eyes even with clothes on.  They shot the movie in Charlotte which is cool.  I mean I don’t live in Charlotte or anything but it’s good see a city other than Los Angeles or Toronto getting some play on the screen for a change.  The movie had a lot of Black people in it, though they weren’t in any of the lead roles, but they were there simply existing in the background which is fairly rare and somewhat appreciated since Black people are there exiting in the background in real life.  Lastly actor Josh Henderson can keep his left eyebrow cocked like forever.  That in itself is a talent which the man may want to contact those folks at Guinness about that.

‘April Fools Day’ is a pointless exercise in nothingness that you probably shouldn’t waste your time on, but at least it’s competently produced pointless exercise, which is this day an age is worth a little something.