With the Troma classics Sugar Cookies and Lust For Freedom
currently available from Vinegar Syndrome the company has recently taken on one
of the more well-known slashers of the early 1980's in Graduation Day. Troma
did release Graduation Day several years back but it left much to be desired to
say the least. In the hands of Vinegar Syndrome though, improvement is inevitable,
especially with the fact that it's making it's a Blu-ray debut in a combo pack
from the genre DVD and Blu-ray producers.
Graduation Day was actually a spawn off
the success of John Carpenter's Halloween as were many slashers from the era
(The Burning, Friday the 13th, The Prowler, just to name a
few.) The story surrounds a sudden death
of an athlete and a series of murders that follow immediately after the young
track star's death. When the deceased girl's sister, Anne (Patch Mackenzie,
It's Alive III: Island of the Alive) arrives in town for her funeral the bodies
begin to pile up of her peers in a variety of ways. Could Anne be taking some
revenge kind of revenge on the students? Could it be the gym teacher played by
the great Christopher George (City of the Living Dead, Enter the Ninja) or
could it just be some random psycho with a blood-lust the killing of college
kids?