April Fool's Day (1986)

An American horror directed by Fred Walton, starring Ken Olandt.
A group of college students go to stay at a friend's house on an island. People start getting hurt and dying.
What a load of crap! An hour and 26 minutes is far too long for this, even though the pacing was brisk. The plot seemed like a normal and oh so cliche slasher flick until the end when it got even worse. The characters were shallow like cardboard cutouts, dialogue copied and pasted from other slasher flicks of the time and acting uncreative at best.Sets and costumes were a sham. They just found the correct location that included all their plot elements and wore regular clothing. Camera-work and editing were very straight forward. I don't even think they used a dissolve between scenes. the special effects were standard '80s gore and a little on the light side. The monster in the jack in the box was the best part (image). At least the audio was mixed correctly. The only problem there was repetitive music. This has 6.2/10 on IMDB, 38% Tomatometer and 47% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for an average of 49%. I agree with that miserable, failing grade. I rate this bad because it's a cliche and crappy movie with a stupid ending.

When a Stranger Calls (1979)

An American horror thriller directed by Fred Walton, starring Charles Durning and Carol Kane.
A mysterious man calls a babysitter. Turns out, the kids are dead. He is locked up, but escapes. The police look for him and he calls the same babysitter when she has a babysitter watching her kids.
Lackluster doesn't even begin to describe this. The plot was extremely predictable and there were only a few moments when I didn't know exactly what would happen next. The characters were drab and dull. The killer attempted to show depth by looking in the mirror and crying naked, saying he didn't exist. Whatever. The video was very much of the time and very straight forward. It just showed what was happening, but not in a bad way. The audio was a little off in the beginning because I couldn't hear what the man was saying through the phone. The opening scene was iconic, but it went downhill from there. Overall, a mediocre movie. I rate it tolerable. If you're trapped in a room and there's nothing but a player and this...