MARCIA BRADY & GEORGE CLOONEY RETURN TO HORROR HIGH

A perplexed Maureen McCormick & Pepper Martin YEAR: 1987

Some bad horror movies know exactly what they're after, and RETURN TO HORROR HIGH toys with an audience who thinks they know what the characters are doing and where the story's going, and why...

Beginning in the present time, exterior night, as a tough yet gentle-giant-type police chief and a doting, surreptitiously perverse female officer, played by BRADY BUNCH oldest Maureen McCormick, are outside a high school where a multi-mutilation of bodies are a mysterious result from a confusing aftermath: Then cutting back to a horror flick being shot inside the school centering on a string of deaths that had occurred years before... Confused yet?

Maureen McCormick

Well there are plenty of head-scratching moments that all eventually add up to a much more worthwhile drive-in homage than most video rentals from the middle eighties. A young, mullet-donning George Clooney plays a primadonna pretty boy actor on the verge of stardom, and he's the first to walk off the safety of the set — into the ghostly halls of the spooky high school, a dry ice saturated locale that could have worked even if HORROR was more of a serious venture.

HORRORScore: ***1/2

The weakest aspect (in a movie that needs anything it can to work) is no-name leading man Brendan Hughes as the former cop who was there when it happened and now, replacing Clooney, he's the film-within-a-film's star along with an actress who makes up for him, in spades: THE DAY AFTER's subtle beauty Lori Lethin plays several people — or maybe just one?

At times of utter confusion she's always fun to watch either scared to death, combating males, or being oblivious to the body count/bloodshed surrounding...

Also starring former ALICE child actor turned awkward lean teen Philip McKeon with OVER THE EDGE father and son Andy Romano and Michael Kramer along with the movie's movie's pretentious director and slimy producer Scott Jacoby and Alex Rocco plus former 1950's stud Vince Edwards, RETURN TO HORROR HIGH is a cat batting a ball of colorful string, unveiling itself creatively as it's surprisingly good: enough for horror fans to not have to take it seriously enough to feel cheated of their beloved genre, and the casual viewer could very well be entertained if they'd give in and... as the saying goes... go with it.

George Clooney's first movie after several TV roles like Facts of Life and an Elliott Gould sitcom... E.R.

George Clooney with Bad Ronald former kid actor Scott Jacoby as an as-usual sleazy Alex Rocco looks on

Scott Jacoby as director: "You're dead! Dead people have no motivation!"

For some reason they have cute Maureen McCormick lusting after giant honker giant Pepper Martin

Maureen McCormick holds up a severed limb... Give her a hand!

Buried leading character Lori Lethan with OVER THE EDGE family Andy Romano and Michael Kramer

"They just seem a little weird..." OVER THE EDGE star Michael Kramer surrenders to a jerk teacher...

Played by former Ben Casey and before that The Killing actor Vince Edwards

Michael Kramer and Vince Edwards in RETURN TO HORROR HIGH

This child's picture on the wall of a classroom was so weird we had to capture it