Massacre at Central High (1976) October 15th, 2023

A twisted study on hierarchy, morality, and authority, Massacre at Central High is a confounding exploration of society through the lens of a High-school new-kid. David’s finding it difficult to fit in at Central High despite the efforts of his best friend Mark. Mark’s relatively new to the school too, but he’s sacrificed much for the safety and security that comes with being in with the kids who run Central High. This nameless gang of roughnecks keep a violent peace in a school with no adults like Grease meets Lord of the Flies.

David’s reluctantly accepted into the group but he can’t stomach exchanging his morality for security in the school’s rigid cast system. After biting his lip through witnessing the gang steal and trash a poor student’s jalopy, chase a fat kid up the rope climb at knifepoint, and roughing up a student for painting a swastika on the gang leader’s locker, David’s had enough when the bad kids attempt to rape two girls in an empty classroom.

After David breaks up the sexual assault the bullies confront him in his garage. He refuses their final membership offer so they push his car off its jack crushing his leg. During his recovery David decides Central High needs a change in leadership and begins orchestrating the elaborate deaths of the bully gang. One drives over a cliff in a van and explodes, another high-dives into an empty swimming pool, and the leader of the gang crashes his paraglider into power lines.

With all the bad people dead David believes peace will come to Central High, but he is mistaken. The formerly bullied students exhibit newfound cruelty in the power vacuum left by their tormentor’s deaths as they each claw their way to the top of the social food chain. One student buys a dead boy’s muscle car for cheap from his grieving parents, another starts shoving other students as he walks down the hallways in school, it becomes clear to David that despite removing the aggressors he hasn’t made anything better at all. Oh well, better kill all the new bullies too.

Cue more elaborate Looney Tune deaths like dropping boulders on kids or exploding them with dynamite. Nothing is too cartoonish for David. Eventually Mark and his girlfriend confront David about his social cleansing before David blows up the school alumni dance (the only time we see adults in the film) but he ignores their pleas and plants a bomb at the school anyway. Undeterred, Mark and his lady stand up to David again at the dance telling him they will stay and die like the rest of the unsuspecting revelers unless he defuses the bomb. Unwilling to kill his friends (why stop now?) David removes the bomb from the school but it explodes in his hands outside Central High’s front steps. No one notices he’s dead or that his bits are splattered all over the street and everyone just goes back to dancing. Movie over.

Massacre at Central High‘s in-world logic is chaotic and strange. The first time we meet the bullies they’re bothering a kid who’s painting a swastika on a locker. Beating up nazis is what heroes do so we’re already off to a rocky start where I want to like the bad guys. But then they’re mean to everyone else and it seems like David is supposed to be the protagonist, I’m left to assume the guy painting the swastika was doing so on one of the bullies lockers. Effectively calling THEM nazis. That could’ve been done better. There’s also the awkward skinny dipping scene.

David spends a lot of alone time with Mark’s girlfriend while Mark’s busy trying to mend fences between David and the bullies. That alone time leads them to the beach at nighttime where Mark secretly observes his girlfriend and David frolicking naked in the water. Mark keeps this information to himself, and continues to lobby for David with his horrible friends. Eventually Mark’s girlfriend reveals the truth about their skinny-dipping. With all the emotional range of a Lite Brite she confesses that she wanted to make love to David that night on the beach, and that she believes he wanted to as well, but that he didn’t out of respect for his friendship with Mark. Mark doesn’t respond in any describable way and never brings it up again to anyone, acting as if she didn’t confess and he didn’t observe. Why introduce all that drama if it doesn’t enrich the story, the character’s arcs, or lead to a cathartic payoff? Because a skinny-dipping scene is an easy way to incorporate the most important element of a high school horror film, nudity.

I’m left wondering what was Massacre at Central High‘s nihilistic central message? Good and evil are simple morality constructs assigned by the lower class to maintain moral superiority against those with authority? No matter how many bad guys you eliminate there will always be someone waiting in line to exact their own brand of cruelty against those weaker than themselves? None of that fits into Massacre at Central High‘s awkward after school special pastiche, but it couldn’t possibly seek to lionize a protoschool-shooter… right?

Massacre at Central High left me pulling out my hair in confusion and grief. The world it depicts is chaotic and insane full of senseless violence, misguided heroism, and banal sexuality. Is that a brilliant representation of the adolescent experience? Did Massacre at Central High reverse engineer itself into the best high school horror film ever? No, it’s far too dumb for that, but it’s fun to pretend.