A lot of slashers in the early ‘80s leaned on a mystery component, so it would only seem natural that the small screen would adapt this method to attract the horror crowd; however, being unable to show anything by network standards leaves you with only the mystery of the killer to fall back on. Such is the case with Deadly Lessons (1983), a fun enough slasher without the slashing and a stacked cast.
Originally broadcast on March 7th as The ABC Monday Night Movie, Deadly Lessons was schooled by Alice/One Day at a Time on CBS and NBC rolled out their own movie competition; but ABC always had a knack for attracting strong casts and interesting horror based material. Deadly Lessons has the cast part nailed, and offers up an interesting enough thriller as long as you’re not expecting too many slasher tropes, small screen or not.
Open up your TV textbook (er, GUIDE) to see what’s on the curriculum:
DEADLY LESSONS (Monday, 9pm, ABC)
A new student at an all-girls boarding school finds her classmates dropping off one by one. Diane Franklin, Donna Reed star.
We open with Stefanie (Franklin – Better Off Dead) arriving by taxi at the posh Starkwater Hall Boarding School, where she explains to the driver through handy exposition that she is there on a scholarship and that she hopes the girls like her. And as with any mix of adolescent hormones, some do and some don’t; those in the do column include Marita (Ally Sheedy – The Breakfast Club), Cally (Renee Jones – Jason Lives), and Eddie, the stable boy (Bill Paxton – Aliens), and well the rest are on guard as to the latest student.
When one of the students is found floating face down in the river, Det. Russ Kemper (Larry Wilcox – CHiPs) is called in, and as more girls start dying, his list of suspects is endless: could it be the creepy groundskeeper, Hartigan (Donald Hotton – Dances with Wolves)? Or perhaps the school’s headmistress (Reed – It’s a Wonderful Life), who’s carrying on an affair with the equestrian instructor (David Ackroyd – The Dark Secret of Harvest Home), who himself enjoys the company of some of the young ladies on campus a little too much? Or maybe it’s Shama (Vicki Kriegler – The Competition), the student who always has murder on the mind? I’ll never tell, but the girls take to sleuthing before class is cut forever…
If you go into Deadly Lessons (AKA Highschool Killer) knowing that it favors mystery over murder (nothing is shown, at all), you’ll be pleasantly surprised with its relative effectiveness; there are no shocks or jump scares, but I have a feeling that director William Wiard (This House Possessed) and writer Jennifer Miller (The Babysitter) were aiming for the Nancy Drew crowd with this one – teen girls in peril never goes out of style, albeit presented here with the utmost taste and chaste.
Are there clues along the way? Does it play fair? Well, there’s a couple, looking back; so yes the killer’s identity isn’t a total surprise – in fact, we get a double twist just to make it interesting. And don’t worry, red herrings abound; some are more obvious than others, but that’s part of the fun, isn’t it? It’s a 90 minute guessing game.
But if you’re in it for the cast, Deadly Lessons has you completely covered. For the older folk, Reed gets the top billing she deserves and projects an air of haughty resignation to the headmistress, which is very appropriate. For slightly younger TV lovers, Wilcox is on hand, and frankly he’s a little bland; it seems Estrada’s charisma is what kept CHiPs hopping for so many seasons. For genre lovers however, it provides a glorious bounty: Paxton and Franklin and Sheedy and Jones and Ackroyd, oh my! And they all acquit themselves nicely, each with a specific part to play in the puzzle. (Or do they? Hmmm?)
Okay, so Agatha Christie won’t be sweating in her grave over this one, nor should it concern Jessica Fletcher for that matter; but Deadly Lessons has a very likeable cast, and a mystery that should please fans of splatter movies – as long as you remember they left their entire blood budget at home with their Chemistry book.
Scott Drebit lives and works in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is happily married (back off ladies) with 2 grown kids. He has had a life-long, torrid, love affair with Horror films. He grew up watching Horror on VHS, and still tries to rewind his Blu-rays. Some of his favourite horror films include Phantasm, Alien, Burnt Offerings, Phantasm, Zombie, Halloween, and Black Christmas. Oh, and Phantasm.
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