No holiday could pass the 1980s without being memorialised in the form of a slasher flick, be it Christmas Evil, My Bloody Valentine or Bloody New Year. This became untenable in the internet age when there became a day for everything, though there would probably be a market for International Talk Like a Pirate Day Holocaust or International Men’s Day Massacre.

April Fool’s Day follows a group of teenagers (including Friday the 13th Part 2‘s Amy Steel and Back the the Future‘s Thomas F. Wilson) to an island mansion for an April Fool’s weekend of pranks that quickly spiral out of control, which wouldn’t work in the UK because it would have to be over by noon. Not that it makes any sense here, but there’s fun to be had from the picture’s subversion of slasher tropes that were already tired by 1986. Eschewing the genre’s usual gore and gratuitous nudity, the picture plays more like a whodunnit than a typical slasher (Agatha Christie gets namechecked), and consequently disappointed audiences upon its release, before becoming a cult favourite on home video (featuring the great artwork above).

This delayed appreciation makes sense given how ahead of its time the film feels, pre-empting the recent game-based horror/comedy sub-genre that toys with the audience’s bloodthirsty expectations. April Fool’s Day starts with handheld camcorder footage (long before the found-footage boom), which introduces the obnoxious rich-kid archetypes, then trolls them and the viewer for a twisty 90 minutes. One effective sequence sees Nikki (Deborah Goodrich) almost drown in a well then freak out when offered a glass of water, only to be reassured: “It’s alright, it’s Perrier.” Sporting surprisingly good special effects and performances for a slasher movie, April Fool’s Day is a hoot, even if a fool could predict the day’s end.