A holiday where everyone lives (sort of)
In the great family tree of 80s slashers, April Fool’s Day is the cheerful, slightly deranged cousin who shows up to the reunion in a cable-knit sweater and then rearranges all the silverware just to see who notices. It’s marketed like a straightforward body-count movie—group of horny college kids, remote island, unknown killer—but what Fred Walton actually delivers is a black-comedy puzzle box that loves the genre enough to lovingly roast it.
Where most slashers are about punishing bad behavior, this one’s about punking the audience. And frankly, the genre had it coming.
Welcome to Murder Airbnb: Muffy St. John Edition
Our victims-in-waiting are a standard-issue 80s bunch, but with more personality than usual:
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Harvey, rich Texas goofball slash human hat.
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Nikki, horny, sarcastic, and allergic to modest swimwear.
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Rob and Kit, our designated semi-responsible couple.
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Skip, Muffy’s cousin with a death wish and a trust fund.
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Chaz, the walking definition of “sleazy film major.”
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Nan, serious, theater-kid energy with unresolved feelings.
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Arch, if a frat party grew legs.
They arrive at Muffy St. John’s family island mansion for a long weekend of drinking, flirting, and not thinking about midterms. En route, a deckhand named Buck gets mangled in a boat accident that’s just gory enough to make you think, Ah, okay, so we’re really doing this.
Once they reach the house, things start with goofy pranks—whoopee cushions, dribble glasses, exploding cigars. Then the gags get nastier: a crying baby tape in Nan’s room, drug paraphernalia in Arch’s wardrobe, and other carefully curated trauma nuggets. It’s half Animal House, half therapy exercise from hell.
And then they start “dying.”
A slasher that knows you’ve seen slashers
The beauty of April Fool’s Day is that it plays fair with slasher expectations right up until it doesn’t. Characters vanish. Severed heads show up in wells. Bodies are discovered. The phone lines conveniently go dead. The ferry doesn’t come back. All the classics.
But while lesser movies treat this like a checklist, April Fool’s Day treats it like choreography. The kills are never dwelt on in a leering, mean-spirited way; they’re strategic disappearances designed to mess with both the remaining characters and the audience. You think you’re watching another campground bloodbath, but there’s something just… off. The tone never quite sinks into pure dread—it keeps snapping back to pitch-black farce.
This is a movie that understands how absurd the slasher formula can be and chooses to lean in, not by mocking horror outright, but by asking, “What if all this carnage had a business plan?”
Muffy, Buffy, and capitalism, baby
Deborah Foreman’s Muffy is the secret sauce here. She starts out as the slightly awkward but enthusiastic hostess, clearly pleased with herself for staging the weekend of pranks. Gradually, she becomes twitchy, distant, and just unhinged enough that the “she has a violent twin sister named Buffy” twist feels… well, hilariously on brand.
By the time Kit and Rob are running around convinced Muffy is dead and Buffy—the homicidal twin—is loose with a knife, the movie has fully embraced soap-operatic slasher nonsense. Secret twins? Hidden basements? Severed heads? Of course. It’s April Fools’. Reality’s on break.
And then comes the heel turn: Kit stumbles into a room and finds everyone alive, intact, and extremely pleased with themselves. The whole thing has been a trial run—Muffy’s grand concept for a murder-mystery resort where rich people pay to be stalked, terrorized, and “killed” for fun.
In other words: April Fool’s Day is secretly about monetized trauma, immersive theater, and the kind of entrepreneurial mindset that makes WeWork look emotionally stable.
The joke’s on us (and it’s great)
The ending famously annoyed some critics and gorehounds who wanted the bodies to stay dead. But honestly? The reveal that it was all staged is precisely what gives the film its charm.
Because think about it:
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We still got the suspense, the misdirection, the paranoia.
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We still got decently gnarly fake kills and good scares.
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We also get to walk away knowing these idiots will be laughing about this for years in group chats and expensive therapy.
It’s the rare slasher that lets its cast live and still feels satisfying. Nobody escapes unscarred—they’ve been humiliated, terrified, and forced to confront some ugly personal truths. Nan’s prank, for example, digs directly into her trauma. Arch’s “junkie” gag hits a little too close. Muffy’s entire scheme is ethically… let’s say “adventurous.”
But the film never lets that turn sour. The “we’re alive!” sequence isn’t just a cop-out—it’s a punchline. Horror and comedy share a setup/payoff structure, and April Fool’s Day goes all-in on that shared DNA. The murders weren’t real; the anxiety was. Just like most holidays with your extended family.
Good kids, not just meat
A lot of 80s slashers treat their characters like walking red shirts—you remember hairstyles more than personalities. Here, though, the cast is actually… fun to hang out with. That matters.
Amy Steel’s Kit is sharp without being sanctimonious, Rob is a decent guy without being dull, Nikki is outrageous but oddly likable, Harvey’s Texas oil himbo routine is ridiculous in a way that feels intentional, and even Chaz, human slimeball that he is, lands squarely in “guy you’d roll your eyes at, not call the cops on.”
So when they start dropping, you don’t cheer. You’re bummed. You miss the energy they bring to the ensemble. That makes the eventual “just kidding” all the sweeter. This isn’t a meat grinder; it’s a prank that got wildly, elaborately out of hand.
And yes, it’s a little implausible that they all forgive Muffy so quickly, but honestly, if someone gave you the wildest story of your life and an open bar, you’d probably toast her too.
The last scare and the winking Jack
Because this is still an 80s horror film, April Fool’s Day can’t resist one more gag. After the celebratory champagne and emotional decompression, Muffy finds a gift on her bed: a jack-in-the-box like the one from her childhood flashback. She cranks it, Jack pops, someone slits her throat from behind—and we’re right back in horror mode.
Then: no blood. Trick razor. Stage gore. Nan, getting her own back with a perfectly calibrated fake-out.
The final shot, the jack-in-the-box lying on its side and winking, is the film in miniature: it’s literally the movie saying, “You know we’re messing with you, and you’re still jumping anyway. Thanks for playing.”
A slasher with a heart and a punchline
Is April Fool’s Day scary? Sometimes. Is it funny? Often. Is it mean-spirited? Not really, and that’s what makes it special.
In a decade stuffed with films where the only prank is “you thought that character mattered,” this one dares to do something gentler and more subversive. It weaponizes your expectations, pulls the rug, and then invites you to stay for drinks. It’s not mocking horror fans; it’s in on the joke with them.
If your idea of a good time is watching the slasher formula get twisted into something sly, playful, and just nasty enough to count, this is holiday viewing you can revisit every year. And if you still prefer your endings bleak and your corpses permanent, that’s okay too.
Just remember: on this island, the only thing really getting murdered is your trust in straightforward storytelling. And honestly? It had it coming.
