MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH (1976)

 Boys will be boys: an attempted gang rape in an empty classroom. 

So, after first hearing about it some 42 years ago, I finally saw MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH (1976)

Somewhere in southern California, David (Derrel Maury), a new student, comes to Central High and reconnects with Mark (Andrew Stevens), an old friend whom he once helped out of a bad situation. Mark seeks to repay that kindness by bringing David into his clique, but David immediately discovers his old friend's crew are the school bullies, a trio of rich, entitled bastards who keep the entire student body in check via relentless intimidation, cruelty, and violence. Over the course of a few days, David observes both the oppressors and the oppressed and makes up his mind to steer clear of Mark and his buddies.

The bullies take umbrage at David's disrespect of them, but before they can do anything about it they decide to rape two female classmates whose close friendship leads the bullies to believe they're lesbians, so the lads decide to "teach them something." The girls get hauled into an empty classroom and are about to be brutally assaulted when David arrives, already brimming with anger and hatred for the bullies, and he hands the trio a righteous clobbering. (Mark, sensing what his cronies were planning, opted out.) Butthurt over their beating, the bullies plot revenge against David, lest word get around that he handed them their asses in no uncertain terms. The bullies cripple David by dropping the car he was repairing on his leg, thus ending his anger-managing hobby of running.

After a stay in the hospital, David returns to school with a pronounced limp, and it is revealed that he didn't implicate the bullies in his hobbling, for which the leader of the bullies thanks David, to which David ominously responds with "Ratting people out isn't my style." In short order, David cleverly assassinates the three bullies in ways that appear to be accidents, so he will not be suspected by the authorities. 

 

Assassination Number 1: a clipped control wire sends a bully's hang glider into live high tension wires. ZAP!!! 

Assassination Number 2: a bully high dives into the school's swimming pool in the dark, not realizing that the pool was drained for maintenance. CRUNCH!!!

Assassination Number 3: the remaining bully is trapped in his surfer van and the van is rolled over a cliff, from which it tumbles to its explosive doom. KABOOM!!!

However, it's obvious to all of his schoolmates that David was the author of the bullies' gruesome demises, and they are grateful for being liberated from their serial tormentors. But now that the power dynamic has shifted, several of the formerly-victimized now seek to fill that vacuum themselves, proving that they are just as bad as those who tormented them. Nerds, the handicapped, hippies, and. even some of the girls all approach David to join with them as the figurehead of what they seek to establish as the school’s new order, but all David sees is a new group of vicious assholes replacing the previous, so all that’s left to do is exterminate the lot of them, which he does, again in ways that will not implicate him, with the demolition of the school serving as his final measure to end the bullshit once and for all…

MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH is a movie that could never get made today, for obvious reasons, and it enjoyed a heavy cult reputation during the ’70’s and ’80’s. Though bearing the look and feel of a made-for-TV movie from its era, it features enough cursing, sex and nudity, and R-rated violence to make it a grindhouse perennial, and it surprises by having more of a brain in its head than one would think. The main bullies are all dead by the end of the second act, so the third act examines how the student body vies for power in the wake of the bullies’ deaths, and it also makes it clear that we should not be rooting for mark, no matter how satisfying his kills are, because he’s very obviously shown to be a calm and methodical merciless sociopath who will kill without a shred of remorse. Oh, and look for appearances by exploitation stalwart Bainbeaux Smith, whose elfin blonde nudity is always a welcome sight, and a young pre-REVENGE OF THE NERDS Robert Carradine.

It’s all very bleak stuff, but I have to say that I would have loved it if I had seen it anytime during my years in grades 7-12. I endured bullying from some sadistic kids during those years, and as Black kid in Westport I could not fight back without risking litigation from my bullies’ parents or ending up thrown in jail by the town’s racially profiling cops. The last thing my already stressed-out mother needed was me going to jail, so I just had to take it until the eventual graduation released me from my education system jail sentence. A movie like this would have been my vengeance fantasy writ large, and I'm kind of sad that it took me so long to finally get around to seeing it. Good stuff, and it’s available for uncensored on YouTube Premium and Amazon Prime Video.

Poster from the original theatrical release.