WolfgangR5150 As a fan these kind of films I sat down to give it view. The premise reminded of the 80's movie Heathers. 4 popular kids, popular only by name who set the tone of the school but for the most part are not well liked. Well this is 4 guys, Heathers is 4 girls. New kid shows up and is befriended into this click, Winnona Ryder has the same thing happen. Both movies, they new kid in school isn't real fond of the so called popular kids are how they treat people. Anyways, Heathers splits the killer up into two characters where Massacre roles them into one. Some of the acting kinda lame and some really average writing. I did like this movie but Heathers should be smacked for ripping this movie off almost to the every end. The killer dies blowing himself up outside the high school. Massacre at Central High should come out on DVD I would buy it. Enjoyed the movie but at the same time it now has me looking at Heathers in a less than original light.

Camera Obscura As has been pointed out by other users, this is clearly not a horror film. Perhaps a highschool-exploitation-revenge flick but without splatter or gore and there are certainly no massacres. The DVD-cover (at least the one I own, Dark Vision - 2001, different from the German cover shown here) even shows a guy holding an Axe, who is not in the movie at all, as there are no axes in the film for that matter either! When I first heard about this film, I was fascinated, mainly because of the name of the director, Rene Daalder. I was a bit puzzled, because there's only a handful of Dutch directors active in the U.S, so who was this Daalder? Perhaps just a Dutch name, as there are many in the U.S., but apparently he did come from the Netherlands and came to America around 1970 after making several films in the Netherlands. One of them, DE BLANKE SLAVIN (The White Slave) (1969), made on a budget of 1,100,000 Guilders (at least $500,000), actually was the most expensive Dutch movie made at the time. Trivia note about this, he co-wrote the script with the now (world) famous architect Dutch Rem Koolhaas! I don't have the exact figures (not even available anymore) but something like 845 people went to see it and as a result he wisely decided to leave the country for a while and went to America.After first seeing the film some five months ago, I thought it was OK, but nothing special, but barely a month later, a documentary was shown on Dutch public television, titled HERE IS ALWAYS SOMEWHERE ELSE, made - to my knowledge - by the completely vanished (from Holland at least) Rene Daalder! It's a portrait of the late Bas Jan Ader, fellow Dutch artist in exile, living and working in Los Angeles in the '60s and early '70s. A interesting portrait of a forgotten artist but to my surprise most of the documentary was about Daalder's own work, part of it about the making of MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH. In this documentary Daalder pointed out, that every poor teenager losing it's life in this film, is killed by the forces of gravity. The first time I saw the film I didn't really notice this, but indeed, everybody is killed in this way (falling of a cliff, jumping in an empty pool, the crashing of a hang-glider etc.). Even more bizarre is the fact that Bas Jan Ader, whose work this particular documentary dealt with, also had gravity as the main theme in his work. There is some earlier, very strange, footage of him (shot in Holland), falling of a roof or driving his himself with his bicycle in the water, all of it perhaps even filmed by Renee Daalder himself. The resulting material on film itself was apparently considered the end-product, the actual work of "Art".Somehow Renee Daalder incorporated some of these concepts about gravity in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH, but besides this peculiar little fact, I can only mildly recommend the film itself. During the whole film, there is a strange, somewhat menacing, atmosphere. But somehow this movie continued to haunt me, not because it's such a good film. Daalder probably had a lot of good ideas and is obviously a better writer than a director, but most of the dialog is poor and with some exceptions, the acting is amateurish. Perhaps some messages about authority, social class and status, but I wouldn't take these to seriously. Perhaps this film turns out to be more a work of experimental art than a real movie, but it's cult status seems to be firmly established by now. 7/10 for pure strangeness and sheer curiosity value.

sol (There are Spoilers) Arriving at Central High to begin classes David, Darrel Maury,is confronted with this gang of bullies, The Young Gestapo,lead by Bruce, Ray Underwood, who terrorize the students at the school. Mark, Andrew Stevens, a good friend of David's, from a previous high school, and member of "The Young Gestapo" wants him to join them and stuck his neck out to assure Bruce & Co. that he will but David is unmoved and unimpressed and tends to stays by himself. Keeping a safe distance between himself and the school bullies David for the most part is left alone with his friend Mark being more or less a buffer zone between them. It's when David see's Bruce and his gang grab Jane & Mary (Lani O'Grady & Cheryl Smith) and after dragging the girls into a deserted school room he jumps into action and makes short work of the bullies having them flee with their tails between their legs. Humiliated by the beating that David gave them and feeling that their control of the student body is slipping away the school bullies plan to get even with him but only after they offer David the "privilege" to join their gang and become one of them. Driving out one evening to the beach Bruce has Mark go out and talk to David about joining but he sees David and his girlfriend Theresa, Kimberly Black, skinny-dipping in the ocean. This has an upset and bitter Mark come back to Bruce and his fellow bullies Craig & Paul, Steve Bond & Damon Douglas, telling them that David refused to take them up on their offer. Finding David the next day fixing a car Bruce has the lift lowered on David's leg crushing it and leaving him a cripple. Mark who was mad at David for being with Theresa later found out from her that all they did was swim and nothing more, David refused to hurt his friend Mark by sleeping or having sex with Theresa, making Mark feel guilty for what happened to David. It's then when the movie takes a political and ultra-violent turn with David back in school, after recovering from his leg injury, and slowly and methodically putting away Bruce Craig & Paul. David does this by causing them to fall to their deaths from high places, like the heights of power that they were on. In the end David unknowingly creates a power vacuum that's filled by the very students that the "Young Gestapos" victimized and they turned out to be even worse, and more vicious, then the bullies that they replaced. Not your average teenager movie or a rip-off of "Rebel Without a Cause" "Massacre at Central High" shows what the saying "Power Corrupts" really means and uses the setting of students in a high school, not dictators or leader of nations, as the metaphor. David sees that he personally created a monster by ridding the school of Bruce's gang of bullies and thus slowly and quietly goes insane because of it. The only way David can make things right again is to the destroy the very system that he created, the new students bullies, and goes about it with even more determination and ferocity that he did against Bruce's "Young Gestapo". You know right away in the movie that this is not about teenagers in high school or another "Happy Days" like sitcom when you notice almost at once there's no teachers and adults in the cast except for the Alumni Ball at the end of the film. David's plans to blow Central High up with everyone there including Theresa, who he's in love with, who's the only person in the world who can stop David from doing it. Can in this situation Love overcome the hatred that David has for the new order that he created? Or has David's hatred of the monster he spawned by now gotten so far out of hand that even Theresa's death isn't enough to make David change his evil sick and destructive plan!

Coventry Without having seen this movie, a righteous first impression would be that this is a vile and ordinary 80's slasher...only made in the mid-70's. Well, you'll be pleased to learn that this assumption is wrong! Even though the vicious-sounding title and the short summary on the back of the VHS imply the opposite, "Massacre at Central High" actually is an intelligent and subversive portrait about a youthful generation and the giant gaps between them. Yes, in many aspects this really is an ahead-of-its-time slasher in which numbnut school kids get slaughtered in the most inventive ways, but the basic premise leans closer to the typically 70's revenge flicks and – and this is really special – the wholesome it forms is something entirely new and unique: an ambitious and moralistic exploitation flick. Set in a Californian high school, seemly without teachers or other staff, the new kid in town David becomes the target of a trio of bullies. These three already besiege and terrorize the rest of the school population, but with David they go so far that they eventually cripple his legs in a cowardly attack. Driven by revenge, David literally pulverizes the bullies but – just when he thinks to have brought peace inside the school's walls – the former nerds become the new bullies and they all wish to be in control of the schoolyard...I sincerely doubt whether writer/director Rene Daalder fully intended it to be like this, but his film gained a solid cult reputation because it features so many effective political metaphors! Especially since there are absolutely no adults in sight (no parents, police men or teachers), "Massacre at Central High" is like the perfect allegory on society, with its corruption and typical hypocrisy. Still, this is not a great film...and that's largely due to the total lack of budget and craftsmanship. The dialogues are poorly written and the acting is far below average. Although Daalder often succeeds in creating a suspenseful atmosphere, still too many parts of the movie are tedious and lead nowhere. Most of the actual killing sequences are imaginative, but they're too bloodless and the special effects are ludicrously fake (the rock rolling off the cliff and crushing a tent!). If you purchase this film because it looks so much like fun splatter flicks like "Prom Night" or "Graduation Day", you'll feel very cheated, that's for sure. But, either way you look at it, it's a curious gem.