Review #147: April Fool's Day (2008)

Cast/Notable Credits:
Mitchell Altieri & Phil Flores (Directors): The Hamiltons (2006)

Scout Taylor-Compton (Torrance): Halloween

Taylor Cole (Desiree): Loaded (2008), 12 Rounds (2009), Heroes T.V. series

Josh Henderson (Blaine): The Girl Next Door (2004), Desperate Houswives T.V. Series

Joe Egender (Ryan): The Hamiltons

Jennifer Siebel Newsom (Barbie): Dinocroc (2004), Rent (2005), Life T.V. series

Samuel Child (Peter): The Hamiltons

Joseph McKelheer (Charles): The Hamiltons

Sabrina Aldrige (Milan): Deck the Halls (2006)

Trailer:

Plot:

In this remake, the film starts off with two rich siblings (Desiree and Blaine) throwing a party for a friend. Desiree is hosting a “debut party” in honor of her friend Torrance. Don’t ask me what a “debut party” is, I’m just as confused. All I know is that it involves the rich snobby class that I probably will never be a part of.

Desiree’s rich and elite friends attend this “debut party” at her mansion, including one of her rival rich snobs, Milan. Mortal enemies…damn rich folk. “Ah. You spent $50K more on your hairstyle than I did. You b*tch!”

That’s not what happened… it’s just me talking out loud. But… ”Oh my god, my 07’ Mercedes is such an eye sore!”…that’s actually an argument in the film. F*ckin’ rich people! Here's a picture of a 2007 Mercedes. Does that look like an "eye sore" to you? The only way it hurts my eyes is because I don't have one. Once again...f*ckin' rich people!

Desiree plays a prank on Milan by drugging her drink (with a roofie) and has her brother Blaine attempt to sleep with her. Unknown to Milan, Desiree and Charles (another rich dweeb) is secretly videotaping the sexual encounter with hopes to post the video on the internet so Desiree can laugh at her.

I gotta say that’s one hell of a prank. Let’s drug a girl so your brother can have sex with her, video tape it and post it on youtube. I’m a little behind on my criminal law, but I think that’s called…rape. I don’t know. I’m a little fuzzy on the subject, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s called.

During the prank, several of Desiree’s friends barge in and Milan becomes somewhat aware of what’s going on. Still feeling a little drugged and clumsy, Milan has some sort of reaction (or seizure) to the roofie and stumbles out of the room and accidentally falls over a balcony railing to her death. Score one for the rich!


One year later, an unknown killer has targeted the ones present at Milan’s death. The twisted killer hunts them down one by one. I wonder if the killer leaves a note stating: “I Know What You Did Last April Fool’s Day!” Because it’s sounding a lot like a blend of I Know What You Did Last Summer and the original April Fool’s Day. Oh wait, my bad...they all get an invitation to attend Milan’s burial site. So it does sound like IKWYDLS. Just look at the cover...it looks like IKWYDLS!

Villain:

Because AFD is a “who dunnit?” film, I’m not going to name the killer, but I’ll just say that the killer has more money than you or me. The true villain(s) of the film are the directors, The Butcher Brothers. Really? This is the best you can do? You remake a great cult horror film with this teenie bopper, rich and famous pile of crap?

Cast:

Robin Leach should pile this cast into one his yachts and sail it straight into an ice berg, crashing it and letting them to fall into the sub below temperature waters and freeze to death or get eaten by a shark…with the exception of one…Taylor Scout Compton. That’s how painfully awful the cast was.

Taylor Scout-Compton on the other hand…she’s HOT! Okay her performance as Torrance wasn’t the best in this film, but I don’t care…she’s awesome. “I would ____ her.” Insert whatever you want here. Bang, marry…whatever as long as I’m part of that phrase, it is all good. Well, maybe not “any” word, but you know what I mean.

The other lead female in the film, Desiree (played by Taylor Cole) plays a stuck-up, rich b*tch snob. Her acting was a little cardboard-ish, but she pulled off playing a b*tch pretty well. If you haven’t seen Taylor Cole (pictured left), she kind of looks a lot like Megan Fox, Charisma Carpenter and Tiffany Amber-Theisen. Man, I’ve hyphenated a lot of names so far. That kind of sucks.

SFX/Gore:

As far as deaths in the film, they treat us to a hot chick falling off a balcony to her death (poor girl). Also we have some less than thrilling deaths such as someone drowning, a cheesy electroction, being hit by a car, and a good ole' fashion throat slashing. The biggest surprise was a gun shot death.

TNA:

Unlike the first film, the screen is filled up with a lot of eye candy. Most of them are bad acting eye candy, but regardless, they’re eye candy. AFD does show us a glimpse at a Miss “Whatever” Pageant and gives us great sleazy outfits rich girls wear.

Without any nudity, and a whole bunch of underdressed females, AFD is another cock tease for the boys. For the ladies…you get a bunch of young twenty some old actors wearing fancy clothes, and a couple “shirt-off” scenes. But I’m a man, so my main concern is on the females…so for the guys…I’ll give you a present and you can just stare at the beautiful Taylor Scout-Compton (pictured below). She has a gorgeous smile. Doesn’t she?

T.Gun’s Take:

I loved the original AFD. I thought that it was a clever film with some balls. So when I heard that someone was remaking it, I got a little excited. Time passed and it finally came out…on DVD. My initial thought…hmm…something’s wrong here. But not every straight to DVD film sucks. Unfortunately I was wrong. It did suck. I watched the remake and to sum it up…I was disappointed with the film.

Why didn’t I like it? Well, I just couldn’t buy into the back drop of the film. It was the characters, the whole elite society thing. I’m glad when remakes aren’t the exact “copy/paste” of the originals, but I hated the rich snob element so much that I just could bare this one. How can anyone relate to the characters or mindset of them? It was painful to watch a bunch of bad acting rich snobs. F*ckin' rich people!

The storyline of the film was pretty clever including the ending, but the character development was horrible. I just thought that the film makers could (SHOULD) have done a better job with this thing. I guess this is where the whole thing got bumped and moved to “straight to DVD” instead of a theatrical release.

AFD featured little suspense and a whole lot of bad acting. AFD did supply a few AFD jokes, but overall I wasn’t impressed with the film. My advice, watch the original and avoid the remake.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on March 25, 2008 and went straight to DVD
-The directors go by the combined named of “The Butcher Brothers”
-Scout Taylor-Compton's father was a mortician
-Filmed in North Carolina