hyped garbage

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

After being pushed hard by her demanding track coach (George), Laura Ramstead (Ruth Ann Llorens) collapses and dies on the high school track. Her boyfriend Kevin (Murphy) is in shock from it, and soon a black gloved killer starts picking off other track team members in typical Slasher movie fashion. Is it the grieving Kevin, the demanding Coach or the loopy Principal (Pataki)? Laura's older sister Anne (MacKenzie) has returned home to be right in the middle of it. There are a few inspired deaths like when a pole vaulting victim landing on some spikes in the matte below, and one girl stabbed through the neck while jogging. Most of the time Graduation Day is displaying terrible acting, practically no script and way too many scenes involving cast members singing along to a bad songs! Director Herb Freed, who also co-wrote this did what many low budget film makers did in the early 1980's and cash in on the success of "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th". With no suspense, atmosphere or timing bad examples like this movie is what quickly killed the Slasher film by the end of the decade.

This 1981 horror film stars Christopher George, Patch Mackenzie, E. Danny Murphy, Ruth Ann Llorens and Michael Pataki. This begins with a 200-meter race where teenage girl, Laura Ramstead (Llorens) dies suddenly after winning. Six months later, we meet her older sister, Anne (Mackenzie) who has come home from the military to visit their parents and attend Graduation in Laura's memory. At the same time, a mysterious killer begins slaughtering Laura's track team members one by one and timing them. George (City of the Living Dead) plays Coach, George Michaels, Murphy plays Laura's boyfriend, Kevin Badger and Pataki (Halloween 4) plays Principal Guglione. 80's scream queen, Linnea Quigley (Return of the Living Dead) and Wheel of Fortune hostess, Vanna White also appear as Dolores and Doris. This is OK, but I still recommend checking it out at least once if you enjoy 80's slasher flicks.

Graduation Day is a film about murder, revenge and eighties cheese. A young girl running track and field tragically dies from a heart attack. Her coach was pushing her to hurry up and make the finish line when it happened. Months later it's graduation time, and all of the students are preparing for the big day. The sister of the girl who died shows up, and the moment she does, the members of Laura's track and field team begin being murdered in horrific ways. IS the killer Laura's sister Anne, the intense track and field coach, or someone else entirely?I had mixed feelings about 'Graduation Day'. It was effective in many ways. The story was pretty good, and I liked the character development of the sister Anne. I also thought that having the killer cross off each victim by marking an 'X' on their faces on the track and field team's picture was a nice touch. But the story loses focus after the thirty minute mark, and Graduation Day becomes a jumbled mess. I honestly didn't know who half the people were that were getting killed, the film didn't seem to care enough to introduce the students to us. There were some tense moments when the killer chases the victims through the woods, but that's about it. The acting wasn't anything too great, but it wasn't atrocious. The ending was strange, I'm not a huge fan of the killer's identity but it had a bit of a cool twist. I'd recommend 'Graduation Day' to horror fans/completests and that's about it. It isn't one of the better slashers of the eighties, but definitely worth a watch.5/10

I can't really say I just saw a good film here. As a slasher, it does sort of deliver the goods. In this case, that's a handful of typical & mildly enjoyable kills, a little bit of gore left & right, and Linea Quigley running around exposing her breasts. Not once, but twice. It's about the members of a high school sporting team getting offed one by one. Who on earth could be such a maniac and why is he or she doing this? Honestly, the plot doesn't do a very good job in trying to hide the identity of the killer, but the poor red herrings are quite amusing. "Graduation Day" turns out a bare bones teen slasher -- featuring a very lousy musical sequence with a very lousy band playing & also quite a bit of entertaining experimental cross-cutting -- that might still be worth it for fans of the same old slashing formula. I didn't mind watching it myself. Main highlights for me were a sword-through-the-throat kill and the clichéd 'Psycho-esque' climax at the end.