Night School

We dig into the 1981 slasher Night School, drawn in by Mark Irwin’s cinematography and the film’s giallo-inspired mystery setup.

Shot on location in Boston, it leans on familiar tropes—black gloves, an obscured killer, and a whodunit investigation—but stands out with stylish, restrained beheading set pieces, clever editing, and memorable sound design.

We walk through standout sequences like the aquarium kill and the restaurant “stew” fake-out, debate the soapier relationship drama around Professor Millet and Eleanor, and react to the reveal of the killer and a lengthy motorcycle chase.

By the end, we agree it’s well-made and visually strong, even if watching so many early ’80s slashers back-to-back dulled the impact.

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Night School (1981)

Episode 493, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: This week was my turn to pick. I just can’t get off of these 1981 slasher films. There are just so darn many of them to find, and I’m always finding something new. I think this one I was led to because a couple weeks ago we did another ’81 slasher, and we were really talking about how nice the cinematography was.

And the cinematographer for that one was Mark Irwin. Mark Irwin has done a ton of stuff. He’s worked pretty closely with David Cronenberg. He’s done a lot of these old horror movies that we’ve done. The Brood, Scanner. Well, we haven’t done Scanners yet, I guess. Videodrome- Mm … The Fly, The Blob remake that we loved so much.

Uh, Robocop movies, Robocop 2, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Dumb and Dumber. Like, the list goes on. This guy’s a major cinematographer. He’s done a bunch of horror, and then he kinda went into comedy there in the ’90s, so. Anyway, as I was going through his stuff, I saw this one, Night School, which pops up on my lists every now and then, and I thought, “Oh, that would be kind of fun.”

Another slasher movie. It looks to be somewhat giallo inspired, and it had some pretty nice things that people had said about it. So this is Night School from 1981. Craig, d- have you ever seen this before?

Craig: Nope. As far as I know, never heard of it. I mean, Night School is a pretty generic title for one of these ’80s horror movies, so-

Todd: Yeah

Craig: maybe I’ve heard it before, I don’t know. But I s- definitely don’t think that I had seen it, so I I really don’t have any history with it at all, so this was my first experience with it.

Todd: Yeah, mine too. In fact, I don’t even remember seeing it, like, on the shelves or anything like that. I

Craig: don’t either.

Todd: But the director is, uh, Ken Hughes.

Ken Hughes is quite prolific. He did Chitty Chitty Bang Bang wrote and directed.

Craig: That movie scared me when I was a kid.

Todd: Oh my God. That was my… Yeah, that’s- It should … gateway horror, that movie.

Craig: The, I… It wasn’t something that we watched in our house, and so s- I don’t know, a teacher showed it to us at school, and, like, I was terrified.

Todd: Oh, man. Yeah, the Child Catcher in that is just- Yeah … scary. I… Someday I’m gonna show that to Kenji, but I w- I… ‘Cause he likes musicals, but I do wonder if it’s gonna give him nightmares, that Child Catcher. But yeah, so Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Night School was actually, this was his very last film before he…

I mean, he didn’t pass away, he just retired. And he passed away in 2001 at the ripe old age of 79. So, uh-

Clip: Mm.

Todd: Yeah, what a film to go out on. Just slasher movie that has a few different things in it, but a lot of things the same. I don’t know. Let, l- Do we just dive into it? Do you have any, like, overall thoughts you wanna say?

Craig: No, I guess. I mean, I th- I think that my feelings on this one might be kind of tainted by the fact that we’ve done so many of them in a row.

Todd: Yeah. Comparing them now, aren’t we?

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And after a while it’s like, okay. They’re all the

Todd: same.

Craig: To some extent, and, and that’s fine. I mean, to some extent that’s what I like about them.

I, I kind of know what I’m getting into. I kind of know what to expect. I’m looking for certain tropes and things. But when you watch them back to back to back, and, heh, I don’t know i- if we’re keeping this some kind of big secret, but, like, we did the last, I don’t know, what, seven episodes, like, in a marathon.

Todd: That’s right. We, we have not given ourselves any break between these movies. So you’re right, it feels like we’ve seen six of these.

Craig: Yeah, like straight back to back. So, uh- Oh,

Todd: we should take a break.

Craig: Yeah, maybe so Yeah, so I don’t know. I, I, I guess we just jump into it. There are, you know, as, as you already mentioned, the cinematography is good.

It’s shot w- in Boston, is that right?

Todd: Yeah, almost entirely on location in Boston.

Craig: Yeah, and the locations are great, and I think that I read that up until this point, Boston hadn’t really been used as a shooting location much, if at all, like maybe a movie or two before that.

Todd: Mm-hmm.

Craig: It is a really cool, you know, ki- you know, the streets look old and, and historic, and it’s all lit very well, and all of that looks great.

It’s just as far as plot is concerned, I’m like, “Yeah, l- l- the last three episodes we did, just, like, kinda listen to those.” It’s

Todd: kind of the same plot, yeah.

Craig: Pretty much the same. It really is. Especially since, you know, we’re doing these older ones that s- it’s… As you were saying it a minute ago when you were saying it’s got elements of giallo, it’s giallo inspired.

Well, yeah, we always say that because they all are. Mm-hmm. I mean, even e- even what became the more prototypical ’80s slashers still were inspired by giallo. Like-

Todd: Yeah …

Craig: they didn’t carry over every element, but… So it’s funny, but this one specifically is, you know, uh, uh, many of the same details, the black gloves, the obscured figure.

You don’t know who it is until the end, and it’s a mystery, and there are people investigating the mystery. And so that’s the base- … of it, but we can get into the more details of what’s actually going on in this one.

Todd: Yeah, there are quite a few characters in here, and I think this one sets it apart from maybe one of the last ones we did where there were, seemed to be a very small cast, so there weren’t a lot of people to be thinking about or to be suspects.

This kicks off at a daycare as it’s letting out, a daycare in the middle of the city, and this woman, Anne Barrens, is just sitting with this little girl, Lisa, on a merry-go-round. One of those classic, classic old-school merry-go-rounds that I probably aren’t… They don’t put in, uh, playgrounds anymore, do they? I think they’re deemed fairly unsafe, but I love them.

We

Craig: had one at, uh, our elementary school here until recently. I don’t know if it’s still there or not. I haven’t been by in a while.

Todd: I mean, it’s the kind of thing when you look at it, and I think about it now, man, we would w- you know, we would spin each other around on these things so- till we were almost flying off.

And if somebody, I don’t know, rolled underneath it, that wouldn’t be good. Yeah, they were- Probably not. I, I don’t know how none of us ever got injured on… Well, some of us probably did get injured on these things, but I really miss those old school playground equipment.

Craig: Especially since, you know, our playgrounds were just on concrete.

Mm. Like, at least now they put down, like, those rubber chips or whatever.

Todd: That’s true. Well, Anne Behrens is about to get it. She’s a teacher there.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Seems like she’s… And we later learn she’s going to night school to get her teaching …