9) Horror High (1974)

"You've got your killer. I've got my classes to attend."

Director
Larry N. Stouffer

Cast
Pat Cardi - Vernon Potts
Austin Stoker - Lt. Bozeman
Rosie Holotik - Robin Jones
Joye Hash - Miss. Grindstaff
John Niland - Coach McCall

A white and nerdy push-over high school student taking on a small rogues gallery of stereotypical, unreasonable and intolerant high school authority figures and bullies makes for a quintessential drive-in style popcorn slasher flick.
Horror High (aka Kiss the Teacher...Goodbye) is that kind of film. It seems very loosely based on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It's almost a poor man's Toxic Avenger, which came out ten years later.
Horror High is as campy as the title suggests. And it's just as predictable. The weird angles, the light and dark scenes, and the right amount of cringe moments makes it satisfying horror movie. The acting and cutaways make the movie come across as a high school or college freshman film project. And the music is as good as a low budget movie from the 1970s can be. The best way I can describe it is spooky rock. It's something a teenage Alice Cooper cover band would play in a garage.
Horror High can easily be looked at as an anti-authoritarian movie, but somewhere among the slashing and fear is a scene of generational differences. The David Bowie quote as seen in the beginning of The Breakfast Club comes to mind.
"...And these children that you spit on, as they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultations. They are quite aware what they're going through." (I'm probably reading way too much into this) Still, that's more or less the case with this movie's protagonist, Vernon Potts (Pat Cardi).
Pott's is not a bad student nor a bad kid. He's really too good. He's actually too good to be true, even for a social outcast which is what he is.
Potts takes his studies seriously. He's not anti-authority. I mean, the kid is every teachers fantasy come true. His ambition is in his biology class.
Nevertheless, teachers push him in unreasonable ways. His literature teacher, Miss. Grindstaff rips apart his biology report simply because Potts accidentally turned it in to her instead of his report on Robert Louis Stevenson. Potts has been preoccupied in trying to develop a chemical proving people can change physically and not just mentally, at a rapid pace. He's been experimenting on a guinea pig he dubbed "Mr. Mumps". For some reason, educators find that problematic. Pursuing a goal and utilizing your education while in school, Potts? How dare you!
So, Potts simply handed her the literature report by accident, but to "teach him a lesson" that literature is just as important as biology, she tears up his biology assignment right in front of him. Then she gives his other report an "F" even though he finished it.
Later, Mr. Griggs, the janitor, threatens to kill him because Potts scared Grigg's cat which was roaming around the biology lab and getting too close to Mr. Mumps.
His bullish P.E. teacher laughs in his face when Potts requests to skip P.E. to work on his project in the biology lab. And the bullies in the school call him "Creeper" which evidently people found insulting in the 70s.

Amidst all the torment, his classmate, Robin Jones (Rosie Holotik) feels bad for him because she's really into him. Aside from her love interest, she doesn't serve much of a purpose. He confides in her, but her interest in him doesn't change anything.
Potts decides to consume the chemical he's been brewing, and it turns him into a violent maniac seeking revenge on the teachers and bullies that made his school life hell. The moment he takes his anger out on his lit teacher is pretty freaky, though over the top.
After the first kill, the police waste no time investigating.And the murders continue on under their nose.
Lt. Bozeman (Austin Stoker) is heading the investigation. His intro to the audience is accompanied by music probably found in most 1970s black exploitation (blaxspotation) movies. I mean, c'mon. It shouldn't be that funny when it plays! But his scenes and music don't match.
It's not the first time Stoker and Cardi were in a movie together. They also acted together in Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973).
Bozeman laughably tells Potts a lot of information about the case. He's not initially a suspect in the murders. So, it doesn't make much sense why Bozeman would confide so much in this one white and nerdy student.
The ending is just a quick tie-up to a movie that really did try to some extent to tell a tragic, yet simple horror story.
It was over all entertaining. Entertain is what it pretty much set out to do in the end. It's funny in some instances, and a couple times not where it was supposed to be. At other times, it delivers in horror as best it could with its simple budget.