A slasher film set at a high school, Graduation Day is remembered most for its appearance of Vanna White, merely a couple of years away from achieving immense fame turning letters on TV’s Wheel of Fortune. Directed by Herb Freed (Beyond Evil), Graduation Day is so utterly forgettable that although I’ve seen it probably three times in my life, I never can recall who the killer is. Then again, the experience is so passive, why pay it mind?

The movie begins with a montage of parallel bars and other athletic pursuits set to an inspirational disco track that concludes with a senior track star’s death at the finish line by a loosed blood clot. Her Navy-enlisted sister (Patch Mackenzie, It’s Alive III) comes home from being stationed in Guam to attend the funeral and graduation ceremony, and almost immediately, other members of the track and field team are murdered one by one by a killer wielding a fencing sword. He/she wears the requisite black gloves, but utilizing a stopwatch while stalking his/her victims has to be a slasher first.

Each unfortunate senior is marked off a group photo with lipstick, after being, say, stabbed through the throat in the locker room or pole-vaulting onto a bed of spikes, because that can happen. A second before one guy loses his head, his make-out partner says, “It must be nice to be a boy, piss anywhere you want to.” The body count is surprisingly low; the pacing, predictably slow.

At least Vanna plays a bitch who pees her pants in fright. Another famous face/figure in an early role is scream queen Linnea Quigley (The Return of the Living Dead), who sheds her shirt in an attempt to seduce her Marvin Hamlisch-esque music teacher into raising her grade, yet even that fails to raise a viewer’s pulse. Freed’s ineptness is reflected in day-for-night shots, strobe effects, and allowing both coach Christopher George (Pieces) and principal Michael Pataki (Dracula’s Dog) to emote through squints and grunts. —Rod Lott

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