Deadly Lessons (1983 TV Movie)
"Holy Grail" made-for-TV slasher movie
25 November 2007
This kind of a holy grail among both slasher films and TV movies because it is BOTH a slasher film and a TV movie, which means that as a slasher film it is much harder to find than the cinematic ones which are all getting the deluxe DVD treatment these days no matter how godawful they are, and as a TV movie it is one the few that is NOT totally worthless. Needless to say there is very little blood and no nudity here, but its gratifying to read that Donna Reed still considered it "sleazy" (that's as good as "thumbs up" from Ebert and Roeper for me).

The very familiar plot involves mysterious murders at a prestigious girl's school run by Donna Reed. The most familiar actor is probably Bill Paxton, who also appeared in the cinematic slasher "Mortuary" before making it big with "Weird Science" and "Aliens". The lead is the chronically cute Dianne Franklin, who is not great here but sure is easy to look at and highly stalk-able. She was not in nearly enough movies. The same can not be said, unfortunately, for her main co-star Ally Sheedy, but you'll be glad to know she ends up bound and gagged at one point here (two more thumbs up!). Then, even more obscure than Franklin, there's Krista Erickson who played the original "mean girl" in the summer camp classic "Little Darlings" and also enjoyed a brief career as a really nice piece of acting talent in the kind of movies that play late at night on cable television.

Unfortunately, the only way to see this movie right now is to also catch it late at night on one of the Turner Stations (which is how I saw, but unfortunately didn't record, it). But, hey, if anyone reading this is a mover and shaker at Turner, this would be a great choice for a DVD release.
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