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1[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/image_276.jpeg]]
2[[caption-width-right:300:That's not a proper SlipknotPonytail, young lady!]]
3
4''April Fool's Day'' is a 1986 SlasherMovie directed by Creator/FredWalton, who also directed ''Film/WhenAStrangerCalls'' seven years prior.
5
6Muffy St. John (Creator/DeborahForeman) is rich and she is about to inherit an old house on an island, where she decides to throw a party for her pals from college [[HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday on April Fool's Day]]. But weird things begin to happen, as someone has planned a very different series of April Fool's pranks for the guests...
7
8Got a loose DirectToVideo {{remake}} in 2008 starring Creator/TaylorCole and Creator/JoshHenderson.
9
10----
11!!Examples contained within this book. Gotcha!
12* AllWomenAreLustful: Judging by the kitchen conversation, Muffy, Kit and Nikki love lots and lots of sex. Even Nan, the supposedly repressed good girl, got pregnant.
13* AprilFoolsPlot: [[spoiler: The entire killing spree was just an elaborate joke planned by Muffy]].
14* BewareTheQuietOnes: Nan is a quiet, bookish young woman who would rather read or talk about theatre than party with the rest of the group and runs away crying when she thinks Muffy set up a prank as a cruel reminder of her abortion. [[spoiler: After TheReveal that Muffy planned the whole murder setup, she waits until Muffy is alone to viciously slit her throat with a knife! Except it's a gag knife, and Nan gets the last laugh.]] "April Fool", indeed.
15* {{Bookends}}: The jack-in-the-box appears in the opening credits and shows up again in the last scene.
16* BringMyBrownPants: Arch apparently while trapped in the woods.
17--> "You browned your trail?"
18* CameraFiend: Chaz films everyone with his video camera, and he's also shown as a pervert.
19* CatScare: Skip is scared by a cat before he is attacked.
20* CaughtInASnare: Arch when he is in the forest.
21* CerebusCallBack: Inverted. The first time the jack-in-the-box is seen it scares Muffy with a lizard head and the second time it's just a clown.
22* ClosedCircle: The island. Part of the tension comes from there being no ferry to the mainland over the weekend.
23* ComedicSociopathy: [[spoiler: The whole thing turns out to be a prank on Muffy's part - testing out a 'murder mystery weekend' business plan, while making the house a B&B. That said, considering the other character thought their friends had been killed and legitimately feared for their lives, it comes across and extremely cruel and practically sociopathic, yet oddly the rest of the group isn't furious when they find out it was a prank and seem to [[EasilyForgiven forgive Muffy right away even though she doesn't even apologize]]]].
24* CountryMouse: Hal has a Southern accent and even describes himself as a "hick".
25* CoughSnarkCough
26-->'''Kit''': And don't anyone say 'April Fools' again or I'll rip them apart!\
27'''Skip & Arch''': *Cough*april fools*cough*
28* DeadlyRotaryFan: Early in the movie Buck the deckhand gets horribly mutilated by a boat propeller. [[spoiler: It turns out to just be part of the prank]]
29* DeadStarWalking: Apart from Amy Steel, [[spoiler: Creator/ThomasFWilson is likely the other most recognizable name in the cast due to his role as Biff in the ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' movies. His character is seemingly one of the early victims, but he does show up again alive at the end when the whole scenario is revealed as a prank.]]
30* DoNotCallMePaul: It's not Harvey, it's Hal.
31* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler: Nan's little joke at the end, where she pretends to [[SlashedThroat slice Muffy's throat open]]]].
32* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Nobody even dies and everyone lived happily ever after.]]
33* EthicalSlut: Nikki sleeps freely with Arch and Chaz, and flirts with Hal. Yet she's not demonized for it and is shown as simply fun-loving.
34* EvilTwin: [[spoiler: Muffy's "twin sister" Buffy who is really just Muffy. Skip IS her twin though, and is evil in the original book]].
35* EverybodyLives: [[spoiler: One of the few horror movies to ever use this trope!]]
36* ExplosiveCigar: Harvey smokes one amongst the many gags directed at the guests.
37* FinalGirl: Nan seems most likely to be this, then gets killed third. Kit then seems to be the FinalGirl [[spoiler: but of course, it's subverted when everyone lives. This trope is played with even more heavily by the fact that she's played by Creator/AmySteel, the actual final girl of the second Friday the 13th film]].
38* FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler: The jack-in-the-box moment that scared Muffy in the flashback could explain her fascination with pranks]].
39* FriendlyScheming: [[spoiler: The whole plot turns out to be Muffy doing a "slasher" prank.]]
40* TheGenericGirl: Kit doesn't have any outstanding traits like the rest of the cast aside from being the FinalGirl and even that she doesn't follow perfectly, being less chaste than [[ShrinkingViolet Nan]] but in a steady relationship unlike [[EthicalSlut Nikki]]. [[spoiler: TheReveal that there were no murders means she doesn't even have being the FinalGirl going for her.]]
41* TheGenericGuy: Kit's boyfriend Rob has a small subplot about not getting into medical school and being the [[StandardizedLeader de-facto leader]] when bodies start to pile up, but otherwise doesn't stand out much.
42* GenreShift: From a SlasherMovie [[spoiler:to a not SlasherMovie at the end]].
43* GoodAllAlong: [[spoiler:The whole SlasherMovie scenario was a total fake-out prank and the BigBad was never a BigBad nor AxCrazy to begin with.]]
44* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: {{Averted}} when it turns out that the supposed ShrinkingViolet Nan was pregnant and had an abortion. This comes after someone left a tape of a baby crying in her room. It's implied she got pregnant after a one night stand who dumped her, which serves to make her sympathetic.[[spoiler: Muffy set it up simply as a RedHerring, not knowing about the abortion. It's one of the few things she actively apologizes for when she lays out her scheme at the end.]]
45* HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: The plot takes place on an April Fool's weekend.
46* InformedFlaw: Rob mentions his college advisor telling him he's not serious enough to apply to medical school, yet compared to most of the cast he's downright stoic.
47* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Muffy just gets away with her horrifically cruel prank, and everyone [[EasilyForgiven just laughs it off,]] even though they thought they were going to die for real, and thought their friends had been murdered just a few minutes before.]]
48* MasturbationMeansSexualFrustration: While the various couples are getting it on, Arch sits down with one of Chaz's porno mags to relieve his frustration; before falling victim to a booby-trapped chair.
49* NavelDeepNeckline: At one point, Nikki leans out of her window wearing nothing but panties and a shirt that is completely unbuttoned.
50* OffWithHisHead: [[spoiler: Skip, Arch, and Muffy. Subverted, when it turns out they are just props.]]
51* PeekABooCorpse: Much of the scares are made of findings of corpses and severed heads.
52* PeopleFallOffChairs: During the initial rash of pranks, Arch is caught twice by a booby-trapped chair that collapses under him when he leans back.
53* PortraitPaintingPeephole: Kit and Rob find one in their room, but there is only a cat clock with moving eyes behind it. It later reappears in a much less amusing fashion.
54* PreppyName: The rich girl's name is ''Muffy St. John''.
55* ReallyGetsAround: Nikki. Sleeps with Chaz but is clearly up for sex with Arch later in the weekend, not to mention flirting openly with Hal.
56* RedHerring: [[spoiler: Buck ("They did it!")]] and [[spoiler: Muffy's strange behavior after the first night]].
57* ReptilesAreAbhorrent: The snake [[spoiler: underneath the booby trap that snares Arch in the woods]].
58* TheReveal: [[spoiler:The whole situation is an April Fool's prank.]] Turns out that for once, the title is not just one of those "[[HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday slasher wanted to get creative]]" kind of titles.
59* RewatchBonus:
60** The first scene has Muffy propping open the cellar window. [[spoiler: Rob and Kit crawling in and discovering the clues are crucial to Muffy's planned climax]].
61** Nan says she and Muffy were in drama society together. [[spoiler: Foreshadowing that Muffy is a gifted actress]].
62** If you look closely, you can see that Muffy's nails are painted red for the whole film. [[spoiler: A hint that there is no Buffy persona or Muffy FailedASpotCheck]].
63** Muffy claims the water main is broken. However, later in the movie, Nikki gets sprayed with water from the joke tap. [[spoiler: Further indicator that everything is fine]].
64** You'll notice that in the death scenes [[spoiler: things cut away before anything is actually shown]].
65** You can also see [[spoiler: Muffy grinning playfully when she slashes open the sliding doors, suggesting she was in the fun of the moment]].
66* ScaryJackInTheBox: Muffy was given one when she was a child, as shown in the opening credits.
67* ShooOutTheClowns: Downplayed, the movie has its humorous moments even after things start to get serious, but the comedy takes on a darker tone when [[TheStoner Skip]] and [[PluckyComicRelief Arch]] go missing.
68* ShoutOut: A newspaper clipping with the title “6 Die in Fog” appears early in the film, a likely reference to the 1980 John Carpenter film ''Film/TheFog1980''.
69* SlasherMovie: [[spoiler: Subverted, it never was one from the start, as EverybodyLives and were actually FakingTheDead.]]
70* SlashersPreferBlondes: Interesting case since all the female victims are blonde, including the FinalGirl, while Muffy is brunette. [[spoiler: Of course then subverted when nobody gets killed at all]].
71* SomethingElseAlsoRises: Harvey is exercising on the deck when he sees Nikki leaning out of her window wearing nothing but [[SexDressed panties and a shirt that is gaping open]]. He lets go of one end of his bullworker, which springs upright.
72* SpannerInTheWorks: A minor example. When Arch gets caught in a booby trap, the snake wasn't supposed to be there. Fortunately, this has very little effect on [[spoiler:Muffy's prank]].
73* TheStoner: Skip, out of guilt over what happened on the ferry on the way to the island, goes to pick some weed he had planted. [[spoiler: This is where he becomes the first to go missing]].
74* TarnishingTheirOwnBeauty: Muffy goes from perfectly permed hair and expensive posh clothing with well-done makeup to barely combed, plain-clothed and bare-faced after the first night on the island, which is lampshaded ("She's wearing ''crepe sole'' nurses shoes!") along with her strange behavior. [[spoiler: Subverted when it turns out she has been replaced by her murderously unstable twin Buffy, but then double subverted when it turns out there is no murderous twin and it was all set up by Muffy.]]
75* TenLittleMurderVictims: Muffy invites eight friends to her isolated island mansion and one by one they start disappearing.
76* TwistEnding: TheReveal that [[spoiler:it was all just a prank and EverybodyLives.]]
77* WhiteAngloSaxonProtestant: Muffy is a preppy girl with St John as a last name, attends a liberal arts college in New York and other {{Freeze Frame Bonus}}es place her BigFancyHouse in Maine.
78* WinkDing: Not actually a "ding", the sound heard [[spoiler:when the jack in the box winks at the ending]] is a part of the film's music theme.
79* WolvesAlwaysHowlAtTheMoon: Subverted. It was Skip, drunk as hell.
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