April Fools Day

       And don't anyone say 'April Fools' again or I'll rip them apart!

 The film begins as a group of college friends gather to celebrate Spring Break by spending the weekend at the island mansion of their friend Muffy St. John who is also celebrating her birth, which is April Fools day. The tone is set almost immediately with Muffy preparing details around the house, and finds a old Jack-in-the-box she remembers (in flashback). Her friends, meanwhile, are joking around on the pier, then the ferry to the island. Niki is initially caught on videotape, pretending to be make a faux introduction of herself as a sweet and virtuous Catholic girl, ending with "I f*ck on the first date." The video camera is a way to introduce most of the characters of Muffy's friends. But en route to the island, a local deckhand is seriously injured in a gruesome accident.

Once on the island and in the mansion, it turns out Muffy has set up a load of little jokes from the simple to the more complex and disturbing.....Through it all, the friends in general try to relax. They flirt. They share stories. Two of them hook up. Rob tells his girlfriend/fiancee Kit he wasn't accepted into medical school. But then, one of them goes missing. Someone catches a glimpse of what looks like the dead body. More go missing. During a search, one of the friends falls into the island's well and finds two severed heads of those missing. Worse, the phones are dead as well. There's no way off the island until Monday.

One after another, people keep vanishing or killed and their bodies found--by hanging, throat-slitting, and in one instance castration. Kit and Rob put together some clues, realizing that everyone's earlier assumption is wrong. The kinsman of the deckhand injured when they arrived is a red herring. Muffy, it turns out, has a violently insane twin sister, Buffy, who has escaped. In fact, the person they've been around since the first night isn't Muffy at all! They discover Muffy's severed head in the basement.

Buffy chases them with a butcher's knife, and the couple are separated. Kit flees from Buffy into the living room--where she finds everyone else there, alive and calmly waiting for her. It was all a joke, or more accurately, a dress rehearsal. Muffy hopes to turn the mansion into a resort offering a weekend of staged horror. She even had a friend who does special effects....... Each "victim" agreed to take part as things were explained to them.

Much later that night, a half-drunk Muffy goes to her room. She finds a wrapped present on her bed. Grinning, she unwraps it. It is the Jack-in-the-Box. Savoring the surprise, she turns the handle slowly. When "Jack" finally pops out, one of her friends--the shy, bookish girl who knew Muffy from acting class--emerges from behind her and slits her throat with a razor...but is it real of another joke????and where do the jokes all end????

                                                                  Copyright(C) 2007 - 2020. All rights reserved.

                       HORROR HOME