Dir. Mickey Rose and Michael Ritchie (1981)
A serial killer called The Breather stalks a high school, killing students and teachers along the way.
CAUTION: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
I’m sorry, I really wanted to make this a full review, but this movie… was not as good as I remembered. It was super popular in the 90’s because it was played constantly on television due to its lack of strong language, bloody violence, nudity, or any other reason why people would want to watch a horror movie.
But, it’s got some funny (if extremely offensive in retrospect) moments, sort of a National Lampoon-esque ode to slasher films. It’s absurd, dumb as all hell, and fun if you can get over the constant annoying breathing of the killer (The Morrigan could not, and listened to podcasts while I was watching the film). It works as a commentary on horror, riffing off of the things we all think of when watching slasher movies. Unfortunately, there have been so many other horror comedies to come along since that do things so much better. This one is worth the watch if you’re a nostalgic 90’s kid, when the film got most of its play, but it’s not worth the runtime otherwise. It doesn’t hold up well, and it’s got a few super offensive moments when watched in 2022.
