Student Bodies is a 1981 horror comedy that's sort of funny and sort of dumb at the same time. Some jokes work and others don't. I found it on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, the channel has already been taken down. There always seems to be some guys who post movies they shouldn't, when they get the third strike, it's big red bar time.
Mickey Rose wrote the script and co-directed with an uncredited Michael Ritchie. It's Mickey's only directing credit, mostly he wrote films and television episodes. He wrote Take The Money And Run and Bananas for Woody Allen and a few other films I've liked, or almost liked: The Candidate, Smile, The Bad News Bears, Semi-Tough, Fletch, The Golden Child and The Positively True Adventures Of The Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom. I only have a couple of them on DVD but that's OK.
In Student Bodies there's a serial killer loose at Lamab High School. The killer, nicknamed The Breather, is played by Jerry Belson, he's credited as Richard Brando in the film credits. Jerry was mostly a writer, he started in 1964 working on The Danny Thomas Show, after that he wrote for The Bill Dana Show, Gomer Pyle: USMC, The Lucy Show, I-Spy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Love, American Style, The Odd Couple and more. He wrote one of my favorite John Astin movie, Evil Roy Slade, it's a bit of silly fun but highly enjoyable for me.
On SB Jerry was Exec Prod and Michael Ritchie got his credit for producer changed to Allen Smithee. I guess he didn't like the movie too much, maybe that's why he's an uncredited director. I didn't think it was too bad, about average, there are a lot of jokes and if one wasn't that funny, here's another one shortly. There's a lot of self referential stuff going on, title cards pop up during the movie to give info and crack a joke or two. The movie moves along briskly, something that I always enjoy. It was fun to watch even if it's not much more than average to me. I'd watch it again someday but I doubt that I'd buy a copy.
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