Nearly two decades before Scary Movie took horror films into Airplane! and Naked Gun territory, years before Scream changed the direction of horror films (down a path that led to a years of bad horror films, the effect of which is still being felt today), there was another film that took aim at the developing cliches of a burgeoning sub-genre.
This film was clearly taking aim at the slasher film, which was gaining in popularity following the success of films like Halloween and Friday the 13th. The movie is none other than Student Bodies, whose DVD boasts: "The world's first comedy horror movie!" Of course, this is not exactly true, as it is pre-dated by the likes of Young Frankenstein and the Abbott and Costello Meet X films, but it is the first to directly spoof the genre.
The movie centers on a killer known as the Breather (portrayed by Richard Belzer — yes, that Richard Belzer, although he is credited here as Richard Brando), so identified by his trademark heavy breathing. This mysterious baddie uses a variety of methods to dispatch his victims, including paper clips and trash bags. All the while, his killing spree is accompanied by his increasingly annoying breathing and incessant "witty" one-liners.
The killer chooses his victims from among teens having sex. We all know that if you are a teen and you have sex, you are going to die. Student Bodies guarantees that if you do the deed, you will end up dead because of it.
Our protagonist is Tobi (Karen Riter), a virginal high school student who suspects that there is more going on than meets the eye. She proceeds to investigate the killings, collecting clues and picking out suspects. Since she does not have sex, she is not going to get killed, right? And if you doubt her virtue, her clothes scream "NO SEX". If that isn't enough, she has a pin on her bra that says "NO for the last time!" This is comedy, right?
Student Bodies knows its target, with many scenes directly referencing its targets before going into the motions. The scene opens on a house at night; the subtitle says "Halloween," the shot goes black and opens again on the house, but this time it says "Friday the 13th" before going black. The image comes back with a closer shot of the house and the subtitle "Jamie Lee Curtis' Birthday," and it is here that the fun starts. Well, this is where the fun would start if the movie actually was funny.
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