B Movie Nation

Foundational Cinema

B Movie News

School Spirit (1985)

I’m of the opinion that you shouldn’t watch 80’s “Porky’s”-style comedies if you have a low tolerance for head-slapping stupidity. But this movies does REALLY push the envelope. A horny college student (Tom Nolan) dies in an auto accident while rushing to buy condoms to seal the deal with a sexy co-ed (this could be a commendable “safe sex” message, but since this event results in the rest of this movie, I’m not so sure). Through some technicality, the guy is allowed to remain on Earth as a “ghost”, but a strange kind of ghost that everybody can see except when he taps the top of his head and becomes invisible, but apparently still corporeal. Thus, this ends up being a re-tread of “The Man who Wasn’t There” (a much more famous movie in the 80’s but one not yet on DVD). So does he use his new powers to sneak into the showers at the sorority? But, of course. After that though the movie turns into a “Caddyshack” snobs vs. slobs thing as the dead guy and his friends are celebrating their annual “Hog Day” party while uptight the school president (Larry “MASH” Linville,who could play this role in his sleep and pretty much does) tries to get a financial endowment from a wealthy French woman.

But let’s get to the two most important things–the “T”, and of course, the “A”. There’s generous helpings of both from anonymous actresses in the shower and “Hog Day” slip-n-slide scenes. The lead actresses all stay mostly dressed, however, including Elizabeth Foxx as the grade-grubbing co-ed our hero is initially trying to score with and Marta Kober as Linville’s daughter. (Kober, who nicely fills out an 80’s bikini here, is perhaps most famous for “Friday the 13th Part II” where she becomes the first of only two female characters in the entire series to actually be killed by Jason DURING sex). I can’t complain too much about this aspect of the film, and I genuinely liked the punk-style band that was playing during the “Hog Day” party (usually these type of movies are lousy with horrid music).

I originally saw this on “USA Up All Night” nearly twenty years ago and I must have been especially drunk that night because they would have cut out all the T and A, and so the band at the end at the end would have been about the ONLY thing this had going for it.