Student Body Review

Student Body review.

Whatever instinct drives horror writers and directors to make their lead teen characters unlikable has to stop. Student Body is an especially egregious offender because it unwittingly proves the villain correct. Not in a twisty makes you think kind of way. In a they didn’t really think this through kind of way.

Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.

Student Body

Directed by Lee Ann Kurr

Written by Lee Ann Kurr

Starring Christian Camargo, Montse Hernandez, Cheyenne Haynes, Anthony Keyvan and Harley Quinn Smith

Student Body Review

Student Body wraps a predictable story around a potentially good idea. It creates a shocking lack of mystery around a masked killer. The order the victims will be dispatched couldn’t be more obvious if they wore signs with a number around their necks. It’s a paint by numbers approach afraid to color outside of lines we’ve seen too often.

Jane (Montse Hernandez) has a brilliant mind for math. What she really wants, however, is to fit in with childhood friend Merritt (Cheyenne Haynes) and her new group of friends. Her math teacher (Christian Camargo) confronts her about her life choices. Jane feels he goes too far and gets him fired. Soon after, someone dressed as the school mascot begins killing Jane’s new friends one by one.

Student Body came out in February of 2022. We don’t have a hard policy on when a movie is open to spoiler talk in our reviews. Ten months seems like plenty of time when a movie has been available for home viewing. Our upcoming Scream (2022) review will contain spoiler talk because it is the best way to discuss the movie. With Student Body…it just doesn’t matter.

If you read the plot synopsis above, you know who the killer is already. So little effort is put into disguising the identity that I genuinely don’t know why they put a mask on him. It’s not just any mask, mind you…it’s the outfit of the school mascot. This is important. Not to anyone but to the filmmakers though. You see, the guy who plays the school mascot is the only other person set up as an antagonist to anyone in Student Body.

Of course, this is a slasher movie so we can quickly dismiss him as a suspect because we understand the concept of the final girl. Jane is our hero…and the mascot subplot belongs to someone else. This mascot thing is about as stupid a plotline as you’ll find btw. One of the members of the friend group is desperate to become the school mascot…despite everything about him being against the school. It makes no sense. It’s there to introduce the costume and, I guess, fool someone who has never seen a movie before. Perhaps the writer of Student Body.

Student Body makes another mistake in its cast of characters. They’re horrible people. Where the Scary Things Are had unlikable leads as well, but we were meant to want them to die. That movie fumbles everything in its own way but at least there was a purpose to it. We have to root for the annoying characters in this movie. We don’t. Even Jane. More on that in a bit.

So, the math teacher is the killer in Student Body. You’ll know it from the moment he’s fired anyway so there’s no point pretending. To her credit, Jane also guesses immediately who it is. It makes sense from her perspective that she would figure it out. She’s not concerned with some guy who plays the mascot…she’s worried about revenge from the teacher she fired.

Let’s talk about that. Jane goes to the school and complains that her teacher went too far in verbally attacking her in their meeting. The school fires him. This is one of the oddest origin stories for a murderer you’ll find in horror. Jane doesn’t even seem to believe that the teacher did anything that bad to begin with. Merritt talks her into reporting him and then, during the meeting, uses her father’s influence on the school to force an extreme decision. Our hero stands by and watches as a man’s life is ruined. An odd call. But not the last.

The teacher goes around killing the group of kids in the exact order you would guess if I told you the writer had no imagination. He doesn’t kill Merritt though. No…Jane does. Jane pushes her off a balcony to her death in a heated response to an argument. This is the character we’re meant to root for. Jane…the murderer who ruined her teacher’s life.

The murders themselves are nothing of note. We get some blood and one decent unexpected timing but that’s about it. The final confrontation between Jane and her teacher is anti-climactic, save for his motive. That’s the true bright spot of Student Body. His anger before he got fired was rooted in his belief that Jane is wasting her potential trying to impress people that she is superior to. When she is the last one standing (of course…she killed one herself) he points out that she proved him correct by outlasting everyone. It’s a great line. It’s a great idea. Unfortunately, it’s buried in an uninspired movie.

Scare Value

Student Body is one of the more predictable movies you’ll find these days. You not only know who is behind the mask immediately, but you can accurately predict the exact order in which the characters will perish. There is a minor surprise here and there (one of which has no narrative payoff) but you’ve seen this movie before. Done much better.

1.5/5