This movie was made six or eight years too soon. 1976 was the year that the micro-computer revolution was just getting into swing and it would be a few years before IBM would make Bill Gates a billionaire. So nobody paid much attention to this film. But, it had so much more to offer than the "light-hearted" Revenge of the Nerds films.

We open with a (they didn't have skin heads then) group of Nazi like blonde haired bullies terrorizing the lessor students into "politically correct" thinking ala the burgeoning "family values" <insert twisted cross here> movement. A new kid comes to school and although he has an "in" with the rulers of the hallways, their brutality offends him and he sides with the under dogs. Even using his own physical superiority at fighting to humiliate the gang--and worse steal their women. His friend in the gang is sympathetic, but tries to convince him to join up or get his comeuppance. Our hero gets his comeuppance in spades and now he really gets mad and turns to murder!

After the "Nazis" are eliminated one by one, a power vacuum ensues where there is a mad dash to fill it. We then realize that there is always going to be predator and prey and it just a matter of who is the strongest.

This film is the perfect allegory of High School Life--and Life in general. This is an unheralded masterpiece! It only suffered in production values, which were less than perfect.

A series of grisly murders at an uppity High School has the students concerned that someone is planning on killing as many students as they can, especially those known to be bullies. The star of the swim team doesn't realize there's no water in the pool when he dies, and it's quite a splash when his body is discovered. Another kid is locked in a van speeding down a highway over looking a very long cliff, and booby-trapped earphones are another clever but deadly tool. Explosions take out other students within the school and on a drug-induced camping trip. The audience pretty much knows who's responsible, but it's how they are going to be stopped that has the student body and viewer wondering.

Gruesome but not gory, this teen horror film was definitely made as a warning to school bullies. A cast of familiar faces includes "Revenge of the Nerd's" Robert Carradine, Steve Bond, Kimberly Beck, Lani O'Grady and Andrew Stevens. I wouldn't call this a good film, but certainly one that is often jaw-dropping and frequently thrilling. There's even a pretty theme song to go along with it. But you do wonder after a while, where are all the adults? Infact, when they go into a very big school library, it's only a student behind the desk and no librarian there to shush the loud group. Films of this nature are never expected to be classics, so just enjoy it for what it is.

Transfer student David (Derrel Maury) starts a new school where he finds that an old friend, Mark (Andrew Stevens), has fallen in with a gang who use fear and intimidation to rule the roost. Being a friend of Mark's, David is given the opportunity to become a member of the group, but after seeing how they operate, decides that he would rather show the underdogs that it is possible to stand up to their persecutors.

Displeased with David's decision, head bully Bruce (Ray Underwood) and his cronies decide to teach the new guy a lesson by dropping a car on his legs. Crippled, and more than a little miffed, David responds by arranging fatal accidents for his enemies, freeing the other students from their life of oppression in the process. However, with Bruce and his pals gone, a new generation of bullies comes to the fore, and so David continues his murderous activities, ultimately deciding to blow up the entire school...

Bit of a strange one this: Massacre at Central High starts off with it's protagonist David as a hero, valiantly standing up for the weak, but then gradually sees him transform into a twisted murderous psycho and the real villain of the piece. For a while, this is all fairly entertaining stuff, made all the more enjoyable by the presence of gorgeous Kimberly Beck as Andrew's curvaceous babe of a girlfriend Theresa (who provides not one, but two nude scenes!); sadly, once David slips into revenge mode, matters get just a little too unbelievable, writer director Rene Daalder seeming more concerned with conveying his political message rather than telling a viable story: the accidental but suspicious deaths attract no interest from the police; the scenes involving the previously bullied pupils becoming the school's new bullies are clumsily handled and rather laughable; and the further blatant murders appear to alarm no-one in the slightest (they even go ahead and hold the school prom, despite several unexplained explosions!).