Fool's Day (2013) User Reviews

Great fun

[peefyn · 8/10 · 30 May 2016]

This short is like an extended skit, that is both childlike in concept and execution. The movie starts taking some big turns early on, but basically it's following a class of kids working together to get in and out of trouble.

The premise is delightful, and while there is a big room for improvement, it's easy to forgive most of the flaws. It's all light hearted (well, kinda) and fun. The performances from the kids were better than you would expect from a production like this - you can see big Hollywood movies with kids who can't act half as good as some of these kids.

My main objection would have to be with the ending, which in many ways was a cop out. It's difficult to have an end as out there as the rest of the short, while not going to far. I can see why they went the direction they did, but it ended up feeling underwhelming.

Oddly, probably NOT a film I'd let kids see!

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 3 July 2020]

"Fool's Day" is a funny short film which stars a bunch of kids. Oddly, however, it's NOT a film I'd show most kids, as it's very violent and bloody!!

When the story begins, it's April Fool's Day and a class of 4th graders is planning on pulling a prank on their teacher. However, they are shocked when the coffee they spike turns out to be explosive....and the teacher's head explodes!! But, being kids, instead of seeking help and admitting what happened, the little jerks decide to hide the body and all the bloody evidence before their guest speaker arrives. What's next? See the film.

This is a good film and my comment above about not letting kids see it stands...at least young kids. After all, you DO see a person's head explode...and that is pretty much all you need to know about that!! Still, it is clever and the payoff at the end is nice. Worth seeing and clever.

By the way, if you DO watch it, pay attention to the janitor...that's Dee Snider, the lead singer for Twisted Sister!!

Comedy Gold for a Short Horror Film

[timothygartin · 9/10 · 3 December 2019]

This movie was amazing. At 19 minutes, it seems to go by super fast. I laughed throughout the movie. It was original and well written. The characters were funny and real for being in a comedy movie. The performances were really great as well. Even the child actors did a great job.

I really loved this one and highly recommend it.

It was great

[Sakuralee · 9/10 · 3 November 2019]

The kid actors were good and believable. As a mother of a small child who is in school, I got a good laugh out of this.

Enjoyable horror comedy mixing bright colors and cheerful pop, with dark humor and gore (SPOILERS)

[bob the moo · 8 April 2017]

On a day of stupid pranks, officially fake news, and the depression feeling of 'enforced wackiness' it was very nice to find this short film that uses the day to produce a really enjoyable comedy horror. The plot sees an elementary class accidentally kill their teacher by their prank. This is all I knew of the film going in, and it meant that the excessive gore that came from that simple plot summary took me by surprise. I am not a fan of gore generally, and was eating chutney on a cracker at 'the moment' so I was a little put off, but the film more than pulled it back for me by being consistently amusing, funny, and well-constructed.

The design of the piece uses cheerful colors and wholesome pop songs to contrast with the gory deed, and this works well with the children – all of whom are also really very good. The script is much tighter than you might think, with lots of great funny moments across the main thread but also down into the supporting characters. Some of it is a bit silly, but it is also funny so still works – the cop for instance is a very broad character but yet funny with it. At almost 20 minutes running time it could have been tighter in the edit perhaps, but really it uses the time well and is consistently funny in a big, cheerful, horrific, and funny, way.

Brilliant short film with a horrible ending

[samsouyavemurphy · 8/10 · 15 September 2019]

The film is funny, original and cleverly written. However, the ending was absolutely horrible, boring and abrupt. Instead, the teacher should have come out, proving that she was alive, and yell out "Got you! April Fools'!" The beginning foreshadowed that happening, but it never paid off. I had to search several different sites to make sure that I had, in fact, watched it to the end.

Quite dark and quite fun

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 19 March 2017]

"Fool's Day" is a 19-minute live action short film from the United States in the English language. This one was released back in 2013, so it will have its 5th anniversary next year. The writer and director is Cody Blue Snider and his co-writer is his brother Shane here. For CBS, it is the most known work of his career and we will see if he can top the success (especially awards-wise) at some point in his career if he decides to keep going as a filmmaker. Anyway, the title already gives away that this one is about the 1st of April as a group of school children plays a prank on their teacher. They brew some sort of coffee drink, but realize too quickly that it lets heads explode apparently. So what to do with this messed up situation? Confess it all? Get rid of the corpse? Take the blame for everybody? And how to deal with a cop coming to class quickly after to teach kids about how bad it is to abuse drugs. There's only one way out of it all right? Watch for yourself. I think Snider did a good job here overall. It was an entertaining little movie and he made the right decisions to turn this into a funny little story that, despite the heavy content, never takes itself too seriously. You can definitely call it a pretty dark comedy. Allso looking at how many child actors are in here, it's virtually impossibly to get good performances out of all of them, so he definitely also succeeded with writing them accordingly and still using the right camera angles to make this a good film, for example with the janitor. As for the rest, I won't say anything else. You should watch it yourself, preferably even on April Fool's Day.