Evil Laugh (1986) (USA)

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Med students take a weekend to fix up an old building which was once an orphanage. We say “once” because ten years ago the place was burned to the ground following accusations of abuse and molestation concerning the owner’s son. Before his innocence was declared in a court of law, the father killed himself and the son went on to strike the occupants and accusers at the place with murderous vengeance. He set the place on fire and then supposedly killed himself. A young doctor about to become a pediatrician looking at the rebuilt place and plans to reopen it as a foster home. This brings the young derps (his friends) to help not only set up but get a little partying done in the process. To the surprise of no one, there’s a giggling manic on the loose (murdering the aspiring pediatrician immediately and supplying some meat for dinner in the process), sticking close by to the building and eyeballing the bevy of annoying victims now roaming around the joint. Elderly young people come to bloody ends at the hands of a masked murderer… but there’s a tight budget, a focus on lame comedy and it’s towards the end of the decade that made the subgenre so popular. A combination that doesn’t always lead to the best of outings. A cleaning montage that involves plenty of swaying hips and awkward dancing comes to an end when the dude in the shortest of shorts finds a cassette tape that contains the kind of audio that probably would have had them fleeing if they weren’t checking on their missing friend’s missing car. So now nobody is questioning the lack of Jerry. There’s hijinks, a couple of entitled yuppies, butt squeezing, drama between “friends”, general horniness, a fat police chief looking for a missing delivery boy, a realtor with marital issues, a bunch of topless dudes, a college kid who may be pushing fifty (could just be because he’s from New York) and some early meta humor when it comes to the genre. It’s dull but sometimes dull enough to be kind of charming and Tina is kinda cute so it has that going for it. A little splat and a suitably disturbing past makes it more watchable than expected. Still, a very lame slasher flick.