School Days

by Robert Hughes

In Stanhope University's Newton Hall lurks a hideous evil unleashed by a scientist whose experiments in mind control and whose unorthodox use of human subjects led to his prosecution

Genres: Horror, Fiction

278 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 1982

Reviews

[Jack Tripper · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the novelization of the 1981 horror flick Strange Behavior (aka Dead Kids), under a different title for some reason. On the surface it's a pretty typical slasher, with the added twist (slightly spoilery) of possibly having multiple killers. It takes place in a small college town in Illinois that has a scandalous past everyone would just as soon forget.

Many years ago, a professor/doctor at the college was convicted of illegal mind control experiments which resulted in some deaths, possibly murder. Now, in the present day, teenagers are suddenly being brutally killed, and Police Chief Brady thinks they're connected to the old crazy doctor somehow. Too bad he's supposed to be dead. And Brady's own teenage son may be involved in all this.

This was decent fun, but a bit slow going at first, as there are loads of flashbacks and infodumps throughout. The pace picks up toward the middle, with several twists and revelations that distinguish it from most slashers of the era. It's pretty gruesome as well, and I'd like to see how it was pulled off in the film, even if it doesn't have the greatest reputation. I only wish more of this took place at the college itself instead of in the surrounding town, as I was looking forward to a good school slasher.

Still it was a fun little time-waster, if a bit of a slow burn.

[Coral · Rating 3 out of 5]

It had it's moments!

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good read, although a little too predicable. Small college town with a mad professor doing human experiments leads to mayhem.

[Greg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Muddled mess. No likable characters. Almost reads like the second part of an incomplete story. No motivation for the murders. I could go on…but I won’t. Wish the author could say the same.

[Dawn M. Pavel]

Read it as a teenager but don't remember it.

[Ro Ivan · Rating 1 out of 5]

“School Days” by Robert Hughes is a 1982 novelization of “Strange Behavior”, a slasher film set in Galesburg and filmed in New Zealand. Much of the plot centers around Stanhope University, described in the book as “a Midwestern Oxford: gothic gray stone buttressing the plain, cutting out of the air a pattern of tested civilization in a land of little culture,” and the psychology department’s connection to a string of murders in the town.

If you are a student at Knox College (one of the actual schools in Galesburg), I recommend watching “Strange Behavior” if you get the chance — not because it is high cinema, or represents the Knox culture in any way. The movie is not good. But it is fun, especially when you and your friends can complain about how there are too many hills for it to be truly Galesburg.

Unfortunately, the book is something that I experienced alone.

As novelizations go, it isn’t a horrible adaptation. Hughes alternates between two timelines to give the original storyline some more depth. A father and son duo both have ties to the dubious psychology department of Stanhope; we follow the father through his teenage years and into his adult life as police chief, and we follow the son through his generic teenage life with murders and unethical science experiments scattered throughout. (Both timelines get sex scenes, for some reason.)

The father’s teenage years—at least for someone who watched the movie first—were the most interesting, because the book expanded on things originally left unexplained. However, these new explanations quickly became overkill. So much information was repeated, to the point that a paragraph would end and the very next sentence would be rephrasing it, but slightly to the left.

The one thing that the book managed to not over-explain is the biggest plot twist of the movie — which I won’t spoil, because I do think people need to experience it fresh. What I will say is that it comes out of nowhere, and the novelization only raises more questions. I’m not sure how Hughes managed to say so much and yet so little, in the end.

The worst part of the novelization is one of the few changes it makes from the movie. Hughes made the decision to cut a scene that stars a gaggle of frisbee players. If anything was going to redeem this wannabe-Galesburg novel, it would have been the frisbee representation we all know and crave.

Overall, I cannot recommend this novel, unless it is in the context of reading it to your friends and laughing.

[Mikepottz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A knife in the shadow of a wall will descend down again and again plunging into the back muscles. The body will later become a scarecrow, nailed to a post, eyes gouged out, flies festering inside, the face a maze of slashes in the flesh. A doctor will pay 100 bucks a day for two days to give a drug called opterol 3. The drug is suppose to make people smarter. A masked man will stab a victim in the chest, a hole in the lung, the blade shoved into the eye socket scooping out the ocular cavity before slicing through the cheek and chopping off the tongue. A four inch needle completely plunged into the eye. Strange things will happen in this quiet college town. An evil history and revengeful doctor unleashes destruction. Novelisation of strange behaviour/dead kids.