Deadly Lessons

Last updated
Deadly Lessons
Deadly lessons 1983 film.jpg
Print advertisement
Written byJennifer A. Miller
Directed byWilliam Wiard
Starring Donna Reed
Larry Wilcox
David Ackroyd
Diane Franklin
Ally Sheedy
Nancy Cartwright
Bill Paxton
Music by Ian Freebairn-Smith
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
Production
Executive producer Leonard Goldberg
ProducerErvin Zavada
CinematographyAndrew Jackson
EditorJack Harnish
Running time100 minutes
Production companyLeonard Goldberg Productions
Original release
NetworkABC
ReleaseMarch 7, 1983 (1983-03-07)

Deadly Lessons (also known as Highschool Killer) is a 1983 American made-for-television horror film starring Donna Reed, Larry Wilcox, David Ackroyd, Diane Franklin, Ally Sheedy, and Nancy Cartwright. The film premiered on ABC on March 7, 1983.

Contents

Plot

A teenaged girl, Stephanie Aggiston, is sent to Starkwater Hall Boarding School, a prestigious private girl's academy, for the summer to brush up on advanced French. Stephanie is a country girl and finds the school to be a bit snobbish. She makes friends with Marita Armstrong, Calli and Shama, who is a Saudi princess and her roommate.

Murders began occurring and Det. Russ Kemper comes to investigate. As more girls are killed, everyone worries about who will be next. Stephanie attempts to find the murderer herself. She enlists the help of the new attractive stable boy, Eddie Fox, who falls in love with her for 'not being like the other girls.' Suspicion soon falls on Eddie as the murderer.

As the summer progresses, the girls are slowly evacuated from the school. Marita is kidnapped on the day she is set to leave by the school's janitor, Robert Hartigan. Robert binds and gags Marita in his quarters on campus, somehow deluded into thinking his daughter was Marita's mother (which is not true). When Marita is able to signal for help from her captivity, Stephanie has Kemper follow her as she heads out "alone" to attract Robert's attention, allowing Kemper to make an arrest and save Marita.

Later, Stephanie is ambushed and chased by a mysterious figure, dressed all in black. The person is revealed to be Kemper, the real killer. The first death, Tember Logan, was an accident, as she drowned. It gave Kemper the idea to kill the other victims as a means of getting revenge on Miss Wade, who is revealed to be his mother, for abandoning him as a child. The murders were a means of ruining the reputations of both the school and her. He is apprehended and taken away.

Cast


Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edmund Kemper</span> American serial killer (born 1948)

Edmund "Ed" Emil Kemper III is an American serial killer who murdered 10 people, including a 15-year-old girl, his own mother, and her best friend, from May 1972 to April 1973. Years earlier, at the age of 15, Kemper had murdered his paternal grandparents. Kemper was nicknamed the Co-ed Killer, as most of his non-familial victims were female college students hitchhiking in the vicinity of Santa Cruz County, California. Most of his murders included necrophilia, decapitation, and dismemberment.

<i>Bitten</i> (novel) Fantasy novel about werewolves and vampires

Bitten is a fantasy novel by Canadian writer Kelley Armstrong, published in 2001. It is the first book in the Women of the Otherworld series, and her first novel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kelly Jo Minter</span> American actress (born 1966)

Kelly Jo Minter is an American actress. Minter made her acting debut as "The Pilot" in an after-school short movie of the same name in 1984. She made her film debut as Lorrie in Mask (1985). She subsequently portrayed Denise Green in Summer School (1987), Maria in The Lost Boys (1987), Charlotta in Miracle Mile (1988), Yvonne Miller in A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989), LaDonna in House Party (1990), Cheryl in Popcorn (1991), and Ruby Williams in The People Under the Stairs (1991). Outside of film, Minter has made guest appearances on a variety of television series including Hill Street Blues (1987), A Different World (1988), Martin (1993), ER (1996), Providence (2001), and Strong Medicine (2002). In 2010, she appeared as herself in the documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Olivet</span> Character in the TV series Law & Order

Dr. Elizabeth Olivet is a fictional character on Law & Order, the TV crime drama. Carolyn McCormick portrayed her from 1991 to 1997 and in 1999. The character was revived in 2002, although her appearances were infrequent and her last was in 2009. Since Law & Order’s cancellation, the Dr. Olivet character has occasionally been on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, most recently in 2018.

John Hartigan (<i>Sin City</i>) Fictional character

Detective John Hartigan is a major protagonist in the Sin City series of graphic novels, written by Frank Miller. He is the central character in That Yellow Bastard, and has a small cameo in Just Another Saturday Night. Miller has announced he will be the main character of another story, set before That Yellow Bastard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Callahan</span> Fictional character from Sin City

Nancy Callahan is a fictional character from the graphic novel series Sin City, created by Frank Miller, based on "Dirty" Harry Callahan by Harry Julian Fink and R. M. Fink. She first appeared in "The Hard Goodbye" before becoming a more prominent character in later stories, most notably That Yellow Bastard.

Levi Bellfield is an English serial killer, sex offender, rapist, kidnapper, and burglar. He was found guilty on 25 February 2008 of the murders of Marsha McDonnell and Amélie Delagrange and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, and sentenced to life imprisonment. On 23 June 2011, Bellfield was further found guilty of the murder of Milly Dowler. On both occasions, the judge imposed a whole life order, meaning that Bellfield will serve the sentence without the possibility of parole. Bellfield was the first prisoner in history to have received two whole life orders.

Diane Fanning is an American crime writer and author who writes nonfiction and mystery novels.

Donna Marie Roberts, an American convicted of being an accomplice to murder, is the only woman on death row in the State of Ohio.

<i>The Telling</i> (film) 2009 American film

The Telling is a 2009 horror film starring Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt from the E! television series The Girls Next Door. The film is also the producing debut of Bridget Marquardt, who teamed up with veteran producer Chuck Williams. It is directed by Jeff Burr and first time director Nicholas Carpenter, grandson of filmmaker Hal Roach.

<i>Carolina Moon</i> (2007 film) American TV series or program

Carolina Moon is a 2007 American television film directed by Stephen Tolkin and starring Claire Forlani and Oliver Hudson. Based on the 2000 Nora Roberts novel Carolina Moon, the film is about a woman with psychic visions who returns to her hometown to exorcise her demons and finds both danger and love. Carolina Moon is part of the Nora Roberts 2007 movie collection, which also includes Angels Fall, Blue Smoke, and Montana Sky. The movie debuted February 19, 2007 on Lifetime Television.

The Lin family murders occurred in North Epping in the northwestern suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on 18 July 2009. The victims were newsagency proprietor Min Lin; his wife, Yun Lin; their sons, Henry and Terry; and Yun Lin's sister, Irene Lin. The family was bludgeoned to death. Min Lin's sister, Kathy, discovered the bodies. Jun "Brenda" Lin, 15, was the only surviving immediate family member after the incident; she was on a school trip in New Caledonia with Cheltenham Girls High School at the time.

Candice DeLong is an American former FBI criminal profiler and bestselling author. DeLong was the lead profiler in San Francisco, California, and worked on the Unabomber case. Currently, she hosts the Investigation Discovery programs Deadly Women and Facing Evil with Candice DeLong, the Wondery podcast Killer Psyche, and the Discovery+ program The Deadly Type with Candice DeLong.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donna Heka</span> Soap opera character

Donna Heka is a fictional character on the New Zealand soap opera Shortland Street, who was portrayed by Stephanie Tauevihi from 1997 to mid-2004 and again for a two episode stint in December 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Dawn Olanick</span> Formerly unidentified homicide victim found in 1982

Dawn Olanick, previously known as Princess Doe, was an unidentified American teenage decedent from Bohemia, New York, who was found murdered in Cedar Ridge Cemetery in Blairstown Township, New Jersey on July 15, 1982. Her face had been bludgeoned beyond recognition. She was the first unidentified decedent to be entered in the National Crime Information Center. Olanick was publicly identified on the 40th anniversary of her discovery.

<i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i> American comedy television series

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is an American sitcom created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, starring Ellie Kemper in the title role. It premiered on March 6, 2015 on Netflix and ran for four seasons, ending on January 25, 2019. An interactive special premiered on May 12, 2020.

The Denver Prostitute Killer was an unidentified American serial killer responsible for the murder of at least 17 women and girls in Denver and its various suburbs between 1975 and 1995, however in 2005, based upon results from DNA Profiling, it was determined that the most likely killer was Billy Edwin Reid who was previously arrested and charged with the 1989 murder of Lannell Williams and Lisa Kelly. Reid was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for those specific murders, The killings were grouped together only in 2008 – until then, each of these crimes were considered to have been committed by different people.