Plot
While babysitting on Jamie Lee Curtis's birthday, teenager Julie and her boyfriend Charlie are stalked by a voyeuristic serial killer known as the "Breather". As Julie and Charlie prepare to have sex, the Breather, bypassing conventional weapons such as a butcher knife or hatchet, selects a paper clip which he uses to stab Julie to death, before suffocating Charlie with a trash bag.
After the funerals for Julie and Charlie, the local Lamab High School principal, Mr. Peters, announces the scheduled events for the day, including classes, a parade, football game, and prom. Students Joe and Bertha sneak away to have sex in a car, but Joe realizes he did not bring condoms. While he goes to purchase them, Bertha is clobbered by the Breather with a wooden horse head bookend similar to ones made for a school wood shop project, after which Joe is again smothered with a trash bag.
In the girls' locker room, the Breather spies on female students, among them Toby Badger. Hearing the killer's heavy breathing, Toby flees. Later at the parade, Toby's friends Ralph and Dagmar attempt to have sex with inside one of the moving floats. The Breather infiltrates the float, killing Dagmar with an eggplant before smothering Ralph. When Toby investigates, the Breather throws the bodies out the back of the float before escaping, making Toby a suspect. Toby is interrogated by school authorities and police and sent for evaluation by psychologist Dr. Sigmund. When Toby returns to her English class, Principal Peters announces over the school intercom that Sigmund believes Toby is the killer. Miss Mumsley presses Malvert, a former teacher-turned-janitor with a traumatic brain injury, to falsely confess to the killings if Peters becomes a suspect.
At the football game, school Nurse Krud and wood shop teacher tie student Mawamba up inside a garbage bag, as Krud attempts to prove a point that it will suffocate him. The two become distracted by the game, resulting in Mawamba dying. Under the bleachers, Joan and Al sneak away to have sex. When Toby goes to search for them, she is knokced unconscious by falling trash as the Breather murders Joan using a chalkboard eraser, and Al dispatched with a garbage bag. When Toby regains consciousness, she overhears a conversation suggesting she is being framed, and teams with her friend Hardy to try and find the real killer.
Toby steals a risqué dress from the school's drama prop room and manages to infiltrate the prom unnoticed. While Hardy sneaks into Miss Mumsley's office, Miss Mumsley announces that all of the prom queen candidates, save a student named Patti, are dead; instead of crowning a student, Principal Peters is awarded the title of prom queen. In the wood shop, the Breather kills Patti with the prom crown before smothering her boyfriend Scott with a trash bag. Wood shop teacher Mr. Dumpkin crosses paths with the killer, who uses a chainsaw case to murder him.
Sneaking into Principal Peters's office, Toby is confronted by Peters who admits to having killed all of the female students for having premarital sex. Toby tells him she is a virgin, but he does not believe her. He attempts to kill Toby with a school trophy, but slips on marbles Toby spilled and impales himself to death with it. In Miss Mumsley's office, Toby finds Hardy's body before being confronted by Miss Mumsley, who claims to be Principal Peters's father and the one responsible for killing the male students, whom could have implicated Peters in their girlfriends' murders. Toby flees through the school and witnesses the reanimated corpses of her dead friends stalking her before falling out an upper-story window.
Toby is suddenly awoken by Hardy kissing her as she lay in a hospital bed, having suffered from swine flu—the events depicted are revealed to all be a fever dream. The individuals from Toby's dream are revealed in reality to be the opposite of their personas in her dream state: For example, Mr. Dumpkin is in fact a flamboyant French teacher rather than a burly wood shop instructor, and Patti is an unpopular social outcast. When Toby is released from the hospital, she tells Hardy that Dr. Sigmund had diagnosed her swine flu as stemming from her extreme sexual repression. Toby suggests that she and Hardy have sex to cure her. As she undresses, Hardy dons green gloves and strangles her to death. At Toby's funeral, which is held one hour after her death, Hardy places flowers on the grave, only for Toby's arm to reach up and grab him by the throat.
Release
Paramount Pictures, who had recently had significant commercial success with the slasher film Friday the 13th and the comedy Airplane! (both 1980), acquired distribution rights to Student Bodies, purchasing the film for $1.5 million. [3] The studio sought to capitalize on the audiences of both films, which were major box-office hits.Student Bodies was first released theatrically in cities on the U.S. west coast on August 7, 1981. [10] It opened in New York City that fall on October 18, 1981. [11]
The film became a late-night cult favorite on cable after its theatrical release, appearing frequently on the Rhonda Shear-hosted USA Up All Night, as well as the network's USA Saturday Nightmares double feature series. [1] [12]
A DVD edition was released by Legend Films on June 3, 2008. [13] [14] Olive Films released the film on Blu-ray on August 25, 2015. [15] The British distributor 88 Films released a Blu-ay in the United Kingdom on November 26, 2018. [16]
In August 2025, Terror Vision announced a forthcoming special edition 4K UHD Blu-ray set scheduled for release on October 25, 2025, licensed through Paramount Pictures. [17]
