Talk:Massacre at Central High

Trivia Section Change
Removed the following: "Critic Roger Ebert praised the film tremendously, selecting it as one of his 10 best films of 1976."

Roger Ebert did no such thing. His 10 best films of 1976 were as follows:

01. Small Change (Francois Truffaut) 02. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese) 03. The Magic Flute (Ingmar Bergman) 04. The Clockmaker (Bertrand Tavernier) 05. Network (Sidney Lumet) 06. Swept Away...by an unusual destiny in the blue sea of August (Lina Wertmuller) 07. Rocky (John G. Avildsen) 08. All the President's Men (Alan J. Pakula) 09. Silent Movie (Mel Brooks) 10. The Shootist (Don Siegel)

(source: )

Massacre at Central High was never on the list. In fact, his website does not even sport an original review of the film. Bodypuzzle (talk) 00:20, 23 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm guessing someone confused Ebert with NY Times critic Vincent Canby, who saw the film during its 1980 re-release and listed it as one of the 20 (not 10) best films of the year. However, Ebert did discuss the film favorably on his TV show in (I think) 1981. Director Rene Daalder's web site features a clip of Ebert's TV review. Muzilon (talk) 18:14, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

The oldest "8 is enough" girl was in this and had a fairly graphic sex scene in a threeway w/ another girl and guy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.250.114.65 (talk) 20:28, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, that was the late Lani O'Grady, thank you. Muzilon (talk) 10:46, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Umm... any news on
Noah Antwiler's attempt to acquire the rights to this movie? He reviewed it on his site recently, but... It seems like it might just be among the most notable things about the film. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 15:26, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Director's comments
It was not I who originally added the comments from director Rene Daalder to this article (before anyone blames me for that), but he has stated both in published books and also on his official web site that he believes Massacre "anticipated punk, Heathers, and Columbine". He may be mistaken, but that is a direct quote from a movie director about his own film, as per WP:RSOPINION and WP:SELFSOURCE. I have accordingly re-added his comments with the attribution "described by its director", and an additional citation from a published book where he says the same thing. For those who think he is wrong, a footnote could  be added to the article saying "actually, punk predated this film, etc." Muzilon (talk) 23:55, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure a self-promotional, biased and temporally incorrect quote is encyclopedic (punk predates this film), especially in the lead. However, as long as the source of the quote is clarified I don't object to including it. Previously, this was not attributed to the director at all and was just prefaced with a vague "has been described" opener. I tweaked it further so someone just skimming wouldn't miss that this is an opinion from the director of the film and not an opinion from an objective 3rd party. --DynaGirl (talk) 14:11, 7 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Fair enough, but the quote does appear in two published histories of punk (Spitz and Rombes) in the context of Daalder discussing his post-Massacre involvement with the unproduced Sex Pistols movie Who Killed Bambi? Massacre has also been cited as a possible influence on Class of 1984 and The Ramones' 1979 movie Rock N Roll High School. Daalder's choice of words may be clumsy (and perhaps self-serving), but he may believe Massacre is a precursor to those punk movies, rather than punk music per se. (Rombes' book is even called A Cultural Dictionary of Punk: 1974 -1982, so it's self-evident that Daalder's 1976 film didn't predate punk music). I have added a footnote briefly referring to the context.--Muzilon (talk) 23:45, 18 June 2017 (UTC)