25 Years On, I Still Love Shriek if You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th

The town of Bulimia Falls is under attack by a serial killer, and it looks like Slab, Martina, Barbara, Boner, and new kid Dawson are next… That’s right, I’m talking about Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th, which was released on 17th October 2000. Direct to video, I should add… there was no theatrical release for this parody with a quarter of the budget of Scary Movie.

I first encountered this movie in a Blockbuster — the old film and game rental store — and decided to give it a shot. I’ve always liked parodies, and I’d already seen Scream, so I knew what to expect. I honestly loved it, it was all that I’d hoped it would be, and I wound up buying it on DVD a couple of years later. Sure, I was 17 (it was rated 15), so later in life, I thought perhaps I only liked it so much because I was a dumb kid. Nope, totally holds up.

After a popular kid is “murdered” (it’s more like manslaughter) one night, we meet our gang of protagonists. Dawson Deery is the new kid with the mysterious past, Slab O'Beef is the meathead, Boner (pronounced bon-er, not bone-er) is the wimp, Martina Martinez is the tomboy, and Barbara Primesuspect is the prom queen. They are played by (in order) Harley Cross, Simon Rex, Danny Strong, Majandra Delfino, and Julie Benz.

Everyone, except Dawson, is part of a secret promise which could destroy them if it ever came to light — would they kill to keep it? The movie goes to great lengths to keep you guessing who the killer might be, as many people are killed (usually in the background of shots) and each of our protagonists is taunted by The Killer.

Oh, yeah, that’s their actual name: The Killer. They even have business cards and caller ID; they have gone all-in on this serial killer thing. Which is why they had to steal their outfit from the mall — this brings us to our secondary characters.

Doughy Primesuspect is a mall cop (and brother to Barbara), and Hagitha Utslay is a reporter for empTV. They are played by Tom Arnold and Tiffani Thiessen respectively, and their names appear on the movie poster alongside Coolio, who plays the Administrator-Formerly-Known-As-Principal and appears on screen for less than three minutes before he dies.

As the body count rises, everyone decides to head to Slab’s house where they’ll be safe. Which is where things get more dangerous for the protagonists, as they begin to die! Notice that I didn’t say they are killed; The Killer never actually kills someone with a name (apart from cameramen), when they do die, it’s by accident. Not even an indirectly caused “accident”, The Killer menaces them, and something happens which kills them.

At the end of the movie, The Killer is unmasked, and the surviving protagonists walk off into the sunset. By which I mean the dark woods. After all, it is Halloween, as well as Friday the 13th (according to the dyslexic Slab).

The vast majority of the jokes in Shriek are good-natured, so while there is a use of a three-letter homophobic slur, it’s used by two extras who are supposed to be arsehole American teenagers. Surprisingly, for it being from the year 2000, none of the queer jokes are hateful, something practically unheard of. I think the most insulting thing is the German Club all chanting “Sieg Heil” over and over, though make of that what you will.

Of course, there are plenty of dated references — why do people keep calling the Administrator-Formerly-Known-As-Principal a “wannabe”? Does Pop-Up Video even exist anymore? Are Mentals still “The Freshmaker”?

Some of my favourite gags are the most absurd ones, such as when we see The Killer’s boots step onto the bathroom floor, having been hidden, standing on the toilet. It’s a spoof, so you see the first foot and you think “ah, it’s going to be three feet”, but then when the third foot lands it’s followed by a fourth — then a fifth.

Another scene has The Killer driving towards a protagonist who has nowhere left to run! And driving. And driving. And the protagonist is screaming! And screaming. While The Killer drives — and is pulled over by a traffic cop. They even produce a driving license, name (obviously) The Killer, address 1500 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC (the U.S. Treasury Department).

It’s been 25 years, I’ve seen Shriek at least a dozen times, and it was only while re-watching for this article that I noticed Dawson and Martina’s lunch trays change between scenes. Dawson swaps from a sandwich to a burger, and Martina changes from a can of cola to a tokkuri of sake. It goes better with her sushi; I don’t know what to tell you.

If you get a chance to watch Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th, I highly recommend it. It was made for relatively peanuts, is light on the misogyny, doesn’t punch down, and doesn’t even pretend that it’s tied up all the loose ends by the time the credits hit.