‘School’s Out Forever’ (2021)


Well, the plan (for last night) was to finish off ‘Things Have Gotten Worse’ but after the way yesterday went… That was never going to happen, I didn’t have the energy for reading. But that was cool, ‘The Sword and the Sorcerer’ was on Prime so I thought I’d give that a go instead… Except that I totally didn’t. I ended up falling asleep part way in and waking up just as the movie was coming to a close. Lets be clear though, my falling asleep was nothing to with a film that looked like just my kind of thing, it was all on me 😉. I’ll have to get back to ‘The Sword and the Sorcerer’ when I’m a bit more awake.

So I ended up doing that thing where you take a nap at exactly the wrong time of day and wake up in the middle of the night, all awake and with nowhere to go. That was ok though, I had ‘School’s Out Forever’ on my watchlist so I thought I’d give that a go instead…

No sooner has Lee been expelled from his school, a pandemic spreads. With his father dead and mother abroad, Lee goes back to school. But safety and security at school is in short supply. Its high walls can’t stop the local militia. The end of the world is having a dangerous effect on his best friend and his unrequited crush on the school nurse isn’t helping him concentrate on staying alive…

‘School’s Out Forever’ won’t be winning any awards but ended up being a whole lot of fun (kind of like the book that it’s based on) and right now, I know exactly what kind of film I prefer. The horror and comedy moments don’t quite gel but when there’s so much else going on, that’s actually very easy to forgive as the film doesn’t give you a whole lot of time to think too hard; everything just happens too quickly.

A hefty dose of action then along with a little exploration of how the apocalypse can affect people in what it drives them to do. ‘School’s Out’ doesn’t hold back here. The two opposing sides are both fairly well off in terms of living conditions and food but it’s a precarious situation and it’s the people who are prepared to act on this that end up taking control. Are their methods right? Well, of course not but the film does well to show how and why certain courses of action are arrived at as well as not shying away from the consequences. Those moments in particular hit hard.

If you enjoyed reading the ‘Afterblight Chronicles’, I reckon you’ll get a lot out of ‘School’s Out Forever’, a film that really takes on the tone of the book and has a great time running with it. Even if you didn’t, I still think you’ll have fun with it for much the same reasons.

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