2020’s Teacher’s Shortage starts off with a genuinely disturbing suicide scene.

In a high school classroom, the teacher hands out the yearbooks.  Everyone, including the teacher, has a good laugh when they see that one of their classmates has been labeled an “ugly skank,” in her class photo.  The only person who doesn’t laugh is the victim of the prank.  She runs from the classroom, hides in a bathroom stall, and eventually smashes a mirror and slits her wrists.

It’s disturbing because this is something that actually does happen.  This is especially true in the age of social media, when it’s so important to fit in and say the right thing and have a certain number of people following you and liking whatever it is that you’re offering up.  With the rise of AI and the increase of people stupid enough to fall for AI, this is something that is only going to get worse.  In our efforts to create a better and more connected world, we’ve actually created a world where there’s even more incentive to be a bully.

The rest of the film never quite duplicates the power of its opening.  It’s a slasher film in which the killer is tracking down and murdering teachers from the high school.  The film was directed by Troy Escamilla, who also did Party Night.  Party Night was a not-bad homage to the slasher films of the 80s.  The main thing that made Party Night work was Escamilla’s obvious love for the genre and it should be noted that the kills in Teacher Shortage are effectively done.  I could have done without the red-tint that the film uses whenever the killer attacks but I can understand what Escamilla was going for.  In those scenes, his love for the genre comes through.

Unfortunately, the non-kill scenes are extremely slow.  I have no doubt that the film is accurate in its portrayal of burned-out veteran teachers and overly earnest rookies but, whenever there’s any scene featuring more than three or four lines of dialogue, the viewer will probably find themselves checking the clock.  This is one of those films that felt far longer than its 86 minutes, largely because the editing (with the exception of the kill scenes) was so poorly realized that every scene just seemed to drag on for an eternity.

The other problem with the film is that I wasn’t particularly shocked by the identity of the killer.  In the best giallo tradition, Escamilla attempts to generate some suspense about who is actually underneath the killer’s mask but it’s not hard to figure out.  By process of elimination, it’s easy to note who is accounted for and who isn’t during each kill.  There was really only one suspect.  I guessed the killer after about 15 minutes of watching and I was hoping that I was wrong.  I was hoping there would be some sort of out-of-nowhere, totally bonkers twist that wouldn’t make any sense but which would at least add some life to the movie.  Unfortunately, there was not.

For horror fans, there’s a lot of blood and there’s also Brinke Stevens.  That said, there’s not a lot of suspense.  This is ultimately a pretty forgettable slasher film.