The plot follows a group of college students vacationing during April Fool's Day weekend on an island estate, which is infiltrated by an unknown assailant.

It received varied responses from film critics, with some commending it for its non-gratuitous violence and plot twists, while others lambasted it for its surprise ending.

During a search for the pair, Nikki falls into the island's well, where she finds the severed heads of Skip and Arch, along with the dead body of Nan.

Savoring the surprise, she turns the handle slowly and when "Jack" finally pops out, Nan, who knew Muffy from acting class, emerges from behind her and slits her throat with a razor.

[4] An additional final sequence in the film, present in Walton's original cut, had the group leaving the island, and Skip enacting an actual murder of Muffy, wanting to take their familial inheritance for himself.

[5] Paramount executives disliked this dark turn, and mandated that this final sequence be excised so that the film could end on a high note, with the characters celebrating after the revelation of Muffy's elaborate prank.

[3] Though a commercial success, director Walton reflected: "The tragedy, I think, or the great disappointment was that Paramount didn't know how to release it other than as a typical slasher picture.

[5] Paul Attanasio of The Washington Post wrote: "The suspense sequences are stylishly managed, and Walton has attractively cast the movie with a number of natural, if unexciting, actors.

There is a suburban princess and a jock and a Junior Achievement type and so forth, none of which qualifies Bach for screenwriter of the year, but it's remarkable how effective even these elementary efforts at characterization are in the context of the film".

[15] The Dayton Journal Herald's Terry Lawson gave the film a three out of four-star rating, praising it as a "well-made and well-acted little enterprise [that] holds a surprise or two".

[18] Joe Baltake of the Escondido Times-Advocate panned the film based on its sexual content, comparing it to the Friday the 13th series, adding that "none of the mayhem keeps its characters from putting the make on one another or even stopping to have sex.

[19] AllMovie noted that the film "has more rollercoaster thrills than most slasher flicks with five times the gore", writing: "Amid the glut of gory horror films that clogged the cable schedules and cineplexes in the wake of Halloween and Friday the 13th, April Fool's Day stands out as a fairly restrained exercise in the '80s teen slasher genre".

The website's consensus reads: "April Fool's Day takes a decent stab at deconstructing the slasher genre, but an underwhelming story keeps it from really sinking in.

[24] This novelization features an alternate ending in which Skip sneaks back onto the island after everyone has left to kill Muffy for his share of the family money, though he fails and winds up dead himself.

A revised draft of the script included another version of the above-mentioned ending in which Skip sneaks back onto the island to kill Muffy.