I’ve had this one on my mental list of 1980s horror films to watch for years and finally got around to it.

Part of the reason it took me so long is that it’s touted as a horror-comedy. You may know my beef with this genre: the comedy kills the horror, and the horror kills the comedy. (Obvious exceptions: “Shaun of the Dead,” “House,” “Return of the Living Dead.”)

It’s a particularly weird tangle in this film. It’s not a comedy like “Scary Movie” or “Saturday the 14th.” It’s basically a standard 1980s schlock horror flick like “Hell Night” or “Nightmare Beach” with a bit of prop comic humor. (If anything, I realized the 90s film “Cutting Class,” which I have reviewed, borrowed heavily from this film.

I would just call it “lighthearted horror.”

What’s the plot here? A movie crew decides to shoot a low budget movie about a high school massacre in the exact school (now closed) where the massacre took place. (Never a good idea.) On top of that, we have two time frames going: the main one, and the aftermath, in which the lone survivor is talking to the cops (e.g. “The Usual Suspects.”)

A couple of things did stand out here.

One, the movie has George Clooney in one of his first film roles.

Despite the comedy pretensions, there’s some pretty clever and grisly kill scenes.

One scene involves a surprisingly well-argued debate about sexism and exploitation within horror films. (The film is critiquing itself as it’s loaded with T&A.)

It was a little hard to keep track of the time frames, and I’m not sure the final twist really makes sense (but I’m not going to put any effort into figuring out if it does.)

“Return to Horror High” works as a fun goof, but that’s about it.