The Dorm That Dripped Blood

A deranged killer attacks a group of students in 'The Dorm That Dripped Blood'. Five university students volunteer over the Christmas break to close up the dorm, clean up things around campus. PRetty soon we see that some maniac has the intention of killing them. He or she knocks off a couple of students (violently), and then starts playing pranks on our main group left at the campus. The psychopath destroys a huge dinner they make, cuts the phone lines, fixes the lights to shut off, etc. Very soon, the murderer starts attacking our main group leading to the identity being revealed in an interesting little ending. I thought 'The Dorm That Dripped Blood' was a good addition to 80's slashers, but didn't have the same flash that some of the other films at that time had. Production values seemed low in this one, so a lot of the film is poorly lit. The acting isn't the best ever, Laurie Lapinski was okay as the lead heroine. Daphne Zuniga, who is probably the most famous in the cast, puts in a good performance. Nothing spectacular, but nothing that took away from the film in a negative way. The scares are well done, the location of the dark dorm/campus helps in that! We get some stalking scenes with the killer and the characters which were creepy. The killer's identity is weak, but doesn't make this a bad film at all. I highly recommend 'The Dorm That Dripped Blood' to all horror fans. It is a relatively unknown slasher film that I don't believe has ever had a proper DVD release in North America. Check it out if you can! 7/10

Dorm That Dripped Blood, The (1982) * 1/2 (out of 4) Another entry in the never-ending run of slasher movies that followed Friday THE 13TH. This film here tells the story of five college students who stay back on Christmas break in order to get their old dorm ready for destruction. While the group are doing their thing, a maniac shows up with some new ways to kill them. This film was released in Britian (and on DVD) as PRANKS and apparently was also known as DEATH DORM but whatever the title is the end result is that there's a reason this film has been forgotten. The first ten minutes or so are actually fairly good with some effective kills but after that the thing just falls apart and really turns out to be one of the most boring and painful slashers of the decade. What really killed the movie was the incredibly bad pacing, which drags the film down so much that it was rather painful watching the movie because everything just seemed so dragged out. The final "chase" in the film lasted over and hour, which is just downright overkill but the entire movie is like this. Many of the death scenes feature builds up that are so dragged out that the suspense is drained out of them but then again, I'm not sure any suspense could have happened no matter what. As is to be expected, the performances are all forgettable and the direction really doesn't pack any punches either. Worse of all is that the kill scenes aren't all that impressive and even worse is that there's a pretty good ending, which gets wasted in a film like this. The payoff certainly isn't what I expected to see but it's hard to recommend sitting through the rest of this movie just for that.

Joanne, Patty, Brian, and Craig prepare the old dorm building to be torn down. They are pursued by a serial killer with a wide range of murder methods, ranging from power drill to industrial steam cooker. Is it that spooky weird guy John Hemmit killing off the incidental characters, or is it someone/thing even more terrifying? This movie was copyrighted in '82 but it has a very mid-late 70's look and feel to it. There's even a guy doing a weird John Belushi impersonation. Typical fare that you're used to is you watch slasher movies. The kids get picked off one by one. Only it's not really suspenseful nor is it all that good of a movie.

From 1981, a chiller, if you wanna call it that. Centers around an old abandon college dorm, that is to be closed down durning the christmas break, a counsellor, some students and a maintenance man spend the weekend cleaning it out. Then a killer shows up, stalking and killing everyone. Who is it, why is it? Now who ever made scream had to of seen this too, and used the unexpected ending. The acting is very bad. There is a scene in the beginning where some teen (older looking) is being chased by somebody, and then killed. They never explain who he was or nothing. As bad as this movie is you get to see a very young daphne zuniga who only last through the first 15 minutes. Then after that, turn it off. The ending was a little weird, but kinda cheesy. And watch for the cops in the movie. They are the worst acting cops i ever seen.. good luck.

I'm surprised at how unappreciated this vicious slasher is. Maybe it helped that before this, I saw the truly inferior slasher 'Drive-in massacre' and was happy to be able to see what was actually going here, but I'll try to explain why I liked this one even beyond that. The characters are all slasher-worthy; American (post-)teens with their typical problems, played by enthusiastic amateurs (as far as I know and can tell). Laurie Lapinski's lead character won me over in a second, and it was especially nice to see Daphne Zuniga, as well. To say anything about one particular other actor, I would have to get into the plot, which I do not want to do, other than have you know that how 'Death dorm' unfolds is pretty awesome (even if storywise, this is no brilliant feat - at all). Then there's a good load of gore, which must be considered one of the key ingredients for slashers. Another one of those ingredients, gratuitous nudity, is rather poorly represented, but still, it's there. The film is nicely shot, which always helps. This one wins by surplus of perfect slasher elements, rather than being a perfect slasher. A good 7 out of 10.

The Dorm that Dripped Blood, or Pranks as it's more commonly known among UK audiences as a one time 'Video Nastie', is set unsurprisingly in a 75 year old dormitory called Morgan Meadows Hall. It has been condemned and is ready to be torn down. Morgan Meadows is going to be completely inventoried, emptied and boarded up. In charge of the clean up is Joanne Murray (Laura Lapinski), she also manages to convince four of her friends to help her out, Patti (Pamela Holland), Craig (Stephen Sachs), Brian (David Snow) & Debbie (Daphne Zuniga). It is the Christmas holiday period and they have two weeks to remove the desks, beds & kitchen appliances. Unfortunately Debbie pulls out to spend the festive period with her parents (Richard Cowgill & Kay Beth) because her Grandmother is ill. Before they can leave the Dorm both Debbie and her parents are brutally murdered. The next morning the group become aware of the local weirdo named John Hemmit (Woody Roll) hanging around the Dorm & it's grounds. Also a slimy guy named Bobby Lee Tremble (Dennis Ely) turns up hoping to buy the cast off desks, but seems more intent on finding out if Joanne is alone. That night Bill Edgar (Jake Jones), the Dorm's caretaker, is killed. Debbie, Patti, Craig & Brian start to become increasingly concerned as strange things start to happen. The power gets cut, as does the phone-lines. They all feel in danger and that they are not alone. One by one they begin to die, but who is responsible? Bobby? John? Or maybe Joanne's boyfriend Tim (Robert Frederick)? You'll have to watch it to find out! Co-written and directed by Jeffery Obrow & Stephen Carpenter with Obrow also acting as producer & editor and Carpenter as cinematographer, I thought the Dorm that Dripped Blood was a fairly decent early 80's slasher that is neither particularly bad or good. The script by Obrow, Carpenter & Stacey Giachino is a little slow to get going but does throw in a few decent killings and a reasonable twist ending even if it does go on for a bit too long. There are quite a few pointless killer point-of-view shots as well & be warned that all the slasher clichés are in here including plenty of false alarms and characters splitting up in the dark when their in danger. The Dorm setting builds a certain amount of isolated tension, the characters are likable enough not to be annoying and generally speaking it's fairly well made considering the supposed $90,000 budget. The gore is OK, the killer uses a spiked club & there's a sliced in half hand, wire slitting someones throat, someone has a power drill stuck in the back of their head and someone is boiled alive, we are also treated to some brief machete slicing and dicing! There is a brief sequence involving female nudity, but not much. I have definitely seen better slasher films like the Burning (1981) & the Prowler (1981) but at the same time I have definitely seen worse like Funhouse (1981) & Honeymoon Horror (1982). If your a slasher fan then it is probably worth watching, just don't expect too much and you might enjoy it. As for everyone else it's only worth watching if you have nothing better to do, it's 85 odd minutes reasonably well spent I'd say.

"The Dorm That Dripped Blood" or under its UK title "Pranks" is another one of the long line of 80's slasher movies, but what set this apart is that it simply ended up on the Video nasty list, which I can't see why, but this movie is more grittier than most of the slashers that came from this period and it does succeed in some places, but it does falter in others. The opening murder really does set the tone of what's to come and there are plenty of deaths to keep the gore hounds happy even if some of them are a bit badly done and this movie does well at keeping the viewer in suspense and the mystery element is handled rather well and the final showdown was quite brutal and shocking for it's time. But what does let this movie down are the wafer thin characters, which were dull and uninteresting and personally didn't feel for any of them and the dialogue was sleep inducing most of the time. Laurie Lapinski gave us a one-dimensional and extremely unapproachable final girl, whilst the rest of the cast were never offered anything authentic to escape their stereotype. Even Daphne Zuniga gets no chance to shine in her short screen time, despite her gruesome death scene. All in all "The Dorm That Dripped Blood" has all the right ingredients, it just has something missing and could have been a whole lot better if it had a better more convincing cast.

As story goes, The Dorm That Dripped Blood might not be anything memorable, but there's a rag tag low budget energy that radiates from every frame and it really makes you root for this little movie that could. None of the acting is that great, some of the lighting is impossibly dark, but the death scenes are all very brutal and crackle with a certain intensity that's very unnerving.

Must give Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow credit for having the guts to go against established slasher formulas to create something different. There's definitely an attempt to set atmosphere over numerous scenes of gore. There is attempt to develop the characters. The ending is what makes the film memorable. Maybe the motivations for the killings isn't original, but it doesn't have to be. Sometimes in life bad people win. It sucks. It's infuriating, but sometimes that's how it goes. I applaud the writers and directors for going against the grain with this one.

The Dorm That Dripped Blood has never been mentioned in many "best horror films of all time" lists and it probably never will be, but if grisly gore is your thing, there are worse ways to spend your 90 minutes. It at least has an admirable mean streak that runs throughout where you feel that no one is safe and that's a good thing to feel in a horror movie. A lot of the college kids look like they might be old enough to have children in college themselves, but that's part of the fun of these cheap horror movies, isn't it?