The early eighties were the prime time for slasher films. Friday the 13th kicked it off in 1980 and then the sequels plus countless clones. Enter a whole new sub-genre of stalk/slasher movies; the college/high school slasher. Films such as Final Exam, Graduation Massacre, Slaughter High, Cheerleader Camp, etcetera. The Dorm That Dripped Blood falls into this sub-genre nicely and has developed an infamous reputation as a video nasty in the U.K.Synapse Films came along and re-released the film uncut, so all the gore is intact. So let’s begin.
The director(s) wasted no time in introducing the gore as the real star of the film. The gruesome opening scene comes screaming in out of nowhere and A nasty machete through the hand jolt gets things off to a gruesome start…is never referenced again, but does provide a good jolt to get us going into the interminable credit sequence. After the credits we see a bunch of 30 years old students having a Christmas party. We soon learn that the college will be closed in near future. Five college students during Christmas break volunteer to clean up a dormitory prior to its demolition (probably because rainbow flag can be seen as decoration in the background). And that is basically the whole setup.
Mixed signals
The party winds down as Joanne’s (played by Laurie Lapinski) boyfriend and his friend head off for a weekend ski trip. After the goodbyes, one of the students scheduled to help with the cleaning finds out she instead must go home for the break to be with her family. On her way out she swings by the roof to get the inventory list, but our mysterious killer has other plans. Her parents arrive, and when she becomes tied up with finding the list, her dad decides it’s best to go up and get her. He meets the killer in the stairwell, and he promptly introduces him to a nail-studded baseball bat. Then he moves onto her mom and finally onto daughter herself. The whole family have nice Christmas reunion…in death.
Negan was obviously fan of this movie
After eventually dispatching of the entire family that night, everything appears normal the following morning… Except for the frizzy-haired weirdo, John Hemmit (played by Woody Roll). He has been staying in the dorm since it was closed down. He doesn’t seem violent, but his lurky-ness begins to creep the students out. Speaking of creep there is also Bobby Lee Tremble (played by Dennis Ely), a scrap dealer who’s buying the salvaged furniture. Resident prankster Craig (played by Stephen Sachs) lightens the mood by staging obnoxious practical jokes. But the first day of cleaning doesn’t go without incident- the janitor finds his power drill missing. Was this Craig’s doing? Another practical joke? Or something more is at hand? Anyway, the janitor gets his drill back. Literally.
Eventually the killer begins to off everyone left in the dorm using a pretty impressive range of implements, and of course everyone splits up to look for missing people, making it that much easier to narrow the population out. To make things worse, power company cuts off the electricity in dormitory much earlier than it was supposed to happen. Conserving the energy comes first! In all of that darkness and chaos first one to go is Craig’s friend Brian (played by David Snow) who, let’s just say, lost his head. The lady he was supposed to protect, nervous Patty (played by Pamela Holland) ends up boiled alive. She just couldn’t let the steam off.
So that leaves us with Joanne and Craig only. Everyone else is dead, right? Wrong! John shows up from nowhere, starts chasing Joanne under excuse of trying to save her. Of course, Craig comes along and somehow manages to beat poor weirdo. Now when it seems it is all finally over Craig picks the perfect timing to completely lose his mind and confess to Joanne that he was the murderer all along. What a twist! And why? I am not sure I understood his rambling. Something about no one has been taking him seriously. Doesn’t make any sense. Hey at least we got some gory murders. Motive is irrelevant. Anyway, creepy Bobby Lee shows up to save the day. Except he doesn’t due to his stupidity. He manages to get shot by police (I don’t know who called them, phone lines are dead) while standing next to already defeated Craig. Police just went home leaving behind a pile of bodies and Craig who can now finish the job with Joanne. That’s right, this movie breaks the ultimate final girl rule. No happy ending here.
Conclusion: The Dorm That Dripped Blood isn’t the prettiest of films. Shot on 16mm then blown up to 35mm, this transfer comes from a recently unearthed uncut 35mm print from the directors which they thought was long lost. Obviously, it is recommended to view this film via Blu-Ray because the DVD softens the grain via compression which makes the overall image a bit softer. Now the ending I just mentioned, well, it’s probably one of the best worst endings I’ve ever seen. I like how they tried to go against the grain and cliché, but god damn is this annoying. After the last line of the film, I almost expected to hear the “WHA WHA sad trombone” sound effect. Director(s) Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow – along with their friend Stacey Giachino – knew well enough that low-budget horror was a popular route for budding filmmakers and a reliable industry calling card. On their commentary track for the discs, they admit that this feature was born when they saw Halloween and Friday the 13th and figured they could make a similar flick of their own. Too bad they failed. There’s another interesting bit of trivia in this film too–“What actress has since deleted this film from her resume?” The answer: Daphne Zuniga (Spaceballs)! In fact, she’s the only really convincing college student in the movie (she is younger than 30).


































