The Dorm That Dripped Blood

College students, who are clearing out a condemned dormitory, are stalked by an elusive killer.

The Dorm That Dripped Blood (aka Pranks) is a bit of a mixed bag for slasher fans. The movies production values are pretty low and the story for the most part is pretty routine, there's even a creepy bum hanging around for a red herring. In fact much of the story's build-up is pretty forgettable, save for one or two brutal murders. But the movie is really made better by its surprisingly intense climax (in an atmospheric setting) and one fairly bold, unconventional conclusion.

The cast is lackluster for the most part. Stephen Sachs is the best of the lot as he does a pretty nice turn in character. Also look for a young Daphne Zuniga as an ill-fated student.

Over all this is a pretty standard B slasher effort, but the finale is well worth savoring and for this viewer saved the movie from being a complete ho-hum.

** out of ****

Routine slasher about college kids working on boarding up a college dorm that is about to be demolished and being killed by an unknown, hiding in the shadows killer. Made on a budget of only $90,000 and featuring an unknown Daphne Zuniga at the time this is a lot better then I expected. Sure it is inept at times, but this film manages to be exciting, creepy and scary throughout. That's more then you can say about a lot of the other films in this genre.

Rated R; Extreme Violence & Profanity.

College girl Joanne Murray takes on the unenviable job of readying the student housing building to become apartments,which includes selling the unneeded furniture This takes place during a break,so a mysterious psycho is stalking the nearly-empty premises on campus."Dorm that Dripped Blood" is a low-budget slasher flick that is quite entertaining.The acting is pretty bad,the plot is predictable,but the gore effects are quite good.The film was made by UCLA film students Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow for next to nothing.Soon a dreamy ambiance kicks in,very similar to the enveloping forests of Jeff Leiberman's fantastic "Just Before Dawn".7 out of 10.It's great to see Daphne Zuniga of "The Initiation" fame run over few times by a car.

Well, that was a downer! And I mean that in the best sense. In fact, The Dorm That Dripped Blood has an ending so mean...so cruel...so nuts...that it actually elevates the entire film that came before it. Before that moment, The Dorm That Dripped Blood basically clips along as a decent enough college slash 'em up, but the ending really sends it over the top.

The film follows a group of college kids staying over the holiday break to take inventory and clean up an old deserted dorm. Soon enough, they find themselves sliced and diced by an unseen murderer. Why? Who knows. People handle the stress of college in their own unique ways.

The murders are mostly well staged and there's a handful of suspense here and there. Most of the actors are fine if nothing else. There's a fun cameo by Daphne Zuniga and a pretty cool music score by Christopher Young if that helps.

All in all, The Dorm That Dripped Blood is a decent little time waster. You could do much worse.

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?