Pretty Good

Let's be realistic.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

College students are stalked and murdered by a crazed killer. So original for an 80's horror movie, I know! Watched this recently, wasn't expecting much. Some of the acting was not great, but this movie was some kind of UCLA film project that became a legit movie.The only recognizable face was Daphne Zuniga, who went on to fame in The Fly II, The Sure Thing and Spaceballs. Apparently this was her film debut.It's your usual slasher on the loose movie, but there is an evil twist near the end that I appreciated, took it to another level and didn't just do the expected. Horror fans will enjoy it more than the average movie fan. Worth checking out!

This 1982 horror film stars Laurie Lapinski, Stephen Sachs, David Snow, Pamela Holland and Daphne Zuniga. This features a group of college students, Joanne (Lapinski), Craig (Sachs), Brian (Snow) and Patti (Holland) who are helping to clean out their campus that's about to be torn down. Soon, a mysterious killer stalks and kills them one by one. This isn't a bad 80's slasher with a decent cast, some gruesome deaths and chilling score by Christopher Young as usual. Zuniga (Spaceballs, The Initiation) appears briefly as Joanne's friend, Debbie and the film is also known as "Pranks" and "Death Dorm." Fans of the genre should give this a chance.

"The Dorm That Dripped Blood" is a more than acceptable slasher entry.**SPOILERS**Attending a college party, Joanne Murray, (Laura Lapinski) Debbie, (Daphne Zuniga) Patti, (Pamela Holland) Brian, (David Snow) and Craig, (Stephen Sachs) overhear from her boyfriend Tim, (Robert Frederick) that the dorm is being demolished. Volunteering to stay behind over Christmas break to remove items inside and make it suitable for demolishing, they soon get to work and are able to get the work started. Hearing strange noises around, they each go off in search of the source, and find handyman John Hemmit, (Woody Roll) is still on campus. As the noises continue and the group soon starts to mysteriously disappear. As the group begins to notice the disappearances, they finally realize that a psychotic killer is in the school and is targeting them, forcing the survivors to band together to get through the night.The Good News: While not a perfect slasher, this is still a very enjoyable one. Perhaps it's best attribute is that it manages to do what most others think is a lock but rarely achieve, the perfect setting for the slaughter. Being inside a building slated for demolition ensures that the victims will be completely isolated since it's going to be marked off anyway, and thus providing insurance against those trying to help out. The place itself is quite a perfect setting, as the place really looks like it's condemned and able to be torn down and makes it all the more believable. The long, extremely dark corridors provide tons of areas to trap people in, chase them around or keeping their corpse around without fear of discovery yet come across as being part of the design of the place, not merely because of anything on the killer's part. There's some great stalking going on as well, with some pretty chilling scenes popping up here and there. The dorm kill is absolutely chilling, the scene in the bathroom has a macabre sense of chills and once the lights go out, it's simply packed with suspense. The entire final chase through the pipes and darkened hallways is completely suspenseful, and manages to come away with a large amount of tension. There's a real sense of urgency through the scenes, coming up with some great, innovative scenes here that are creative and quite necessary under the situation and make it all the more fun. There's even some pretty juicy kills in here. There's a razor-wire strangulation, a head crushed when a car drives over it, a hole bored in the back of the head with an electric drill, a spiked baseball bat bashed into the forehead, a hand split open from a machete and being dunked into a boiling vat of water among more that really helps this along. There all quite brutal and manage to get a jolt out. The film's last great quality is it's spectacular ending. It's one of the best twists in the genre, coming out of nowhere and being completely shocking as well, which is then upped all the more from the fact that even after that, there's a second series of twists that comes out which is such a departure from the others out there that it just makes it all the better and more fun. Overall, this is a highly impressive slasher effort.The Bad News: There isn't a whole lot here that doesn't work. One of the main things is that there's a really long portion in the beginning of the film before it really gets going. There's way too many senseless point-of-view shots that don't mean anything to the long, stalking scenes that are thrown in for no reason at all and don't even conclude in a false scare. These, along with the scenes of them running around doing their work or with each other that really make the beginning a little longer than normal. It's also quite a stretch to believe that so many of them would be so clueless about what's really going on. It takes place over several days, and the ones that are knocked off early are made to seem like they just dropped off the face of the earth, and these are then dismissed out-of-hand and forgotten about instead of causing cause for concern, especially as it grows later in the film. The last really big flaw is that the revelation of the killer and their motives is a little tough to swallow. They're not all that bad, and the reveal is a nice shock, but the fact that it's who it's revealed to be and the reasoning behind it don't really make any sense. That's the main problem with that one. These are pretty obvious ones, and while they may not be really relevant, they are important from keeping this from a classic slasher.The Final Verdict: While not all that bad, it's few minor flaws manage to keep this one out of the greats of the slasher genre. It's still a really entertaining entry, and that in itself should enable slasher aficionados to seek this one out, as it's a really enjoyable, but those seeking a definitive slasher should look elsewhere.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language and Brief Nudity

One of a multitude of slashers that appeared in the early eighties, Pranks is notable only for an early performance by Daphne Zuniga (The Sure Thing, The Fly 2); her character dies fairly early on, and the rest of the film is totally forgettable.During their Christmas break, a group of students volunteer to clear a condemned college building of its furniture. A crazy killer, however, throws a spanner in the works by methodically bumping off the youngsters one by one in a variety of gruesome ways.Exploiting every stalk 'n' slash cliché in the book, director Jeffrey Obrow delivers a tedious and unexciting horror that had me praying for the characters to be killed, so that I could get on with watching something more worthwhile. The majority of the deaths (which, let's face it, is why we generally watch this kind of film) are brief and not that gory; the only truly grisly imagery comes right at the end when the bodies of the victims are discovered by the remaining survivor (there is one notably bloody dismembered corpse—the film could've done with more).At the last minute, the film saves itself from the disgrace of receiving the lowest possible score from me by having a nice unexpectedly downbeat ending, but this really is one for slasher completists only.