The Dorm that Dripped Blood (1982)

Note:  Before I begin this review I just wanted to mention that I’ve already reviewed this movie under the title Pranks for the website a couple of years ago.  After watching this Blu-Ray release from Synapse I decided to write an entirely new review.  I wanted to do this because I don’t feel like I’ve ever really seen the movie until watching this version.  This is the uncut version with the gore put back in, and is also cleaned up nicely.  So you can refer to my review of Pranks (just in case you run across a copy of it) if you want to.  But I’ll tell you right here before the review that this is the version you want to check out. 

A group of college students are staying over Christmas break to help close down a dorm that is going to be torn down.  There is a big going away party and then everyone but our cast leaves.  So we have a small group of students wandering around the abandoned dorm.  It doesn’t take very long for we the audience to realize that someone else is prowling around killing whomever they run across.  As the bodies pile up eventually our cast of characters figure out that they are in danger.  But by then the killer has locked the doors, shut off the power and cut phone lines, so they are stuck.  The rest of the movie is them trying to get out of the dorm alive.

If you have ever watched a slasher movie this plot is going to sound very familiar and it is.  The situation of the characters being stuck in a familiar, but suddenly spooky setting of the dorm is just another take on the tried and true formula of setting these movies use to scare the audience.  Additionally the rest of the story is pretty standard fare and for much of the movie you can predict who is going to die and who is going to live.  Though I will give The Dorm That Dripped Blood some credit for a few twists being tossed in.  They also do a great job of introducing the various red herrings so that it isn’t easy to guess who the killer is. 

But there are a few things about the plot and narrative that I wasn’t terribly fond of.  After getting some decent kills (the 2nd kill is one of the better ones) the movie slows down as we get to see far too many scenes of them wandering around the quite dorm.  We do have some jump scares that work, but after a while of nothing happening they start to lose their effectiveness.  You kind of need to mix these in with some action for them to really work.  It has also always kind of bothered me that the 1st kill of the movie is never tied into the plot.  We don’t know who the guy was and how he is connected with the story.  I mean no one even says, “What happened to Bob?” or acknowledges that someone is missing.  Hell for all we know someone else might have killed him.

I do want to revisit something that I mentioned above.  When I saw this movie under the Pranks title the lack of action between the first set of kills and the last set of kills bothered me much more then it did under the Dorm title.  Those old copies were so dark that it was nearly impossible to follow the action.  This release from Synapse looks amazing and while the movie is still dark it is in a good way.  The setting of the dorm is filled with tons of shadows and we have characters coming in and out of the light at random.   This gives the movie a visual look that helps to set the tone and really does make this gap in violence far more interesting to watch.  Though I still wish things were spaced out better. 

Another thing that this release does is restore the gore footage.  For the very 1st time we actually get to see the full shots of the drill in the noggin and I think that the attack with the bat is longer as well.  There are a few other scenes that seem to be longer then I remember, so another of my complaints about Pranks has been dealt with.  I don’t think this movie was cut as badly as say My Bloody Valentine, but what they took out really did neuter it.  It is great to see a company like Synapse take the time to put out the movie in this version.

In addition to all the original footage and cleaning up the movie Synapse also includes some special features.  We have a nice interview with the special effects man, Matthew Mungle.  There is also an interview with the composer, Christopher Young.  Toss in a commentary with co-directors Jeffery Obrow and Stephen Carpenter for a release that tells fans all they need to know about The Dorm that Dripped Blood (aka. Pranks/Death Dorm… yeah there was a 3rd title!). 

In conclusion I still don’t think that this is one of the better slashers to have come out in the ‘80s, but it is worth checking out.  Remember though you need to pick up the Dorm that Dripped Blood and ignore the temptation to get Pranks on VHS. 

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2011 John Shatzer