User reviews

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.

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?

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 ****

I love me some slashers, but the more obscure ones rarely score with me, for the bare minimum to make a slasher is very ...minimum, and loads of these got made back in the peak days of this genre. "The Dorm that Dripped Blood" a.k.a. "Death Dorm" is one of them, although not entirely without any charms. Picked it up purely because of the plot being set during the Christmas holidays, for 'tis the season.

With the estimated finances of under 100 thousand, "The Dorm that Dripped Blood" does what it can with what it has, and what it has are a few things. For the expenses, the kills are decent and low-key gnarly, the cast is sort of alright, the scream queen of "Death Dorm" played by Laurie Lapinski offers up a decent performance, the locations, and the eerie ambience commit to an offbeat atmosphere, and, I don't know how to put it, but it feels like a film about students made by students, therefore the whole thing acquires sort of extra authenticity. It does feel somewhat obscure, if you're scanning for such kind of oldie horrors. I will never understand why was this considered a "video nasty" and banned in the UK, it's quite tame, and not near the most extreme even in the old days.

Now, however, all those charms are fighting a prolonged losing battle against the void of the plot (it's there, even with a twist, but it's stretched supremely thin over the runtime), increasingly sluggish pacing culminating in a very lengthy chase sequence, and the atmosphere gradually wearing thin and flat as the runtime goes. I rarely experience movies that make me tired, and this one did.

The yuletide horror value too, unfortunately, is very little, and this goes out as a recommendation only to the hardcore fans of low-budget slashers, intriguing "video nasties", and enjoyers of obscure, forgotten 80's horror flicks.

Houses, summer camps, asylums all drip, now a dorm. Low budget low quality in which scorned lover tries to deflect guilt onto neighborhood drifter. Seen worse, but unless you're bent on seeing every teen slasher, I'd look for better

A nasty and gritty slasher film that looks like it was shot during a weekend with some college friends. In some ways, that's part of its charm, but the film falters whenever it's not focusing on the killing since none of the actors are very good at selling the dialogue. The ending is memorably depressing and cruel.

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" 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.

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.

It's the early 80s. There's a group of suspiciously old-looking teens. And there's a maniac stalking around. Yes, this is slasherville.

This movie is called Pranks. Why is it called Pranks? I haven't the faintest idea. Unless your idea of a great prank is to repeatedly hit someone's dinner with a baseball bat - on balance, not a great prank; in fact quite a rubbish prank if truth be told. But there you go.

The film itself concerns a group of teenagers who are tasked with cleaning out a decommissioned dormitory. They become aware that a psychopath is on the loose. To combat this development, they split up and wander about in the dark. It ends in tears for most of them.

Pranks is a badly made slasher movie. The DVD release I viewed was the Vipco one. It appears to be cut of a fair bit of violence. This makes the DVD even more pointless because, let's face it, a slasher movie shorn of violence is a waste of time. For slasher-film and video nasty completists only.

The Dorm That Dripped Blood has a chip on its shoulder. A big one! If you're looking for your run of the mill "tits and blood" slasher, this might not be the one for you. It's darkly lit, creepy, and the film stock is grainy, making it feel more like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Last House on the Left than a Friday the 13th sequel.

The story is nothing special. A group of college students (some of whom look a bit too long in the tooth to be college kids) stay over a holiday break to take inventory in an old dorm and are stalked and killed by someone who will be revealed during the shocking climax.

The cast is decent if a bit dull, but they do a decent enough job and there's not a lot of suspense or scares, but The Dorm That Dripped Blood stands out from the pack by the sheer mean spiritedness of its death scenes and unpredictable kill order. It doesn't play nice or by the rules and there's something sort of exciting about that. The ending is an especially shocking downer.

It's also the feature film debut of Daphne Zuniga, so that's kinda neat. She doesn't have much screen time, but she does a decent job and is featured in one of the wildest and most mean spirited moments of the film.

The Dorm That Dripped Blood might not be a genius work of art, but it has enough interesting moments to make it worth a watch.

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.

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.

The movie is another attempt at a horror movie that kills off "teenagers" with a mysterious killer on the loose. So another slasher with a "surprise" twist. There are some decent effects here (if you consider the budget and the time frame this was made), but overall there is not that much nastiness going.

The acting is below average. But I guess it is sufficient for what it is supposed to be. While it isn't too long, it does dabble in scenes that are quite unnecessary. Then again, you have to make a movie about 90 minutes long so ... I've seen worse, but apart from the great title and cover art (American Blu Ray), there is not much this actually can offer

While I'm not a Christmas-Film Lover, usually I watch the occasional Christmas movie or five by now. Can't believe thee ONLY one I've seen was a new-to-me: THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD. If you think Die Hard borderlines as a "Christmas" movie, this one is about 9 yards removed...but still technically, Christmas time.

Standard slasher with a ton of padding, one of my Melrose Place gals' first appearance (Daphne Zuniga) and while nothing great it did have some creative kills and one HELLUVA ending. In fact, no spoilers, the finale's shocking decision was so perfect, it elevated the whole movie and earned a recommendation. Available on YouTube for free - though I think that's the edited down version. I saw one driller-killer scene more graphic somewhere else.

***

Final thoughts: Unbelievable this was called "Pranks" at one time. In only one scene were "pranks" even brought up and it had zero to do with the plot, motivation or the rest of the movie. Thank God they changed the title.

Bunch of college kids stopping on at a dorm just before the Xmas holidays are stalked and slashed by an unknown killer. Released as Pranks in the UK it found itself deemed to be a Video Nasty and subsequently got banned, despite being the cut R version. A few year later it was granted an 18 certificate by the BBFC, but with 10 seconds of cuts. As for the film itself I found it to be a pretty routine slasher. To it's credits it has a good, creepy musical score (obviously inspired by Psycho), there are some brutal deaths (sadly cut on all but the relatively recent director's cut) and it has that all important feel to it, that of the Golden Age of the slasher movie. It's 81 minutes running time never drags either. And considering the film's obvious low budget overall the makers did a decent enough job. On the downside the actors playing the students look older than the parts that they are playing (not unusual, to be fair), some of the acting is wooden and, despite a red herring as to the identity of the killer, it is predictable. Quite why Pranks got banned in the UK I just don't know, but thankfully times have changed for the better. It won't challenge the grey matter, Pranks is best watched with a few beers!

A handful of college students stay during Christmas break to clean up an old abandoned dorm and find themselves stalked and killed by an unseen killer. Could they be avenging some past transgression? Or are they just some random crazy person?

The Dorm That Dripped Blood isn't exactly fine art, but it knows what it wants to accomplish and it, more or less, gets the job done (even if it's done in a workman-like fashion). There's not a lot of style or extra frills, but some of the special makeup effects are convincing and the film has an admirable mean streak (just wait until you see what happens to poor Daphne Zuniga!)

The finale manages to scrounge up some suspense and it ends on what is, perhaps, the most downbeat note ever played in a slasher film. I'd say most mainstream audiences will be up in the air about this one, but slasher completeists should enjoy it.

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 is probably one of the least known of the early 80's hay day hack n slash family - consisting of a slue of cousins which themselves have gathered dust, triumphantly sitting with legs crossed> on videostore shelves through half a generation. - that is, until DVD finally unearthed some lesser knowns for a second chance.

(I have the old Media VHS version, btw) (The UK DVD release is known as 'PRANKS)

A killer lurks on a college campus - through the closterphobic corridors of Meadows Hall, killing working coeds in some very creative ways. A baseball bat with barbed-wire around it. A girl is ran over.(Not too creative, but has to be seen within its context, consisting of three murders within thirty seconds.) A girl is shoved in a pressure cooker and is cooked to death. A janitor gets a drilling headache. A woman gets incinerated - you name it.

While the film is quiet amateurish, it delivers on most all levels that simply make up a good slasher film. I could take away merit by assigning scoff at the quality of the production - the dark-shoddy look of the film, etc; - but I won't. - A solid slasher film in all respects, with one hell of a twist ending.