This may be the only film that actually comes close to capturing on film the essentially uncapturable world of the American college experience of the late 60s-early 70s. Go ahead, name another movie that even approaches this one: "Getting Straight"? "RPM"? These are caricatures. "Return of the Secaucus Seven" has its moments, but that's a retrospective film about (self-obsessed) individuals more than a film about a time and a place depicted *in* that time and place. "Drive, He Said" portrays-- with subtlety and nuance where it should, and a swift kick in the shorts where that's the only appropriate way-- the anti-draft movement, the ambiguity of big-time college sports (especially when there's a war on), the sexual revolution of the period, and the general unreality of the day. Believe me, it was like that.
The whole cast deserves commendation (as does the director, of course) but particular praise should be reserved for Bruce Dern, as the basketball coach, and Karen Black, the hero's very unusual-- except for that time-- love interest. William Tepper, as the lead, also rates a real round of applause both for his perfect capturing of the student-athlete of the period and for actually playing real college basketball in the film (remember Anthony Perkins in "Tall Story"? Yikes!).
All in all, a classic of a kind-- and the last film someone currently in 6th grade should be writing comments on ("boring", "repellent"-- um, right, sonny, please go back to your Arnold movies). Why isn't this film available from imdb?

Serum starts as Eddie (Derek Phillips) is delighted to learn he has been accepted into medical school to carry on the family tradition of becoming an MD like his father Richard (Dennis O'Neill) & his uncle Eddie (David H. Hickey), however his joy could be short lived as Eddie is involved in an accident & is run over by a car. Taken to the nearest hospital it doesn't look good for poor Eddie so his uncle Eddie convinces his brother Richard to let him save Eddie with the serum he has developed, a serum which will give the recipient the power to self heal any sort of wound or illness. Desperate for his boy to live Richard agrees but the procedure has unwanted side effects like turning Eddie into a brain eating zombie which is just not a good thing...
Executive produced, written & directed by Steve Franke I'll be perfectly frank myself & say Serum is awful, Serum is one of those no budget horror films which tries to rip-off other any number of other's & ends up being slightly more fun than having you fingernails pulled out with pliers. The script is terrible, it has the whole Re-Animator (1985) feel to it with mad scientists wielding huge syringes trying to eradicate death but it's so boring it's untrue, the first forty minutes is nothing more than a really dull soap opera that amounts to nothing expect to pad the running time out with Eddie arriving home after spending some time away & finding his ex-girlfriend has hooked up with someone else, arguments with his step-mom, getting drunk with his mate & generally boring the audience stiff. So, once the tedium of the first forty minutes is over & if your still watching it it takes another twenty minutes to get Eddie re-animated & then he kills a couple of people, police catch up with him & shoot him, the end. Thank god. Serum is devoid of any of the characteristic's that one would associate with a good film, the character's suck, the dialogue is poor, it takes itself far too seriously, it's dull, it's slow, it's forgettable & considering it's meant to be a horror film there's an alarming lack of blood, gore or horror. Not recommended, did I mention Serum was boring? I thought so.
Director Franke does nothing to liven this thing up, although competent there's no style here at all. The gore levels are none existent, there's a bit of splashed blood, a bitten neck, a couple of scars on a dead woman's face, a couple of scenes where a needle pierces skin & that's it. Don't expect a Re-Animator in the gore department because if you do your going to be sorely disappointed, much like I was in fact. Filmed in what looks like one house, one restaurant & a lab the film has no variety either & just looks cheap throughout. There's a couple of scenes of nudity but that's nowhere near enough to save it.
Technically the film isn't too bad, at least it looks like proper cameras were used, I can't really comment on the special effects because there aren't any but generally speaking Serum looks reasonably professional. Apparently shot in Texas, or should that read it should have literally been shot in Texas? The acting sucks although again I think they were proper actor's rather than friends or family of the director.
Serum is a terrible film, it's dull, slow, boring, has no gore & feels like a horrible soap opera for the first forty minutes. I don't understand why anyone would feel the need to watch this when they can watch Re-Animator or one of it's sequels again instead, seriously I recommend you give Serum a miss. There I've just saved you from wasting 90 minutes of your life, you can thank me later.