The Dorm That Dripped Blood

Plot synopsis:
A young college man is seen running from an unseen pursuer. As he is hiding, hands grab his throat and he is strangled to death.Dayton Hall is a dormitory that is about to be turned into an apartment complex. Five students have volunteered to help with the cleanup, supervised by Joanne. At a party, Joanne's boyfriend, Tim, tries to convince her to move into an apartment with him, but Joanne wants time to think about it. After she says goodbye to Tim (who is leaving with some friends to go skiing), Joanne prepares the cleaning schedule for the next two weeks. She learns that one of the five students, Debbie, has to leave that night with her parents, leaving Joanne with Patti, Brian, and Craig.Debbie helps with the cleanup for a long as she can and then goes back to her own dorm to wait for her parents. Before she leaves, she heads to the room to get the inventory list from the storage room. Debbie's mother and father arrive and wait for her in their Bronco truck. The father walks up the stairs of the dorm to her room to see what is taking so long, but on the stairway he encounters someone who beats him with a nail-studded baseball bat. While the mother continues to wait in the truck, the back door of the truck slowly opens. Debbie comes down the stairs and sees her dead father at the foot of the stairs. She runs outside to the truck, only to find her mother's dead body inside. Debbie is hit on the head and falls to the ground unconscious. The unseen killer drags her to the truck's back tire, puts the vehicle in reverse and mashes Debbie's head. The dead bodies of Debbie, her mother and father are put in the truck and driven away.The next morning, Patti goes to the supply room. She sees a homeless bum scavenging in the trash bin. When she tells the others about the "wired-looking guy with the fuzzy hair", Brian says that the man is named John Hemmit; he often hangs around Dayton Hall, but he is harmless. Bill talks to Joanne and complains about someone stealing his power drill. Afterwords, Joanne meets with Bobby Lee Tremble, who has arrived about the desks being sold from Dayton Hall. Bobby Lee mentions occasionally driving by the dormitory.That night, after playing pool, Patti goes for a beer and is startled when she sees Hemmit at the window. Brian runs outside to get Hemmit, but he returns without seeing him. The group then splits up to search for the bum. At home, Bobby Lee gives Joanne a ring and asks if she would like to "get together". His "lady friend", Alice, nags him about the phone calls, and Bobby Lee decides to go out for a drive.The next day, Bill goes to the bathroom to clean up. While he is washing his hands, the unseen killer shows up with the drill and "returns" the drilling by drilling right in the back of Bill's head.Brian and Craig are outside when Hemmit walks by. Craig confronts and threatens him to stay away from the dorm while Brian tells Craig to "lay off" Hemmit.An elaborate dinner is planned for the evening, but while Craig is getting candles, some food is stolen. Assuming that Hemmit is in the house, Craig searches for the bum, while Joanne goes to get the others. When she finally finds Brian, they all meet back at the table to see that someone has beaten the food and dishes with a baseball bat. The group gives a description of Hemmit to a police officer, who tells the students that it sounds like something the cops had picked up earlier.While on the telephone to her mother, Joanne hears noises on the room. She calls Patti, who comes over to Joanne's room. Joanne then realizes that the phones are now dead. Brian is seen playing pool when the power in the building goes out. While running up the stairs, he is attacked by the unseen killer with a machete. Craig joins Patti and Joanne to ask about the power failure. Craig and Patti go to check the fuse box. Once there, Craig is knocked unconscious, and Patti is murdered. Craig gets back to Joanne and tells her what happened. The two of them see Hemmit walking around outside, carrying a bloody machete. Arming themselves, Joanne and Craig go out in the hall to find and confront the killer.Soon they run into Hemmit, who knocks out Craig. Joanne runs and eventually finds Brian's dead body. Joanne grabs the machete from out of Brian's corpse and wounded Hemmit. He tells her "You've got to trust me". Not believing him, she hits him again with the machete. She meets again with Craig and Hemmit appears once again. While Joanne gets Hemmit's attention, Craig begins to struggle with him over the machete until Joanne intervenes and hits Hemmit on the head with a baseball bat, killing him at last. Craig seems very pleased and he says to Joanne: "It's been me the whole time". Suddenly realizing that Craig is the killer, Joanne runs away.Bobby Lee arrives at the dorm and hears Joanne's screams and cries for help. While hiding, Joanne is knocked out by Craig, and soon him and Bobby Lee are fighting over the machete. When Bobby Lee bests Craig and grabs the machete away from him, the police show up and see Bobby Lee standing over Craig with the machete. Mistakenly thinking that Bobby Lee is the killer, they pull out their guns and tell Bobby Lee to freeze. Craig, acting like a scared victim for the police officers, tells them that Bobby Lee has killed everyone and pleads to shoot him. Craig then sinisterly whispers to Bobby Lee that he is a "dead man". When Bobby Lee lunges for Craig, he is shot and killed by the policemen. The police help Craig to his feet who continues play-acting as a frightened survivor. He tells the officers that the rest of his friends are dead and they are up on the seventh floor. When the officers run out, Craig picks up the still unconscious Joanne, carries her to the basement to the incinerator and drops her inside. Joanne is burned alive screaming, while the murderous and psychotic Craig calmly walks out of the building having gotten away with everything. The policemen left in the building begin to wonder what the horrible stench is that just circulated all through the dorm.

Tags: cruelty, grindhouse film, murder, cult, horror, violence, insanity, sadist

Review: