text: Over Christmas break, a group of college friends stay behind to help prepare the dorms to be torn down and replaced by apartment buildings. To make the work a bit more difficult, a murderous, Chucks-wearing psycho is wandering the halls of the dorm, preying on the group in various violent ways.<br /><br />Registered as one of the 74 'video nasties' listed by the U.K. in the 1980s, The Dorm That Dripped Blood had a good reputation built up for it prior to first viewing. The term 'video nasty' strikes into mind some images of some great explicit gore, violence, sex, etc.: All the things a horror fan dreams of. So, after hearing all of that info, I settled into Pranks (alt. title) expecting a sleazy slasher experience. . . and that's what it tried to be, but failed pretty much completely. Visually, the film's not great. The cinematography, gore (except for a couple scenes), and overall direction all fail. It's simply not enjoyable to watch. The unoriginal script is lacking and often throws in random things without any real reason (like the opening kill). There are some cool death scenes, including a pretty nice face melt (which can be seen on the poster), but that's about it for the positive. The acting is pretty bad, the story seems unimportant, the killer isn't cool or scary, and it suffers the one major error that any slasher flick should always avoid: it's a bit boring. Overall, for a film done by a few UCLA film students for $90,000 (which would be over double that today), The Dorm That Dripped Blood isn't a total mess. It has a couple good things, and is fairly watchable. . . But, as a slasher flick looking to be on the level of films like The House on Sorority Row and Pieces. . . it just cannot compare. Don't expect much, and you may at least be entertained. I hate to say it, but this is one of the few films I've seen that would actually be better with a remake. . . and yet, they go after great works like Black Christmas. Oh well. . .<br /><br />Obligatory Horror Elements:<br /><br />- Subgenre: Slasher<br /><br />- Violence/Gore: There are some brutally cool kills, and the gore is okay for the most part. . . but nothing special. Also, they off-screened some of the best murders.<br /><br />- Sex/Nudity: There's a little unappealing (to me) nudity, but not very much.<br /><br />- Cool Killer(s): Nah. The ending monologue(s) of the killer made him/her pretty uncool.<br /><br />- Scares/Suspense: A jump scare or two, but nothing too effective.<br /><br />- Mystery: I suppose, yeah, but I simply didn't care enough, and it's as obvious as the nose on the killer's face.<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />Final verdict: 3.75/10. Bah! Humbug! <br /><br />-AP3-