Directed by Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter, The Dorm That Dripped Blood is a thoroughly middle of the road exercise in slasher movie filmmaking. The plot finds a group of college students working together to clean out a decommissioned dorm over Christmas break. They are soon picked off one by one by an unseen killer.
The film is most notable for being the debut of Daphne (Spaceballs) Zuniga. She gets offed pretty early on, but she clearly is the most talented actress in the bunch. In fact, the film loses a lot of its charm once she exits the picture. It also happens to feature the first score by Christopher (Hellraiser) Young, although he basically just rips off Bernard Herrmann’s score for Psycho.
The Dorm That Dripped Blood is a pretty generic slasher in just about every way. Some fans will undoubtedly enjoy it for that. My big issue with it was the draggy pacing. The final confrontation with the killer goes on far too long as well. It also doesn’t help that half the movie is essentially devoted to characters splitting up to walk down darkened hallways so they can look for other characters. Plus, the creepy guy with the Art Garfunkel hair has got to be the most obvious red herring in slasher movie history.
Heck, they don’t even lean into the Christmastime aesthetic, which is kind of disappointing. If anything, it would’ve given the movie an opportunity to be worth a look during both the Halloween and the Yuletide season. Other than some tinsel and a few colored lights that are seen in the background early on, you’d never know it was Christmas. Bummer.
The good news is the DVD from Synapse reinstates the gore that was cut out in the theatrical version. It’s clearly the way to go, seeing how the murder sequences are the best thing about the movie. This version has more hand stabbing, bludgeoning, and head drilling, which almost kind of makes it worth a damn. It all amounts to about five extra minutes, which isn’t too shabby. Do yourself a favor and steer clear of the R rated cut.
Obrow and Carpenter later directed the minor classic, The Kindred.
AKA: Pranks. AKA: Death Dorm.
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