USA, 1982
Review:
JA Kerswell
A student project that unexpectedly not only got a national rollout at cinemas across the United States, but also gained infamy as a ‘video nasty’ in the United Kingdom. THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (filmed as THE THIRD NIGHT and initially released to screens as PRANKS) was made specifically to ape the success of the films that drove the slasher movie boom of the late 1970s and early 80s. A small group of students remain behind over the Christmas break to decommission a dorm block earmarked for demolition. Yet there is someone determined to ruin their Christmas spirit and make mincemeat of the isolated co-eds. Despite its magpie nature - and its highly modest budget - the film distinguishes itself from the pack with its stark utilitarian look, sense of dread and a nihilistic sting in its tail largely uncommon at the time.
Unsure of the future of her relationship with her current boyfriend Tim (Robert Fredrickson), Joanne (Laurie Lapinski) waves him off on a skiing trip before turning to the job in hand - to shut down a dorm with a small group of students who either need the money or have little better to do. Once the majority of other students leave, the core group of Brian (David Snow), Patti (Pamela Holland) and Craig (Stephen Sachs) get to work. Another student Debbie (Daphne Zuniga) was originally meant to stay, but she is called away on a family matter. Joanne and the others think that Debbie has left, but she and her parents are actually victims of a shadowy killer lurking in the corridors of the now near-deserted dorm. Although she wasn’t the very first victim. A prologue sets the tone with a male student chased and killed by someone, who bisects his hand with a machete.
The group initially share a sense of camaraderie and they are joined by the janitor Bill (Jake Jones) and local scrap dealer Bobby Lee (Dennis Ely) - who flirts with Joanne. However, the group are spooked by what appears might be a prowler (Woody Roll) who has taken to popping up outside windows with hair like a balding Krusty the Clown. They try and confront him and, despite informing the police, cannot locate the mystery man.
Soon people start to disappear and the group finds their property vandalised - including a ruined Christmas dinner that someone has taken a baseball bat to. Increasingly concerned that their prowler might have deadly intentions, the group up their efforts to try and find where he has been shacking up so they can confront him once and for all. But is this mystery interloper really behind the increasing rash of violent attacks or has he actually been trying to warn them all along that a psycho lurks in their midst?
THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD makes the best of its cold, depersonalised swathes of concrete to create a sense of unease, dread and claustrophobia. Despite a few strands of tinsel, it has to be the most unfestive of all the Christmas-set slashers from the time. The performances stretch from the adequate to the really quite good - with Lapinski and especially Sachs as standouts. Admittedly, the first half features too much footage of people aimlessly wandering around exploring dark rooms (something the makers freely admit as they were trying to ape other slashers). However, even despite its obvious budget shortcomings, the second half achieves a genuine sense of grainy Grand Guiginol. It is topped off with a conclusion that would have come as a shock to anyone used to the last girl standing trope that had become pretty much standard by that point.
“ They shot a trailer for a movie that didn’t yet exist, which utilised the voice talents of actor Lloyd Bochner (whose son Hart had lost his head in TERROR TRAIN (1980)) .”
THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD started life over dinner chatter after screenings of HALLOWEEN (1978) and FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980). Like many slasher movies of the early 1980s, those two subgenre behemoths inspired many independent producers and, in this case, a couple of UCLA film school students to make their very own stalk-n-slash epic - albeit on a budget. Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow - along with their friend Stacey Giachino - knew well enough that low-budget horror was a popular route for budding filmmakers and a reliable industry calling card. The slasher movie was white-hot at the time. The pair had the equipment they needed to make a movie at their fingertips and they quite literally lived inside their very own film set (the student-owned Co-op Housing Association at UCLA which doubled as the dorm of the title). The idea came after the pair stayed behind during the holidays - and realised how creepy a place previously bustling with life could be when nearly everyone had left.
Carpenter and Obrow were savvy enough to know that they needed to raise funds for their movie (an estimated $40-50,000 - although a final figure of $150,000 has also been quoted). They shot a trailer for a movie that didn’t yet exist, which utilised the voice talents of actor Lloyd Bochner (whose son Hart had lost his head in TERROR TRAIN (1980)). It was a trick they used for the next few movies they made together - and was similar to the adverts that used to run in the Cannes editions of Variety to drum up funding for movies that were, until that point, little more than nifty titles and eye-catching artwork. Carpenter, Obrow and Giachino set about writing the script for their movie which had the original title THE THIRD NIGHT - and which saw some major changes when it came to filming (especially the ending).
“For commercial reasons, Carpenter and Obrow wanted their movie to be as bloodily violent as the budget would allow - reasoning that audiences “ … always wanted to see more gore”.”
Whilst they kept out of the way of campus unrest - where sit-ins in the Dean’s office were common - the trio started shooting in December 1980 on 16mm using equipment borrowed from the film department at UCLA. In the case of life imitating art, the student accommodation was nearly empty because everyone had left for the festive break (due to time constraints, they even filmed over Christmas Day). Shooting continued on weekends and through the summer of 1981 before they had a finished film - which was now called DEATH DORM. Carpenter and Obrow were learning as they went along and made changes to the script as they began to discover what worked and what didn’t. Despite being a little embarrassed to do so, they added some nudity to the film to make it more saleable by utilising the topless talents of the enigmatically named Chandre. The biggest change came with the film’s downbeat ending, which kicked against the emerging trope of a triumphant Final Girl. If anything, it was more reminiscent of the nihilistic finales of some 70s genre pictures than many of its early 80s contemporaries. Or even the fainting heroine of even earlier horror movies - but who, in this case, had no hero to save her.
Although also a budgetary necessity, the hand-held camerawork was inspired by the fluidity of John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN. However, a bigger influence was the graphic bloodshed of Sean S. Cunningham’s FRIDAY THE 13TH. For commercial reasons, Carpenter and Obrow wanted their movie to be as bloodily violent as the budget would allow - reasoning that audiences “ … always wanted to see more gore”. They turned to emerging sfx guru Matthew Mungle, who was working at the Joe Blasco studio. Mungle - who went on to work on films such as JUST BEFORE DAWN (1981), MAUSOLEUM (1983) and who won an Oscar for his work BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992) - had just $1,800 for what he described as “Low and dirty special effects.” Considering the budget, the special effects remain impressive - although high definition releases highlight their shortcomings (a common issue with low budget horror movies from the time). It is somewhat of an irony that the smudge and static of VHS was often much more forgiving. Money was so tight that they couldn’t afford a casting director - so faked one (credited as 'Wesley Lou David', which is an amalgam of the directors' and producers' middle names).
The makers also knew the importance of music for a slasher film - especially given the iconic scores of both the films they were emulating. They worked with fellow UCLA student Christopher Young - who went on to a long and illustrious composing career providing the soundtracks for everything from THE FLY II (1989) to URBAN LEGEND (1998). Young had an affinity and appreciation for horror. He has been quoted as saying: “When I was younger I'd make a point of driving to the middle of nowhere and spending an evening with just me, the wind, and the moon. Your skin crawls up an octave. This is what I tap into when I'm working on horror films.” Young was a fan of the composer Bernard Herrmann - whose score for PSYCHO (1960) he all but pastiches for this film. He insisted on using an orchestra; something pretty much unheard of for what was essentially a student film. Carpenter and Obrow initially balked at the idea, but, impressed by his chutzpah, managed to find an extra $10,000 to make it happen.
Both Lapinski and Sachs were from a theatre background, but Zuniga was a student at UCLA at the time - which is likely why she secured her relatively small part. Strangely, Zuniga has never acknowledged this as her first role. Perhaps because of its tiny budget and origins as a student project - or perhaps because she essentially becomes a human speed bump. This wouldn’t be so odd if it were not for her ‘introducing’ credit in the Texas-made slasher THE INITIATION; which did make her resumé. Robert Fredrickson - who plays Joanne’s on-off boyfriend Tim at the beginning of the movie - graduated from UCLA in 1980 and had a later role in supernatural slasher PUMPKINHEAD (1988). The Fort Lauderdale News chatted to local actor Tom Christian in September 1981, who said he had just finished making the film. Christian played Officer Dean (in what was still called DEATH DORM), which the piece somewhat erroneously described as being about a: “ … Ted Bundy-type killer who terrorizes women at a college sorority house.” The actor - who had given up a political career in Florida to make it in Tinseltown - said “It’s not much … I’m starting at ground zero. But I’m working anyway.” It remained his only credited role.
“Critic Ira Vine led with: “Though it might be called Halloween Part 150, Pranks is a cut (and chop and hack) above the usual in today’s low-budget horror movies.””
Sensing that their film had commercial potential, the directors took out a full-page advert in Variety in June 1981 saying that it would be available for distributors in August of that year (although filming extended until September delaying its availability). Emulating Sean S. Cunningham’s FRIDAY THE 13TH in more ways than one, they paid $1,000 a pop to strike prints to send to the major studios to see if there might be interest in picking it up for distribution. However, the appetite of the majors had been dampened by a series of box-office disappointments when slasher pick-ups had failed to perform as well as expected. It was a familiar story. The market was oversaturated - but money could still be made with an independent regional rollout with an economic number of prints.
Domestic rights were picked up by New Image Releasing, who changed the title to PRANKS - with the tagline “When the kidding stops … the killings starts.” To gain an R rating the film was trimmed of a good deal of its bloodier elements. The distributor blew up the 16mm print to 35mm and held test screenings in Arkansas, before a regional rollout from May and into the latter part of 1982. The promotional artwork had three different variations, with one showing a screaming co-ed trying to escape a boiling pot; another simply showed a screaming co-ed with the exclamation, “I just saw ‘Pranks’”; the final one featured the baseball bat with nails hammered into it with the added tagline, “THEY’RE OUT OF CONTROL.”
Slasher movies were hardly the critical flavour of the month by this point, so it was a surprise that the film got good notices in The Hamilton Spectator in May 1982. Critic Ira Vine led with: “Though it might be called Halloween Part 150, Pranks is a cut (and chop and hack) above the usual in today’s low-budget horror movies.” Continuing that the film: “ … comes up with a number of genuinely scary moments and more corpses than a coroner’s convention.” Predictably, it wasn’t so well received elsewhere. In the same month, Candice Russell in the Fort Lauderdale News said: “‘Pranks’ scrapes the bottom of the horror movie barrel.” She continued: “There’s a thin line between films that are so bad that humor is their only redemption and movies that are just irredeemably awful. Pranks is the latter, which is unfortunate for those of us who like to chuckle in all the wrong places.” Bill Cosford, in the Miami Herald, was largely dismissive but did admit that the ending took him by surprise. However, he saved a bitchy barb for Obrow - who he suspected had a hand in the promotional materials sent to reviewers. He said that the promo fluff stated of the director that he: “ … appears to be headed in the same direction as Francis Coppola and George Lucas.” Cosford archly noted: "
If the three of them ever wind up on the same bus together, this might briefly be true.” Although the makers had the last laugh, when they used an isolated pull quote
from Cosford
to promote the movie on one of the theatrical posters.
Coming as a surprise to nobody, Gene Siskel picked it as one of his "Dogs of the Week" for his Sneak Previews show.
It seems that the film under-performed on this run, so New Image took another crack at releasing the it in 1983 under the title it is now best known as. Carpenter and Obrow - who had been non-plussed by the retitling of the film as PRANKS - were happier with THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD as it was more in line with their original DEATH DORM title. Despite some negative reviews, the film earned $215,000 at forty theatres in LA during its opening weekend in September 1983. Robert Horton in the Daily Herald said he loved the new title and although it was “cheap looking”, he “… did like the last five minutes … in which an unexpectedly nihilistic conclusion is reached and it suggested that somewhere, blood will continue to drip. Ripe for a sequel, it is. Look for it next semester.” The film was quickly on double-bills with everything from RISKY BUSINESS (1983) to THE EVIL DEAD (1981) and even FORCED ENTRY (1976).
Some sources say that New Line Cinema released the movie theatrically in the UK, but I haven’t been able to find any evidence of that. The BBFC website doesn’t list a certificate - which would have been a necessity for any cinema release and no poster appears to exist. However, the film did make waves on its home release in the UK in June of 1982 on the Canon label (no, not that Cannon), when it became embroiled in the ‘video nasties’ hysteria. Although not making the Section 1 list, the film joined Section 2 of those that were not prosecuted for obscenity but were still liable for seizure. Naturally, Obrow and Carpenter were shocked to discover that their little movie had attracted such infamy. Attracting much less controversy, the film was released to tape by Media Home Entertainment in the United States in 1984 under the title it is now best remembered.
Never going to be a top tier Golden Age slasher, but ultimately THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD is perhaps better than it has any right to be.
BODYCOUNT 10:
Female 4 / Male 6
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For archival purposes, an excellent older review for THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD by 'The Blue Iris'
can be viewed here. An even older review of the film can be viewed here.