(1981)
(aka THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD / DEATH DORM)
" When the kidding stops
...the killing starts!"
" When the kidding stops
...the killing starts!"
directed by: Jeffrey Obrow
An insane killer in the building however, has other ideas; and when the lights flicker
and fail- the horror begins. A violent and grotesque death is waiting for the students who
one ny one are stalked by the maniac. As the terror mounts the blood in torrents begins
to flow and the only Christmas present they can expect is to die!"
choice dialogue:
starring: Laurie Lapinski, Stephen Sachs, David Snow, Daphne Zuniga.
(back of video blurb):
"A near derelict college building stands condemned
and menacingly awaits the bulldozers. A group of young students volunteer over the
Christmas holiday to clear it of the remaining furniture.
Well it's cheap and nasty.....video nasty that is! This slasher quickie found infamy on
the official video-nasties list in the UK in the early 80's. Quite why it 
was banned and the
infinitely gorier FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980) got past the puritanical censors with only a few cuts is
something of a mystery. In fact the only true 'nasty' bit comes in the first five minutes
when a young man is being chased in the moonlight by an unseen assailant. He is caught,
strangled and has a machete graphically cut open his hand. The rest is hardly Disney, but
you don't really need barf bags either.
The Christmas setting gives ample opportunity for the teens to parade about in funky
knitwear whilst they continually split up to look for "guy...with the
fuzzy hair"- who turns out to be just one of the red herrings dotted through the film.
Imagine if you put the scores of FRIDAY THE 13TH and PSYCHO (1960) through a blender you'd get
the score for PRANKS. Cliches abound,the lights go out...and then...oh shit, the phones
dead! But there are a few nicely macabre touches- Daphne Zuniga (who returned to slash With higher production values (ie. if you could see what was going on half the
time!), it could of been a contender. Still, it's largely undeserved legend will live on
due to 'that' list.
1: Male teen strangled & hand split open with machete
territory in THE INITIATION (1983)) has her head run over by the killer after she faints. Once
the 'pranks' stop (and there really aren't that many of them!) the film kicks into gear in
the second half and there are a few effective twists and a fair bit of hokey suspense to
be wrung from the proceedings. It wraps up with a dopey, but nicely downbeat ending.
BODYCOUNT 10 
female:4 / male:6
2: Middle aged man gets a club embedded with nails in his face
3: Middle aged woman has throat cut with cheese wire
4: Teen female has head run over by car whilst unconcious
5: Middle aged Handyman has a hole put in his head by an electric drill
6: Male teen hacked to death with a machete
7: Female teen knocked unconcious and then boiled to death in a huge saucepan!
8: Male teen clubbed to death
9: Man shot to death
10: Female teen burnt to death in incinerator
to see US one-sheet cinema poster