Blu-Ray Review: ‘THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD’

After some delay, Synapse Films has finally put out The Dorm That Dripped Blood on Blu-Ray with a Blu-Ray/DVD Combo pack!  You may know the film as Pranks or, for you elitists out there, as Death Dorm.  We got the review of Synapse’s Blu-Ray/DVD Combo for you beyond the break!

I like you better when you drink.

The Movie:

Five college students during Christmas break volunteer to clean up a dormitory prior to its demolition.  Some of the volunteers, and even a couple of parents, bite the dust as they are picked off by a killer on campus.  The plot of the film is your basic slasher fodder and while the film itself didn’t bring anything new the table. What I found more interesting than the film itself are the fact that the directors, Jeffrey Obrow & Stephen Carpenter, made the majority of this film during their UCLA Christmas Break using the most out of the 16mm equipment from the institute.  Oh yeah, did I mention that this was also their senior thesis for their film class?  They took advantage of the utilities and tools around the campus to make this film their calling card to get their foot in the door of Hollywood.  According to the commentary, Obrow and Carpenter saw Halloween and Friday the 13th and basically asked why themselves why they couldn’t make a film like those films.

The last 20-25 minutes is really the highlight of this flick.  While the whole film doesn’t really have much of a playful tone, it brushes against the surface of typical slashers with a tongue-in-cheek tone with the kill sequences. By the time you near the end, the tone shifts a bit into a darker territory.  One scene in particular is when the killer is about to get his by the typical hero character who shows up out of nowhere to save the day and then the film pulls a complete 180 and basically doesn’t give us the satisfaction of the feeling of moral justice.

While there is an opening death that isn’t addressed later on in the film along with some minor bonehead logic, The Dorm That Dripped Blood is a atmospheric entry that features inventive kills that should bump this flick up towards the top in one’s slasher movie checklist (which every horror fan should have by the way).  While I think this film teeters in the slasher genre but then sometimes decides it wants to try to be atmospheric and establish more mood instead of being a kill-by-numbers horror film.  The Dorm That Dripped Blood isn’t a long lost gem, but it should be seen by those that love giallo films as it is a bit of a pacing of a giallo film than a usual slasher.  It is an above average mystery/slasher/giallo – whatever you want to call it – that gets overshadowed by the majority of slasher films that have been released.  Timing is everything when watching this film for the first time.  If you watch this is your first time watching the film, you will probably consider it low on the totem pole with other slasher films.  However, there are some unusual elements in this film that I think make it stand out and should be watched by fans of the genre.

Also of note, Christopher Young’s score is fantastic.  With this being his first score, he really stepped up to the plate to deliver a score that you would think would either belong in a Friday the 13th film or be composed by more veteran composers at that time.  Young has now become one of my favorite composers and it is great to hear this score for the first time.

Video:

Synapse pulled out all the stops for this release and definitely worked their ass off to bring us a great presentation.  The Dorm That Dripped Blood isn’t the prettiest of films.   Shot on 16mm then blown up to 35mm, this transfer comes from a recently unearthed uncut 35mm print from the directors which they thought was long lost.  You can read Synapse’s blog about all of issues they had with this title here.  Since the source isn’t the 16mm negative, you will have a natural grainy picture.  Obviously, it is recommended to view this film via Blu-Ray because the DVD softens the grain via compression which makes the overall image a bit softer.  Considering what Synapse wrote about the print’s condition from their blog, they should be given a loud and proud bravo for getting the film to this shape.  They could have done something simple like overuse of DNR, but that was not done.  It looks like someone went in frame by frame and fixed all of the scratches & imperfections.  Granted, there are still a few, and I appreciate that as sometimes cleaning everything up just looks a bit like overkill.  Synapse hits a home run in this Uncut video presentation.  However, there was a white, transparent speckle that shows up around the climax (1:12 in) that lasts for about 9 minutes.  Nothing too problematic, but I just wanted to mention that it is the transfer and not a dead pixel on your HDTV.

Audio:

Here is another aspect where Synapse Films knocks it out of the park.  While they had the 35mm film element to source the video to, the audio from the uncut print they unearthed from the directors had no audio on it.  Synapse went in and took the audio from their R rated source of the film and filled in the blanks on their own.  While only keen ears can maybe hear some of the audio inserts, it is blended with the original soundtrack very well.  The Blu-Ray features a 2.0 DTS-HD MA track as well as an isolated score soundtrack.  Also included is a commentary with directors Jeffery Obrow and Stephen Carpenter.

Special Features:

Synapse Films called among the best and brought in Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures to do a couple of supplementary features.  The interview titled My First Score, we sit down with Christopher Young as he reminisces his work on the film.  He comes off as accommodating and as a horror fan, which is good to always see and hear as someone who works quite frequently within the genre.  The second video interview is titled My First Slasher and the interview is with Matthew Mungle who would later c0-win an Oscar with Greg Cannom for his work on Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  His interview is informative and pretty truthful.  However, I was a little stumped because I was pretty sure Mungle’s first slasher that he worked on was Just Before Dawn.  Rounding out the interviews are two trailers for the film.  One under the name of The Dorm That Dripped Blood and the second under the failed title, Pranks.

Movie Rating:

Blu-Ray + DVD Combo Rating: