Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a slasher film from 1984. That movie is "Splatter University".
Now, I'm gonna tell you, guys, I know almost nothing about this movie, other than it being a slasher movie. Now from what little information that I was able to find on this film, apparently, it was distributed by Troma. But the version I have on DVD does not have their name listed here. Instead, the studio I got on here that put out this DVD goes by the name of Elite Entertainment. I have never heard of them prior to me covering this movie. Maybe it's possible that they have some affiliation with Troma in some way. Though if that is the case, then Troma's name should've been on here anyways. I don't know. Perhaps maybe I'm just looking way too deep into this more than I should, but it is something that seemed slightly odd to me.
Beyond that, guys, I don't know what to expect from this movie, although considering it's a slasher film, I think I might have a pretty good idea as to what the content is gonna be shown here. That said, I'm really curious to find out if this film is gonna be any good at all. And the only way I'm gonna know that for certain is for me to shut up so I can push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Splatter University".
2 minutes later
So, guys, our movie's just started, and already, we have our first kill, which resulted in this doctor getting stabbed in the crotch. Never thought I'd actually get to say that when doing these reviews, but hey, there's always a first time, isn't there?
11 minutes later
Well, guys, I think I can safely, so far anyway, that the acting in this movie is just horrible. I want to say that it's so bad it's funny, but I haven't really gotten that kind of acting yet. God, stop howling, dude! Anyway, maybe I'll get it later on, but I seriously doubt that.
11 minutes later
All right, guys, I have a bit of a tip for anyone who's interested in doing a slasher film. If you're gonna have a fake out scare, make sure your actors aren't smiling when you're getting a close up of each of them screaming. Because that's what this movie just did with it's actors, and it looked terrible. I'm hoping that these jagoffs get killed off sooner rather than later. Because I'm already despising every single one them!
14 minutes later
So, guys, I'm gonna ask this, because I'm really curious about something right now. Is *anything* interesting gonna happen in this fucking movie?! I'm serious, guys, this movie is becoming boring as shit! And for a movie that claims to be a slasher film, I haven't seen much slashing going on for quite a while. Can this movie do one thing interesting that I can maybe give a fuck about?! I'm really hoping so.
5 minutes later
Wait, let me see if I understand this. So they acknowledge the girl that got killed at the drive-in, yet earlier, when another high school girl was killed by the same maniac at a parking lot, apparently, nobody gave a fuck about it! Even though she probably went to the same high school along with our band of high school retards! Oh my fucking god...I'm hating this, guys. I really am. I never thought I'd feel this way about a slasher film in a long time. But, my god, this movie is just getting worse with each passing minute. And I still got another...fuck, 33 minutes of this crap!
13 minutes later
Did Ms. Parker seriously leave the newspapers from Mark's desk that she pulled out and just left on top of his desk?! Even though she was the one who broke into his apartment, and now she's hightailing after he gets home without putting the newspapers back inside his desk! Jesus Christ...I want to find the people who wrote this and I want to beat them with a fucking sledgehammer to their faces because this is just inexcusably shit, guys.
The Review
Oh...thank you god, it's over! Well, guys, that was "Splatter University"...good fucking god. So...now that I've had a chance to kinda sorta mellow out on my own for a moment, I'm gonna tell you guys right now that this is easily one of the worst slasher films I have seen in, well...ever. I know that may seem like an over-exaggeration on my part, but you guys seriously have no idea how awful this movie truly is.
So, now that I have given you an idea of what I feel about this movie, let's talk more about it, shall we? Let's start with the writing. I would say that the writing here is completely stupid. However, that would be a horrible insult to the numerous amount of stupid movies I have seen for this series. Why? Because those movies at least have that sort of charm to them to where they earned that naturally. I would probably say that this movie is completely retarded, however, I can't even do that either, because in some small way, movies that border on being retarded still at least have some sort of redeeming value to them, to where it could meet the standards of it being so bad it's good. This movie, on the other hand, is on a level that I rarely ever use this sort of term to describe anything. That term that I would use to describe this movie is brain-dead. That's how low this movie goes. Hell, I would say it goes even lower than that, because this movie wouldn't even meet the standards of somebody who might set their expectations on it being complete shit. That's how horrid this movie really is, guys.
I want to talk about the characters, because this is where most of the horrid writing comes from. Now I know that since this movie is technically a slasher film, you really shouldn't be expecting anything when it comes to character depth in slasher films, because that rarely ever happens there. That said, I would at least like a reason to care about any of these characters before they get killed off. And this movie fails at this miserably. There is not a single character in this movie that you're going to give a fuck about. Every high school student here has all the depth and personality of a burnt piece of toast. Hell, I could barely remember any of their names, outside Johnny and Cathy, because they were kinda going out and Kathy ends up getting killed at the drive-in theater. Beyond that, I could barely tell you anything about them, or any of these high school students. Not even the one who got killed and was dumped into a trash bin, because apparently, no one gave a fuck about her, or even mentioned her after that. So either she was a complete orphan and her parents never called about her disappearance, or she was just a terrible actress that was never originally suppose to be in this movie, but she still got in just so she could get a quick paycheck. Either way, her existence in this movie could've been cut out and you wouldn't have missed a thing.
Now with all the worthless high school characters out of the way, let's about our main character, Julie Parker. Oh, sweet heavenly fuck, where do I start with her...? Guys, I understand that it's a common trope for horror and slasher films to have some stupid characters be present in some way. But when your main character is this fucking brain-dead like the entire movie is, you have a serious problem that I don't think could ever be rectified. There is no way in way hell someone wrote this and thought to themselves that they could make a main character more brain-dead than they could possibly imagine. But rather than just describing how brain-dead she really is, I should probably talk about a couple of examples that brought her into being brain-dead.
The first example I'm gonna bring up is something that I brought up earlier as I was watching the movie. So, she and her friend went over to Mark's home because Julie suspects that Mark is the killer of all these killings that have happened at the high school that Julie is teaching at. She breaks into his apartment and starts going through a certain area at his desk, where he apparently has been keeping newspapers where all of the headlines feature the killer being at large. And as she's going through this, she hears Mark's car parking nearby and she decides to get out of there. She does this, even though she left all the newspapers on his desk rather than, you know, putting them back inside his desk where they belong. And when he comes in to discover that his desk has been ransacked, he hears a car outside to where he sees Julie leaving with his best friend in the car and he does nothing about it right then and there! Yeah, he tries to call her later on, even though she hung up on him without getting any answers.
So, to summarize so far, Julie is guilty of trespassing, breaking and entering, and leaving her fingerprints all over his desk, and doorknob, yet Mark decides not to report her because of reasons that ultimately won't matter in the end. Which then brings me to the second example of Julie being brain-dead, and that also has to do with our killer. See, throughout most of the entire film, the movie is trying to hint at the viewer on multiple occasions that Mark might be the killer. And I'll spoil this much, in case you're dumb enough to watch this film, Mark is not the killer. It's someone else entirely. And it's very blatantly obvious as to who it is based on their movements and their clothing. And if you don't figure out who it is by the time the movie reveals this sort of twist, well, then you're about as brain-dead as Julie is because she never has any other suspects in mind, other than Mark. Which I find to be incredibly ironic, considering that she's suppose to be a teacher, but I guess she's not a smart teacher at all if this movie is anything to go by.
So yes, guys, the writing in this movie is absolutely horrible. It's horrible as a slasher film. Which probably wouldn't be saying much, seeing as how a lot of slasher films aren't known for their award winning writing, but considering how horrible the writing is in this movie, it takes that awfulness and reaches a new low that I haven't come across in a movie in a long, long time. And that's saying a lot, considering all of the horrible movies I had to suffer through for this series, and this one definitely ranks very high up there. Now to add on to the horribleness, the acting is absolutely atrocious. A lot of the acting here is wooden as shit. Everybody sounds like they're bored at their jobs. The worst actress has to go to this red-headed high school student who apparently doesn't get the memo that you shouldn't be smiling when you're screaming. It happened twice in this movie. The first is the example I brought up earlier in the movie. The second is when she's about to be killed. She has her mouth opened as she's screaming and while the killer is about to stab the inside of her mouth. And on her face, it looks as if she's smiling as she's about to stabbed! What the fuck is she smiling for as she's about to be killed is anyone's guess. But it should also serve has a how-to guide on what not to do when making a slasher film. This actress is the definition on what not to do and I hope she has never set foot in front a camera again after this because I do not believe that she knows the basics when it comes to acting. She was horrendous on every single fucking level.
Special effects here are decent at best. In terms of it being a low budget slasher film, the practical effects in terms of blood and gore effects are probably one of the only bright spots in this entire movie. Mind you, it's not the best kind of blood effects I've seen from a low budget horror movie, but I can't say it's entirely bad either. So I can say, at the very least, the effects there are fine. The kills themselves aren't really anything spectacular, as most of is just consists of stabbings. Which, I'm rather disappointed by, because they would've done something halfway interesting with it's kills. But sadly, that's not the case here. They just went for the safe and standard way of stabbing or cutting the victims skin off with a knife. Which I believe is the only weapon the killer uses. So, that kinda coincides with the standard kills this movie has to offer.
Camerawork here is OK, but the picture and sound quality is just terrible here. And I'm mostly gonna put the blame for this on this DVD. Because this movie looks and feels as if it was ripped off a bad VHS and was just put on DVD without actually cleaning any of the footage up. It's especially noticeable with the sound quality because a lot of this movie just feels very quiet. There are some scenes in particular, such as any of them involving the high school kids, where the audio makes these scenes more quieter than usual. And I was curious about something, so I looked up to see if this movie was up on YouTube somewhere and, sure enough, there actually is a copy of it on there. And when I was checking it, I noticed, of the couple of scenes that I skimmed through, the sound and picture is a *lot* better improved. Which makes me ask what the hell was going on when Elite Entertainment put this thing out on DVD? I know Troma distributed the movie, but as I mentioned earlier, the version I have doesn't have Troma's name anywhere on it. Lloyd Kaufman is actually involved as one of the producers, but I still didn't see anything involving Troma. Now it's very well possible that the DVD and Blu-ray versions that's distributed by Troma actually has cleaned up the footage. Because if they did, then that makes the version I have on DVD completely unwatchable. Now yes, I know the movie is complete shit, but it would've helped had Elite Entertainment got off their lazy asses and actually did something to make this DVD more presentable. But since they didn't, I can't give them any props here.
So yeah, as I said earlier, the camerawork here, minus the shitty picture quality, is passable at best. Lighting here is also OK. The sound-mixing here is garbage, as I've kinda already touched upon earlier. It's also especially bad because it feels like the boom mic might've gotten too close to some of the actors when it picked up their dialogue, because it sounds pretty loud when that happens. But again, I'm mostly gonna put the blame on this for the version I watched on DVD. Music, well, there's really not much I can say about it. It just kinda exists, really. So yeah, the technical work is, oh, heavily mediocre at best.
And with all that said, I think you guys know the answer already, but just in case, am I able to recommend "Splatter University"? No. Fuck no! This movie is fucking garbage. Ignoring all the technical problems involving this DVD, the movie itself is fucking horrendous. What with a story that is horrible, and the characters are all brain-dead to hell, this movie is quite easily one of the worst slasher films I have seen in a long time. And that's saying a lot, mind you, because I watched awful slasher films like "Garden Tool Massacre", which has some of the *worst* sound-mixing I've heard in a movie in years. This movie I would say is second place in that running in terms of horrible slasher movies I've seen, because this thing borders on being unwatchable. I know I said earlier that there is a version of this movie you could watch on YouTube for free. Do not waste your time. Even if they had fixed the sound quality in that thing there, that doesn't mean that you should take the time out in watching this movie. It is horrible from start to fucking finish! And the more I keep talking about this movie, the more physically ill I feel. So to make up for it, I'm gonna go and watch something better. Maybe a better slasher film like, well, I don't know...you know what? I'm gonna go and watch "The Vagrant" again. Because I need to feel better now after having to suffer through awful dreck.
So anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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