Splatter University (1984)

Splatter University opens with a mental patient escaping from Bellevue Hospital in New York City. The movie’s headspace is telegraphed in the opening kill: an orderly is stabbed in the crotch. From then on, if you hadn’t been clued in by the performances or the bargain basement quality opening titles, it becomes apparent that Splatter University is lower than low budget.

Three years later, the story picks up at St. Trinian’s College. After one of the professors is brutally murdered at the school, the university hires Julie Parker (Forbes Riley, billed as Francine Forbes) as the new Sociology teacher. She befriends fellow professor Cynthia (Laura Gold,) who fills her in on the murder. Cynthia also seems leery of co-worker Mark Hammond (Ric Randig) for some reason. When students begin turning up dead on campus, Julie finds it odd that the school’s administrator, Father Janson (Dick Biel,) doesn’t seem to be too concerned. At least, not until she thinks she knows who the killer might be.

There are B-movies and then there are Z-movies. Splatter University belongs to the latter group. Originally made in 1981 with a running time of only 65 minutes, additional footage was shot in 1982 to pad the running time to 78 minutes. The filmmakers had no qualms revealing they were cashing in on the then-red-hot slasher genre. That’s evident in the title as well as the movie’s trailer, which calls out comparisons to Halloween and Friday the 13th by name. Those films were light years ahead of this one in terms of budget, talent, and story line.

It’s blatantly obvious which scenes were filmed to pad out the running time. Anytime the action centers around supposed college students drinking beer and partying, that’s the new footage. The characters even wear the same clothes on what are depicted as different days. Not that it matters much. The original 1981 footage also contains continuity errors galore. (Apparently, the crew cared so little about keeping track, actress Francine Forbes kept notes regarding what clothes her character wore from scene-to-scene.) Even better, nothing that happens in the new footage impacts the story in any meaningful way.

If watching a barely coherent slasher made by people who couldn’t be bothered with basic film-making techniques sounds appealing, by all means, check out Splatter University. (And I know there are a lot of people who love this movie exactly for that reason.)