Just another traditional slasher. Well that’s what you say about the Troma released “Splatter University”. It’s textbook and low-budget as you can get with a eye-catching film title. But it’s reputation of being one of worst its sub-genre had to offer seems to scream loudly. It had me thinking of the 1981 slasher “Final Exam”, but that film is exemplary compared to this outing. Sure “Splatter University” is rancid, uninspired with lazy direction, tacky writing and wooden acting, but I have a soft spot for campus horror and I kind of enjoyed that it didn’t take itself all that seriously, as it felt like they’re playing up to the camera. You could say the stalk and slash elements at times took a back-step to college hi-jinks, which I found a little more amusing than the slasher side of the story. There it would get slow and sluggish with confused editing. I didn’t find it all that effective in presenting the red herrings and the revelation isn’t anything surprising, but the finale had one surprise up its sleeve I didn’t see coming and quite a daring one too. The story is fairly messy, as what begins as a psychopathic killer escaping from an asylum then moves on a couple years later when a university teacher is brutally murdered to only move on even further where a couple months later a newly appointed teacher arrives on the campus where suddenly the lady students are being targeted by a killer. So many random occurrences seem to make its way into the unfocused story; some don’t even have any relevance than to add trivial exchanges for humour. Sometimes the darkest of humour. Although there’s no hiding how spiteful and deranged the violence can be, however they’re rather unimaginative in the usual slashing and stabbing. Quite bit of red paint gets chucked about and the electronic soundtrack gets a good workout. Characters come and go with no one really standing out (most of them are obnoxious or slackers), other than Forbes Riley as the leading lady and Dick Biel. Senseless, hackneyed and cheesy, but what do you expect? Nudity, if so… look elsewhere.
