MURDER UNIVERSITY

Welcome to Greensboro college.

Not really the type of place you’d like to study at, we first witness its sinister side when a couple of co-eds play a prank on their boyfriends late one night – only to get a nasty surprise which results with their heads being lopped off.

The year is 1983. Josh (Jamie Dufault) is newly enrolled at the college and struggling to fit in: his wannabe filmmaker roommate Leon (Sean Sullivan) is a pussy-hungry lag who doesn’t understand his new acquaintance’s disinterest in girls; he’s ignored by most, and beaten up at the local student bar for inadvertently taking a glance at the winner of a wet T-shirt contest.

Poor Josh is even bulled in history class, where even Professor McKinnon (Rich Tretheway) treats him like a piece of shit. His excuse seems to be that he didn’t like Josh’s father either, who previously attended the college and died in mysterious circumstances some years earlier.

Then kids on campus start getting bumped off. This goes by barely noticed to begin with, until one evening when Josh is abducted by the killers and tied up in preparation of being their next victim. He manages to escape, but his protestations of a cult within the college who collectively wear Japanese demon masks falls largely on deaf ears.

He finds an unlikely ally in Forrester (Michael Thurber), a former cop-turned-detective who remembers a similar spate of murders on campus from 20 years ago. He almost had the killer arrested at the time, until they attacked him in his home, killing his wife and endangering the life of his precious baby daughter.

Now grown up, he persuades daughter Meg (Samantha Acampora) to enrol at the college and help Josh find out the identity of the secret, serial-killing cult. But although the chemistry between Josh and Meg is soon apparent, Forrester makes it abundantly clear that any chance of romance is off the cards – unless Josh wants his genitals removed with rusty tuna tin lid, that is!

So, can Josh and Meg resist their natural urges long enough to find out who’s killing their fellow students off, and why? And what does all of this have to do with Josh, and his late father?

Thankfully, the answers are satisfying enough to recommend MURDER UNIVERSITY as a genuinely original, refreshing entry in slasher cinema. Lenny Schwarz’s assured, subversive screenplay sees to that.

As homage to the 80s stalk ‘n’ slash cycle, MURDER UNIVERSITY plays very well indeed. It evokes its desired era without the need for faux grain or print distress, instead relying on a raft of successfully quirky characters (my favourite being the loathsome DJ Juicy), convincing electro-pop and great dated fashions. Oh, and of course, there is plenty of gore and boobies.

Beheadings are rife in director Richard Griffin’s film. They’re bloody, and employ old-school latex effects work. There is, from what I could deduce, one moment of (decent) CGI in the film; other than that, the FX are all true to the style used in the films MURDER UNIVERSITY harks back to.

The cast are all good, playing things straight to ensure the wry script gets its laughs without ever resorting to nudges and winks. Thurber steals the show, proving with this and the recent EXHUMED that he really is the most reliable actor working in US indie horror flicks today.

Likewise, director Griffin expands on the talent he exhibited in the likes of THE DISCO EXORCIST and NUN OF THAT, showing from the stylish opening titles onwards that he can make a great slice of contemporary cinema even on a $20,000.00 budget.

This disc from Wild Eye Releasing is playable worldwide, and presents the film in an agreeable 1.85:1 transfer which respects the original aspect ratio.

Enhanced for 16x9 televisions, the picture here is very good indeed: sharp, clean and vivid. Infrequent occurrences of lacklustre colour can hardly dampen what is a largely excellent presentation.

English 2.0 audio plays back without qualm.

The DVD opens to a static main menu page. There is no scene-selection menu, but you can negotiate the film using your remote control's 'skip' button by way of 7 chapters.

Bonus features begin with a clutch of trailers that are programmed to play upon disc load-up: EXHUMED, THE DISCO EXORCIST, TIGHT, DROPPING EVIL and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD RE-ANIMATED.

Schwarz and Griffin provide an informative and fluent commentary track. Griffin returns for a second chinwag, this time with co-producer Ted Marr, Acampora, Sullivan and co-star Nathaniel Sylva. This is a more jovial affair.

A 3-minute deleted scene looks good enough but is essentially a lot of unnecessary dialogue and no action.

MURDER UNIVERSITY is a superior homage to the 80s cycle of slasher films, imbued as it is with finesse, gore and originality.

It looks good on Wild Eye Releasing's DVD and has been furnished with credible, worthy extra features.

Review by Stuart Willis