Murder University (2012)

Director: Richard Griffin

Writer: Lenny Schwartz

Composers: Timothy Fife, Timothy Lang-Grannan

Starring: Samantha Acampora, David Adams Murphy, Thib Alqahtani, Nick Apostolides, Elyssa Baldassarri, Timothy Bonavita, Andre Boudreau, Mary DeBerry, Theresa Dern, Jamie Dufault, Jesse Dufault, Nancy Ferrante, Christopher L. Ferreira, Tonya Free

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The Tuition Isn't The Only Thing That Will Kill You!

Plot: A series of brutal, cult-like murders are taking place at a New England college. Josh Greene, a shy freshman, is the lone survivor of a series of murders that are reminiscent of a similar string of killings some twenty years prior. As he seeks to uncover the secret behind the attacks, he is joined by Detective Forrester, who was instrumental in halting the bloodshed before, and his daughter Meg, who had barely escaped being a victim previously.

My rating: 5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Woof.  I listened to a little bit of the commentary with Griffin and Schwartz and they said their intention was to make an 80s slasher movie.  If that's true then perhaps they were aiming at making a forgettable 80s slasher.  I had reasonable expectations for this after seeing Griffin's NUN OF THAT (2009) which I found terribly funny, clever, tight and loads of fun.  It was also written by Griffin and I think that's where the strength of that film lied and the weakness is in this picture. The actors do a pretty good job considering.  The camera might linger on them for a second or two too long sometimes but it's not that bad.  The gore effects are good.  If you like decapitations then this flick is for you.  But the problem is in the script.  Now I really dug the overall story (and the ending) but some of the dialogue is weak, there's often little for some of the characters to do and it's just too long, the latter probably being the biggest crime.  It's 96 minutes but felt like it could be cut by 10-15 and would improve the experience.  There's a scant bit of nudity which could have been improved upon when you consider the love scene where both the guy and the gal are alternatively covering her boobs the entire time.  If this was intended as a joke it almost worked.  Mostly it just pissed everyone off that was watching it with me.  After seeing Griffin's fantastic NUN OF THAT I was so impressed that I bought nearly every one of his films.  Yeah, I only spent about 60 bucks for a slew of movies but still, this was a blind purchase and I feel disappointed as it was also the most expensive of the bunch since it was just released a week ago.