If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if a group of film students got drunk, borrowed a Catholic school, and then smeared fake blood everywhere while pretending they were making a slasher—Splatter University is your answer. Unfortunately, it’s an answer to a question nobody sane ever asked. Directed by Richard W. Haines and proudly distributed by the carnival barkers at Troma Entertainment, this 78-minute “film” is like being stabbed to death with a spork: cheap, ineffective, and mostly embarrassing for everyone involved.
The Premise: Catholic School Confidential
The plot, such as it is, goes like this: Daniel Grayham, a mental patient with a knack for stabbing, escapes an asylum by murdering a doctor and stealing his uniform. Three years later, he’s moonlighting as Father Janson, the allegedly handicapped headmaster of St. Trinian’s College. He spends most of his time glaring at students, quoting Bible verses, and sneaking around like a Scooby-Doo villain. Enter Julie Parker (Forbes Riley, bravely using her birth name Francine Forbes), a new sociology teacher who is destined to be screamed at, stalked, and eventually stabbed like everyone else in this disaster.
The movie pretends to be a murder mystery, but the killer is revealed so early—and so blatantly—that the only suspense left is whether your VCR will jam before the credits roll.
The Cast: A Murderer’s Row of Awful
Forbes Riley deserves a medal for surviving this. She went on to sell juicers on late-night infomercials, which is still a more respectable gig than headlining this trainwreck. Her character Julie is supposed to be plucky and intelligent, but instead she’s mostly confused and constantly wandering into the wrong room.
Ric Randig plays Mark, her suspicious love interest, with the charisma of damp cardboard. He’s supposed to be a red herring, but he’s so bland that you almost wish he was the killer just to spice things up.
Dick Biel as Father Janson is, admittedly, entertaining—if only because he acts like he’s in a completely different movie. He sneers, he rants, he stabs with a crucifix-knife. It’s campy, it’s ridiculous, and it’s the only reason to stay awake through the swamp of bad line readings and extended “student hanging out” filler scenes.
The rest of the cast are disposable bodies with names you won’t remember by the time the rats in Rats: Night of Terrorfinish chewing through them.
Production: Shot on Location in Purgatory
The backstory is more horrifying than anything onscreen. The movie was filmed at Mercy College in New York, but the school cut their promised two weeks of filming down to one. As a result, the cast and crew literally slept in classrooms, surrounded by fake blood and rubber knives. Imagine coming back to class after summer break and finding ketchup stains on your desk and a hungover grip drooling in the corner.
This also explains why the movie looks like it was shot through a dirty fish tank. The lighting is atrocious, the sets are bare, and every “murder scene” looks like it was improvised five minutes before lunch.
The Gore: Troma-Level Trash
You’d think a movie called Splatter University would at least deliver on splatter. Wrong. The kills are cheap, rushed, and edited with the finesse of a blender. People are stabbed in parking lots, drive-ins, classrooms, bathrooms—you name it, someone gets stabbed there. But instead of shocking gore, you get ketchup-grade blood and editing so abrupt it feels like someone sneezed on the razor blade in the editing room.
The most gruesome thing about this movie is the dialogue.
The Dialogue: Death by Exposition
Characters spend more time talking about their suspicions than actually doing anything. Conversations are repetitive, clunky, and often unintentionally hilarious. One standout line has Julie exclaim, “Why would anyone want to kill a teacher?” after half the faculty is already dead. Lady, you work for Troma. That’s reason enough.
The Score: Organ Grinders in Hell
Christopher Burke’s score sounds like he accidentally leaned on his Casio keyboard and decided that was good enough. Every chase scene has the same tinny synth loop, every dramatic reveal is underscored by bargain-bin horror stabs, and the overall effect is less “terrifying atmosphere” and more “haunted roller rink.”
The Ending: Jesus Wept
The final reveal—that Father Janson is actually escaped lunatic Daniel Grayham—lands with all the subtlety of a dropped toaster in a bathtub. He tries to frame Mark, waves his crucifix-knife around, and then ends up in a straitjacket back in the asylum. It’s supposed to be chilling, but it feels more like a rejected Saturday Night Live sketch.
Julie doesn’t even make it to the end credits—she gets her back slashed open like a bag of mulch and dies screaming. It’s less shocking and more insulting, considering we’ve endured her monologues for over an hour only to have her keel over without payoff.
Critical Reception: Nobody Passed
Critics panned the movie, audiences ignored it, and even Troma fans admit this is bargain-basement trash. Imagine being rejected by people who voluntarily watch Surf Nazis Must Die. That’s how bad Splatter University is.
Verdict
Splatter University is a case study in how to waste time, money, and oxygen. It’s not scary, it’s not funny, and it’s not gory enough to satisfy even the least demanding horror fans. It’s like detention in cinematic form: long, painful, and full of people you wish would shut up.
