Splatter University, Coeds Slaughtered Again

Low-budget, straight to VHS quality, and incredibly brutal and heartbreaking...just the way we like it. In 1984's "Splatter University," many nubile coeds will fall prey to an escaped maniac. With a Catholic university serving as the backdrop, perhaps this slasher flick will serve as a thinly veiled metaphor for the misogyny rampant in, not only the university setting, but also a patriarchal-church university setting. Or maybe, and this is my guess, we just have a gratuitous horror film in which a bald and fat producer is getting out all his anger on the women who wouldn't date him when he was in college.

A psycho killer escapes from the insane asylum after castrating and gutting an orderly. Three years later and the setting switches to Saint Trinians University. This school likes to hire babes as sociology professors. Unfortunately for these sultry profs, the escaped killer has made his way to the school. After Professor Phillips (Donna Hartman) is gutted in her classroom, the equally as beautiful Julie Parker is hired to replace her. Julie is a dull professor, but she is very pretty. The priests at STU are all perverts who grope beautiful women, delve into pornography, and engage in sexual intercourse without the benefit of communion (say what?). Oh yes, Julie begins dating Mark (Ric Randig). The hulking Mark, unbeknownst to Julie, used to date the aforementioned sociology professor, and was the number one suspect in her murder.

Meanwhile, coeds start assuming room temperature. Doreen (Joanna Mihalakis) is scalped  and tossed into a dumpster and the recently impregnated Cathy (Kathy LaCommare) is gutted at a drive-in movie.  Even the very pretty secretaries to the priests are cut up. As Julie realizes that her new beau, Mark, may be a killer, she begins her own investigation. Like that will go well. This ploy by Professor Julie only gets her friend Cynthia (Laura Gold) drained of all her blood. As the death count mounts and each kill gets bloodier, the killer moves in on Julie.

Is the escaped mental patient really the killer? Is the killer a puritanical Catholic priest attempting to cleanse the sinful coed population at his university? Would any of this carnage have ever occurred if women were forbidden to attend universities and relegated to home-economic trade-schools?  Oh, as standard as this plot may sound...well...the ending will blow you away. None of the conventional slasher film rules are adhered to in the final 20 minutes of this epic. For some gratuitous slasher fare, enjoy "Splatter University," directed by Richard W. Haines.