Blogorium Review: Splatter University (Re-visited)

Once upon a time, the Cap'n reviewed Splatter University, and in my younger and less critically astute days, I wrote the film off as a cheap knock-off slasher flick, looking to cash in on a craze already waning. Now that I've had some time doing serious film criticism, I can clearly see the error of my ways: Splatter University is a sly condemnation of religious extremism and Reagan-era politics disguised as an undistinguished, dispassionate entry into the horror omnibus. It disguises its own apparent inspiration from the Italian giallo film in order to "pass" as "just another slasher film," but when the right eyes view Splatter Universtiy*, it can be understood as the subtle masterpiece it is.

Do not be misled by its lurid artwork or relatively inane title; Splatter University is, in fact, the real deal. First time director Richard W. Haines, who co-wrote the film with John Michaels, Michael Cunningham, and Miljan Peter Ilich use the tropes of the "slasher film" to craft a rich and layered cinematic text which simultaneously serves and criticizes the subgenre of horror it is "categorized" in. (For my money, it exists in a higher echelon, but to this point Splatter University has been almost wholly ignored by the critical community).

On a surface level, the plot seems benign: At the outset, we begin our story in a mental institution (shades of Halloween or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), where a patient escapes by murdering one of the doctors and assuming his identity. Three years later, a Sociology professor is brutally murdered at St. Trinian's College, and the following semester her replacement, Julie Parker (Francine Forbes) arrives to take on a campus of indifferent, sexually active eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds. Parker immediately runs afoul of Father Janson (Dick Biel), the conservative head of St. Trinian's, but finds an ally in fellow professor Mark Hammond (Ric Randig). Meanwhile, the killer is still stalking the campus, picking off students one by one. Can Julie discover who the campus slasher is before it's too late?

This reasonably innocuous plot synopsis would suggest that Splatter University is nothing more than a so-called "whodunit," but the details that fill in the story are indicative of a film fully aware of what can be done in the confines of horror (an oft maligned genre). For example:

The murder weapon in Splatter University - a knife - is concealed within a crucifix, hinting at the duality in Christianity between preaching peace and practicing war. This is one of many damning references to religious hypocrisy in Splatter University: during her first class, Julie asks the class to identify something they feel strongly about as a way of weaving sociology into their daily lives, and when a Priest observing the class reports to Father Jensen that the student - not Parker - offers up the subject of abortion, she is ordered into his office and given a proverbial "brow beating" for deviating from the "tried and true curriculum" at St. Trinian's. The jab at Reagan-era conservatism and religious intolerance of "hot button" issues is unmistakable, and Father Janson's attitude is consistent with that of a man unwilling to adapt to a social environment that no longer reflects his "traditional" lesson plans.

It is no coincidence that Haines places Janson in a wheelchair, symbolizing his inability to take action and be a "real" man of God (something that will be addressed below). Similarly, another Priest is noted by the students for having sexual "flings" with his students under the guise of "confession," and during one conversation with a amorous teen, the camera (from the priest's perspective) wanders up and down her body, a classic example of film as voyeurism. Another Priest is slyly named after Anthony Perkins, an intertextual nod to his role as Norman Bates in Psycho. The institution of faith is corrupt, potentially psychotic, or riddled with infirmity.

The critique of Ronald Reagan's "Happy America" in the 1980s - which in no way reflected the reality of unemployment, inflation, and increases in diseases like HIV - continues throughout Splatter University. It's simply easier for characters to ignore things like unexpected pregnancies, infidelity, teenage drinking, cheating, and even murder. Half of the characters are blithely unaware that their significant others are being killed, and their disappearance from the narrative often goes totally unnoticed, particularly by the students. A police presence, while occasionally referred to by Father Janson, are physically nonexistent in Splatter University. For Father Janson, the death of students and teachers is an "inconvenience," but should not disrupt the upright appearance of St. Trinian's.

It is worth noting that Splatter University was produced by Lloyd Kaufman (founder of Troma films), who is no stranger to incorporating relevant social commentary into films that, on the surface, appear to be little more than cheap exploitation. For example, The Toxic Avenger and The Class of Nuke 'Em High - which Kaufman co-directed with Haines - deal with growing anti-nuclear hysteria in the mid-to-late eighties, and similar critiques of war appear in Combat Shock and Troma's War. That Splatter University is not openly identified as a "Troma Team Production" is an attempt to allow its social commentary not to be tied to gratuitous nudity and extreme violence - which are generally absent in the film.

Other examples of social commentary tied to the "Me Generation," appear in smaller, visual gags, like a girl involved in a love triangle being murdered and dumped into a garbage bin marked "Consumer," where her corpse is pelted with beer cans by passing students. Similarly, Julie's attempts to quit St. Trinian's are met with indifference by Father Jensen (conveniently, Julie is seated near a trash can marked "Waste" in a similar graffiti stencil to the "Consumer" bin). Julie has failed the traditionalist Janson, and is no more use to him than common street trash. Another victim dies because she fails to notice the killer is "in the closet" ("AIDS Kills," anyone?). Clever sight gags like these make it clear that Haines knew exactly what he was doing, despite the apparent "crudeness" of Splatter University's mise-en-scene.

Splatter University also turns the frequently misogynistic slasher film on its ear by exposing the practice to a nearly parodic degree. Save for the doctor killed in the beginning (who is, for all intents and purposes, castrated by the killer), all of the victims in the film are female. Their punishment for sexual promiscuity does not, under any circumstances, extend to the equally culpable young men, who are portrayed as callous and indifferent. One student, upon discovering he impregnated his girlfriend, at first disbelieves her, and then leaves his car (they are at a Drive-In), and becomes angry that she won't "make out with him" when he returns. Despite sitting within three feet of his girlfriend, he fails to notice that her "coldness" is due entirely to being dead.

Additionally, Splatter University bucks the trend of having a "Final Girl" - already a well established trope in the "slasher" genre at this point - by killing off Julie before the film ends, leaving Mark to discover Father Janson is, in fact, Daniel Grayham, the escaped mental patient. The dual Janson / Grayham makes a half-hearted attempt to blame Mark for Julie's death, but in his haste to hide his own sin, he neglects to clean the knife before returning it to his crucifix, and the resulting blood - shades of the sin of Judas and the "blood of the lamb" - damns him to return to the insane asylum, where Grayham continues to rant about "those dirty, dirty whores." The critique of religious fundamentalism is unmistakable by the end of Splatter University: when the major religious figure in the film is equated to mental instability, we can draw no other conclusions.

Despite attempts to marginalize Splatter University as "just another slasher film," as though it was somehow devoid of merit, it is evident that the film is rife with subtextual commentary for audiences with well developed critical faculties. While it lacks the substantive body of scholarly work that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre or the Friday the 13th series, one need only sharpen ones observational skills to dig beneath the surface, where a rich and untapped example of cinema-as-social-critique awaits, in Splatter University.



* Mine, clearly.

Hint: If you ever see me use the words "clearly" or "definitely," I am almost certainly lying. This essay is designed to gently mock a series of reviews I've been reading on another blog - which I choose not to identify for the sake of its author - that read like someone programmed "critic speak" into a computer and asked it to generate a series of reviews. It reflects, I'm afraid, a style of film criticism that is more concerned with sounding "educated" than actually saying anything, and totally lacks personality.


This little exercise exists too prove a point: I deliberately chose a film that could, if one wanted to try hard enough, make a mountain out of a molehill. It doesn't hurt that a film titled "Splatter University" has almost no shot of being taken seriously, and with good reason. While all of the elements listed above are in the film, the cumulative effect of their presence seems to be more accidental than deliberate, particularly because of how sloppy the climax of Splatter University is.

Since the other writer doesn't read this blog, I feel no need to link to it, as he wouldn't get the joke. The actual film falls... no, I wouldn't even say it falls between the original review and this one. However, to prove I'm not pulling this analysis out of my ass, here's a footnote that seems very close to what I wrote (and I didn't find this until after the review was finished).