Rush Week (1989) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 18

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All Rush, all week long!

College slasher films are nothing new, but Rush Week seems to go places that no other film has dared to before. As a cross between a fraternity prank film and a horror film, there are some strange things going on at Tambers College.

Before Viewing

The trailer for this horror film appears to be about a reporter sent to a college to write an article on Rush Week. But while she’s there she uncovers something much better. Money changes hands at a scantily clad photoshoot. A cloaked figure with a double-bladed axe walks the halls. Just what secrets are hiding at this college during Rush Week?

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

At the campus of Tambers College in Southern California, Jeff (Dean Hamilton) welcomes the pledges of Beta Delta Beta, a recently reinstated fraternity, to the festivities of Rush Week by severing their “social constraints” (a rope tying them all together) with a double-bladed axe. Julie Ann McGuffin (Kathleen Kinmont) walks into the deserted science building, room #302, where she poses for some sexy pictures (some with a cadaver) taken by an unidentified man. As she dresses to leave a mysterious figure in a dark cloak and hood, wearing an old man mask, and carrying a double-bladed axe kills her. Toni (Pamela Ludwig), a recent transfer, is working on a story about Rush Week for the school paper and is put off by Jeff and his juvenile frat pranks.

Toni interviews the Dean of Students, Russell Grail (Roy Thinnes), but is interrupted by Sarah (Heidi Holicker), Julie’s roommate, who provides a missing person report. Dean Grail believes that Julie skipped campus due to her incomplete grades in several classes. He does not have a high opinion of frats in general. The Dean also mentions his daughter, Laura, died on campus last year before Toni concludes her interview. She decides that a missing coed story is better than one about Rush Week and starts working on that instead. Meanwhile, Jeff–who is a computer science major, inserts a cute poem onto Toni’s computer monitor.

BDB shows the level of their pranks by crashing the GAE fraternity Rush event posing as gay members of the frat, and switching out a promotional film with a gay stag film. At their own event, they prank Alma (Toni Lee), an “escort,” by substituting a cadaver for her next customer. She runs out of the house, so Jeff says he needs to go after her before she calls the police on them. The same mysterious character follows Alma and kills her. Toni receives another mysterious message on her computer to drop the investigation. Toni forges ahead, interviewing Sarah, and investigating room #302 where she finds blood on the floor, which matches Julie Ann’s blood type.

Toni meets Jeff at a bar for a pseudo-date. He says it’s not him leaving messages on her computer terminal, but it seems obvious that the killer knows that she knows. One of the other BDB members Byron (Donald Grant) stops by, joking with Jeff, but he tells Byron to leave. Jeff invites Toni to a picnic in the country. Before they leave Byron talks to Toni about how much Jeff has changed this year, especially after the girl he was dating died. It was Dean Grail’s daughter, Laura! They take a motorcycle out to nowhere but it starts raining and they hide in a secluded cabin. Shortly, they share a kiss by a fire and Toni asks about Laura. That kills his boner and they head back to campus.

Another girl, Rebecca (Laura Burkett) poses (also with a cadaver) for the photographer, who turns out to be Arnold (John Donovan), a cook at the campus cafeteria. Rebecca is killed after her session as well. Toni is propositioned for a modeling gig by Arnold. She declines but takes his card to discover where he lives. She breaks into his house and discovers modeling photos of girls from campus all with cadavers. Toni escapes when Arnold returns early, but accidentally drops her student ID. Thinking that she knows what is happening, she tells Byron to have Jeff meet her in room #302, and then calls Arnold to set up a photo session.

When Jeff gets the message he grabs the BDB axe and heads for the science building. Toni never meets with Arnold because he is killed by the hooded figure. She is chased by the killer around the building and into the furnace room. When the hooded figure walks by her she knocks him out with a pipe revealing it’s Jeff! But a second hooded figure emerges behind her, revealed as Dean Grail. He calls Toni “Laura,” wanting to purify her for her sins. Toni stabs him with a poker, but that doesn’t stop him. Jeff awakens and fights with the Dean. Toni tosses Jeff his axe, and he manages to decapitate the killer. They go back to the party at the BDB house.

“Rush Week is a part of modern campus life like it or not.” – Dean Grail

Tonight’s entry is a bonus film in a theme week made up of collegiate slasher films inspired by Randy’s quote from Scream 2. In that film, he asks the killer what his favorite scary film is. “Wait. Let me guess. The House On Sorority Row? Dorm That Dripped Blood? Splatter University? Graduation Day? Final Exam?” And with that, I have the majority of films to review in a theme week. You can check out these links to the previous films, Sorority House Massacre (a substitution this year), The Dorm That Dripped Blood, Splatter University, Graduation Day, and Final Exam. Rush Week, which is an additional film I’d add to Randy’s list, has a couple of things in common with Final Exam. Both films involve fraternities and their pranks, with the characters of Tambers College executing many more tacky and harmful pranks than those of Lanier. It’s interesting that in horror films that feature elements of the Greek System, fraternity films focus much more on partying and pranking, while sorority films, like Sorority House Massacre or The House on Sorority Row, focus on just about anything else. The members of BDB (which is jokingly referred to as booze, dope, and bimbos) are not involved with any of the killings or physical harm, but definitely leave a number of mental and emotional scars on various students.

Far from the more benign pranks of putting an animal into a closed office, or rebuilding a car in a student’s dorm, the pranks of BDB all fall over the line of good taste–and would all be considered ejectable offenses in the modern area. Their pranking of the Gamma Alpha Epsilon frat, which they refer to as the “gay” fraternity because of their initials, involves creating a film that appears like a GAE promotional film but soon devolves into a gay porn film. Some BDB members, primarily Byron and Peeper (Dominick Brascia), masquerade as a homosexual couple by holding hands and soliciting young freshmen to join the gay fraternity. Later, Peeper is seen speaking to a freshman about joining the BDB frat. This smacks of a high level of homoeroticism by the all-male frat–to get a little psychoanalytical here. Other than one frat member Parker (Jay Pickett) who is dating Toni’s friend Jonelle (Courtney Gebhart), Jeff is the only main frat bro character seen dating or dancing with a woman. Jeff’s girlfriend comes with a male-sounding name, Toni. It’s all too coincidental to be an accident.

The other odd fetish that Rush Week delves into is necrophilia, which is a physiological attraction to corpses. Besides Arnold having Julie and Rebecca pose with corpses (“My client really likes ’em.”), the brothers of BDB have a corpse from the school delivered to their house in order to prank Alma. She doesn’t immediately realize that the body she’s climbed atop is dead, only realizing it when she turns on a light. The bros think this is all in good fun until Jeff reminds them that she may involve the police. This perverse proclivity serves in turn as the impetus that drove Dean Grail to his madness. The quick verbal denouement by Jeff at the end of the film indicates that Laura once posed for photos taken by Arnold. Dean Grail, who may have been “the client” Arnold spoke of, saw the photos and snapped, killing his daughter, and then traveling to different schools on business to kill students there as well. He sees each girl he kills as a representation of Laura, who he must purify. He dresses as a character from the BDB Fright Night festivities as a way to implicate them when they “mock the sanctity of death.” He also states that “The human psyche is a very delicate mechanism able to withstand only so much of society’s negative influences.” He should know, as his psyche snapped some time ago. The level of incest inherent in his kink and murders could be studied by the psychology students from Sorority House Massacre. It’s also interesting that the campus used for the film was Biola College, in La Mirada, California. It’s a Christian University that has appeared in numerous films, but maybe none as edgy as the material in Rush Week.

For a larger-budget film, Rush Week has several things going against it. From the character standpoint, the homogeneity of the women makes it difficult to follow who’s who. Julie, Jonelle, and Rebecca are all blond women who share similar body types and 80s clothing styles. The looks of the women between their “campus” look and their “performing/modeling” look also makes it hard to ensure that this is the same character already introduced. At least Alma is a brunette and Toni is a redhead which allows them to stand out. The film also has very few killings for a horror film of this type. The killer has a very narrow type of person that he does away with. Arnold’s name only gets listed among the dead because he walks into the killing arena out of turn. But Rush Week does have some positives. It really sells the idea that Jeff is the killer. From his attire (gloves, coats, gowns) and access to the axe (which is mentioned as having been stolen last year), very few might doubt that he is the murderer in the end. Toni is tenacious as a reporter, even when things get hairy she is able to think on her toes and get out of dangerous situations (which she may or may not have placed herself in). It integrates technology into the film, showing how networked computers can be accessed around campus, and using the new systems as a way to cast suspicion on a number of students. A good creepy moment involves Toni hiding under a table while a giant tarantula crawls across her arm and head. She must remain quiet since the killer is mere feet away. She survives and quickly shuns the hairy spider. Yet overall it still ends up being much more of a Frat Bro film than a horror film, even more so than Final Exam. Rush Week attempts to titillate the audience with more nudity and partying than with scares and murders, making it not as thrilling as it could be.

Report Card

• Arithmetic: Only five kills, including the killer. Below expectations
• Science: Several dead corpses, and plenty of bare-chested women. But only moderate killing special effects. Meets expectations.
• Phys Ed: Toni and the killer have quite a race through the halls of the science building, but mostly lots of walking around with closeups on feet. Meets expectations.
• Fine Arts: Interesting lighting, especially for night shots. Plenty of creepy shadows and arty compositions. Meets expectations.
• Music: opening music sounds like a rip-off of the Halloween theme by John Carpenter. Meets expectations.
• Final Grade: C-
• Teacher comments: Rock musician Greg Allman has a brief cameo as Cosmo, the faculty advisor for the school newspaper.
• The first girl to die, and the one that spurs Toni’s investigation, is Julie McGuffin. In films, a MacGuffin (with the ‘a’) is a plot device that drives the characters forward but is usually inconsequential, such as ‘The Death Star plans’ or ‘The Ark of the Covenant.’