While the lights flicker, a group of students, eager to learn why their campus has a high mortality rate, listen to the story of Dr Burke. You see, their dorm was previously a mental institution (of course) where schizophrenic kids were cured by an icepick through the eyeball, but when the docs methods were for some reason discredited, he had a nervous breakdown, began murdering his patients and ultimately got his just desserts. However, the doc still roams the corridors as one of those sub-Freddy Krueger boogeymen whose abilities dont need to be explained. Somehow able to lure his victims into a dream world populated by their personal demons, Burke kills them one by one in accordance with their troubled pasts: an abused girl is decapitated by her psychotic ex, the fat kid has his tongue torn out, and so on. Burke must be a huge Krueger fan because he has Ol Pizzafaces act down cold, from his ability to appear at random to his predilection for killing whiney teenagers in the most over the top fashion possible. Hes even outsmarted by the Final Girl, who despatches him with the zinger, Give me your suffering, motherf**ker!
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
