Terreur sur le campus

'Rush Week' is a late 80's slasher that came out during the dying days of the genre, it's a likeable effort yet very average with plenty of T&A but not enough gore or suspense. The majority of this flick plays out more like a teen comedy than an effective slasher film and could have done with better kills and more tension.

The plot = Toni (Pamela Ludwig) a young journalism student transfers to a new college, where several female students begin to disappear during the campus's rush week where she meets Jeff (Dean Hamilton) the head of the Frat fraternity and begins a relationship, while at the same time investigating the disappearances, which makes her a prime target for the killer.

Despite the movie's flaws its entertaining enough if you're in a certain mood, as it boasts a decent budget, solid performances and a killer soundtrack, but these positives doesn't help it rise above its faults as the mystery element is very predictable and the kills are very boring and mostly off-camera, plus there's too much time devoted to the boring romance sub-plot and the Frat house pranks, which doesn't add anything to the overall story.

Pamela Ludwig makes for a decent and likeable final girl, she's intelligent and handles the movie quite well. Dean Hamilton also makes for a decent leading man, he's interesting and charming in his role and has good chemistry with the female lead. Kathleen Kinmont was also a fun addition to the cast in her small but memorable role.

Overall 'Rush Week' is light on gore and thrills but has just enough cheesy 80's charm to make for an okay time waster.

There have been several moments in my life when I was absolutely convinced that I had watched every noteworthy slasher from the 80s, or at least had them on my radar. And yet, it still happens occasionally that I stumble upon a title of which I didn't knew existed! Makes me wonder if the 80s are still ongoing - and producing slashers - in a parallel dimension, or something.

"Rush Week" is such a pleasant new discovery for me. It certainly isn't a hidden masterpiece, and it doesn't contain any elements experienced slasher fans haven't seen hundreds of times before, but it has a good pacing and is overall very entertaining. It's rush week at Tambers College, and the ambitious journalism student Toni Daniels is assigned to write a report about it. She is, however, much more interested in the case of a coed who went missing after doing an erotic photoshoot in the science class. When more beautiful lewd girls disappear, Toni suspects there's a maniacal killer at large on campus grounds. Or perhaps it's all just part of a big Beta Delta Beta rush week prank?

"Rush Week" does several things very well. There are lots of beautiful girls with big...er, you know, and they all willingly go topless before getting slaughtered. The script is also efficient in upholding the tension. It's one of those films where every male character is a suspect, although - admittedly - most people will figure out the identity of the culprit quickly. Pamela Ludwig (known from the late 70s cult hit "Over the Edge) is a good actress, and many of the Beta Delta Beta shenanigans also genuinely make me chuckle, so "Rush Week" honestly isn't bad in my view.

There is one thing that is unforgivable, though... Despite featuring a grisly disguised killer with a giant axe, "Rush Week" hardly features any gory killings. Nobody likes the sight of a swinging axe without seeing the impact it makes on the victim's body; - they should have known that by the year 1989.

Rush week is when fraternities and sororities recruit new students: the guys at Gamma Alpha Epsilon take this matter very seriously, which makes them an obvious target for the wild boys of Beta Delta Beta, who enjoy playing juvenile pranks whenever they aren't partying. Assigned to report on the tradition is ambitious journalism student Toni Daniels (Pamela Ludwig), who sniffs out a much better story when several young women on the campus go missing...

An attempt at blending Porky's style humour with slasher horror, Rush Week fails on both counts: the comedy is cringe-worthy, the Beta Delta Beta guys being a thoroughly unlikable bunch of douchebags whose idea of a good time is to ruin everyone else's fun (their supposedly funny tomfoolery includes sabotaging a bicycle race and tricking a hooker into sleeping with a corpse!); even more disappointing is the scary stuff, which is frustratingly 'dry', the action cutting away whenever the films killer, wearing an old man rubber mask and hooded robe, gets choppy with his axe.

Thankfully, director Bob Bralver loads his film with big breasted girls who are only too happy to strip for the camera, which helps the time pass less painfully. If only the gore had been as plentiful as the boobs...

4.5/10, generously rounded up to 5 for IMDb.

Low budget cross between "Porky's" style college high jinks combined with "Prom Night" style stalk & slash.

Plot involves students who moonlight doing naked photos for the seedy college chef, who then get their come-uppance from an unknown killer. Toni is a trainee journalist ( and by the far the least attractive female on view ), whose coverage of the ongoing Rush Week gets her involved in the killings.

To say the least there is nothing new here, but if you like the formula it is well paced and derivative in an interesting way. The violence is relatively non-graphic and the sex is limited to a few tits n' asses. Film pays homage to its better known predecessors with a "Hills have Eyes" poster and somebody in a Freddy Krueger mask.

It's Rush Week at Tambler College and there's parties and plenty of pranks going around. Toni (Pamela Ludwig) is a journalist student assigned to write about rush week. But when students go missing, she decides to write about that instead - endangering her life in the process.

When no-one believes something happened to the missing students, Toni investigates. She is assisted by Jeff (Dean Hamilton), one of rush week's pranksters who also becomes romantically involved with her. 'Rush Week' is an interesting whodunit murder mystery, different to the many slasher movies of around the same time. It has more substance and there's hardly any gore here. In fact, many of the scenes end abruptly just when a victim is about to get killed - almost like a TV movie. This might be disappointing to die-hard slasher horror fans.

But, being an 80's slasher, there's plenty of female nudity. Yup, sexploitation at its best. Boobies, boobies, boobies! 'Rush Week' didn't make a big impact at the time of release, and is also one of the less known slashers of the 80's. Yet, I actually enjoyed it more than expected.