One of a multitude of slashers that appeared in the early eighties, Pranks is notable only for an early performance by Daphne Zuniga (The Sure Thing, The Fly 2); her character dies fairly early on, and the rest of the film is totally forgettable.During their Christmas break, a group of students volunteer to clear a condemned college building of its furniture. A crazy killer, however, throws a spanner in the works by methodically bumping off the youngsters one by one in a variety of gruesome ways.Exploiting every stalk 'n' slash cliché in the book, director Jeffrey Obrow delivers a tedious and unexciting horror that had me praying for the characters to be killed, so that I could get on with watching something more worthwhile. The majority of the deaths (which, let's face it, is why we generally watch this kind of film) are brief and not that gory; the only truly grisly imagery comes right at the end when the bodies of the victims are discovered by the remaining survivor (there is one notably bloody dismembered corpsethe film could've done with more).At the last minute, the film saves itself from the disgrace of receiving the lowest possible score from me by having a nice unexpectedly downbeat ending, but this really is one for slasher completists only.
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