Rush Week (1989) User Reviews

Late entry into the slasher cycle provides entertainment for die-hard fans of the genre.

[Wilbur-10 · 5/10 · 16 July 2000]

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.

'80s slasher lite

[drownsoda90 · 5/10 · 30 May 2022]

"Rush Week" follows Toni, a young journalism student at a university where the female coeds seem to be disappearing. As Toni digs deeper, she begins to uncover a common theme running between the women.

This late-eighties entry in the slasher cycle is a fairly routine and (unfortunately) also fairly forgettable experience. It boasts all of the hallmarks of the sub-genre: A college campus, rowdy students, sex shenanigans, and a killer dispatching the populace. In some ways, it heavily recalls films like "Girls Nite Out," except it's much less sinister and has only a sliver of the intrigue. What "Rush Week" really lacks is any real bite. There isn't enough suspense established to really keep the audience on their toes, and the stalking and murder scenes play out like something from an "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" episode--that is to say, they are muted, bloodless, and largely unthreatening.

The villain here boasts a medieval battle axe as the primary weapon, and dons a black cloak with a plaster mask (harkening to the ritualized rush week theme), and while it sounds like it should appear menacing in theory, it just isn't. Pamela Ludwig makes for a decent lead here, and the finale has the film at its most vital (which unfortunately isn't saying a whole lot) with the hackneyed revelation and unveiling of the killer's motive. For a low-budget effort, you could do worse, but there is an unmistakable blandness to "Rush Week" that black cloaks and fog machines cannot distract from. 5/10.

Hello! What forgotten 80s hole did you crawl out from?

[Coventry · 6/10 · 1 September 2023]

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.

it could have been a lot worse

[necroscope7 · 24 March 2003]

It's a B-movie, so obviously you can't expect much of it. Yeah, the effects, what few there are, are awful, and there are a couple of editing problems, but it's actually fairly enjoyable for the most part. Some of the actors do a pretty decent job, especially considering the fairly standard slasher plot they're given to work with. It has a pretty decent soundtrack, which surprised me quite a bit. Basically it's like having the first Friday the 13th movie set at a college with an Animal House backstory going on. For those who enjoy the occasional B-movie, I'd say give this one a shot, it's better than most.

Not enough death... Or anything else.

[fanqarm · 3/10 · 19 November 2006]

Pamela Ludwig was my main attraction to this movie in the first place. Oh, and also the fact that it was a slasher movie from the 1980's, set at a college. You really have to be patient with this one though. It doesn't really pay off like it should in the end. In my opinion, there needed to be way more deaths and way more murder suspects. I would never consider this movie a favorite unless my house burned down, leaving me to decide between this or Doom Asylum (which no one should EVER see). And I just remembered the fact that this was from 1989, making it fairly decent considering the circumstances but its still no Intruder (which everyone SHOULD see).

Not necessarily a bad film, but will only act more as a small snack if your hungry for a full slasher buffet.

[LuisitoJoaquinGonzalez · 5/10 · 16 September 2011]

I read it a lot, but have to argue that saying Halloween was the first American slasher film is just lazy journalism. Simply check out Black Christmas, Class Reunion Massacre, Drive-in Massacre, Savage Weekend or The Town that Dreaded Sundown for pieces that clearly pre-date 1978 and have many of the relevant trappings. There's no denying however that John Carpenter's seminal classic was the feature responsible for moulding and launching the genre and cementing its trademarks, which set the trend for others to follow. The zillions of imitations that dominated horror cinema throughout the following decade are as much a part of eighties nostalgia as spandex or bad hair styles. A retro eighties party without someone dressing up as Jason or Freddy is no party at all. Even Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - the great PS2 game, which heavily parodied that era - referenced the slasher genre in a satirical way, confirming it's importance as a referential milestone.

There are still about 10-15 slasher movies being released every year, most of them very low budget productions, but the eighties will always be recognised as the golden period. It all started with a bang. In 1980, Night of the Demon, Friday the 13th, Terror Train and To all a Good Night were all released before Summer and a new craze had been launched, which would continue without interruption year after year.

So what does that have to do with Rush Week, I hear you ask? Well this was the last slasher movie to be produced in the golden decade, even though it was released a while later. That makes this an interesting reference point as you can see how much the genre had adapted during that period. If Friday the 13th was the flagship for the launch of ten- years of teen splatter, Bob Bralver's slasher was the swan song.

During rush week, a young journalism student picks up on a story when she notices that young women seem to be disappearing after a seedy meeting with a photographer after hours in the science lab. A killer, dressed in a cape and old-man mask is stalking the dormitory and offing lonesome females. Who could be the masked menace and what are his motives?

OK so we're definitely not breaking new ground here. Set on a college campus, the movie follows the traditional route without ever attempting to add anything audacious to the cycle. I guess the first thing to notice about the difference between this and its nine-year elder brothers is the lack of gore. Whilst Friday the 13th set the template with its gruesome death scenes and investment in special effects, stringent censors and bad media had left many movies with their 'money shots' on cutting room floors before they had reached audiences, so film-maker's were much more prudent with their budgets in latter years. The killer has an authentic double-bladed axe, but the majority of the murders are off-screen and therefore lack any punch.

Bralver seems a director far more interested in Frat jokes and teen fart humour than he does horror and the majority of the runtime is filled with Porky's style character development and a blossoming romance between the leads. The slashings take a back seat quite early in the picture and it made me wonder if they had chucked in a hooded killer to make the flick look more attractive to prospective financiers? There's the chance to guess the cast member that's hiding beneath the mask and cape, but the mystery is also poorly handled and you'll see through the apparent red herrings with relevant ease. There's a smidgen of suspense during the final stalking sequence through the school corridors and some looming tracking shots help to build a nice atmosphere. To be fair, I have to mention that the movie does reference its brethren by casting Dominick Brascia (Friday the 13th 5/Evil Laugh) and Kathleen Kinmont (Halloween 4) in small cameos.

It seems like they had a good budget to play with and the cinematography is crisp and adventurous. The leads carried the film really well and built some nice chemistry during the romance and I really liked Pamela Ludwig as the final girl. It's amazing to think that her film journey quickly stagnated soon after, because she had enough talent to build a career in pictures. Her co-star Dean Hamilton would find his fortune as a producer, working both in Television and Cinema. His biggest investment so far, the awful chick flick Blonde and Blonder (which he also directed), was absolutely ripped to shreds by critics but proved popular enough for a sequel and at the time of writing, he is working on a project with 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' director Joel Zwick.

If the producers had decided to veto the lashings of blood for fear of extreme censorship, they certainly didn't scrimp on the nudity. There are more breasts on display here than feeding time in a maternity ward and I personally would have loved to have studied here at Tambers college as it seems every female student has the body of a Playboy model. In another slightly bizarre twist, hardly any of the developed characters that we meet become victims of the axe clenching madman. It seems women are simply introduced to take of their kit and then scream as the hatchet swings, which means that we feel absolutely zero sympathy for them. That adds ammunition to my suspicions that the slasher elements were a mere sub-plot to allow the story to focus on the romance/dorm ingredients that seemed to certainly be the priority.

So not much of a final farewell from Rush Week for the decade of decadence where the box office was stalked and slashed by masked killers like there would be no tomorrow.

Tedious and draining

[Groverdox · 3/10 · 22 August 2017]

"Rush Week" is an aggressively pointless movie. It's a "slasher" film, but barely qualifies as such. The body count is surprisingly low, and the death scenes shot as though the filmmakers wanted to get them out of the way as quickly and painlessly as possible. There is hardly any violence in the movie at all: it all happens off screen.

The movie is set in and around a college, and most of the run time is dedicated to showing the uninvolving antics of two frat houses, one dedicated to respectability, the other the typical party-animal type. Neither ever do anything interesting.

You'd think that a feature length movie would be able to actually manage a character or two. You know, someone you remember for something. Anything. Not in "Rush Week". It has the guy from "Zapped Again", who actually did a pretty good job of carrying that movie. In this one, he isn't given anything to do. Neither is anyone else.

The movie is occasionally enlivened by some pretty impressive topless nudity, so I have to give it that, but you could get the same thrill looking at an old Playboy for a few seconds. Further, Gregg Allman (of the Allman Brothers Band) is in it, in a completely bizarre cameo as a hippy professor.

I'm not sure what the bigger mystery around "Rush Week" is: How did they get Gregg Allman to star in this dreck, or why was it made in the first place?

Edge of the Rush Week

[zombieoutbreak-74199 · 7/10 · 29 September 2021]

It's better than Edge of the Axe. Both killers wear robes and a white mask. The main characters message each other through a computer. They're essentially the same movie but Rush Week has better kills.

I won't be in a rush to see this weak slasher again.

[BA_Harrison · 5/10 · 12 September 2018]

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.

Nancy Drew goes to college where there's an axe-murderer

[Wuchakk · 6/10 · 30 June 2023]

A journalism student (Pamela Ludwig) transfers to a university in SoCal during a notorious fraternity's rush week ceremonies. When attractive female coeds go missing and are curiously underreported, she investigates, but this attracts the attention of the axe-wielding antagonist.

"Rush Week" is a mystery/slasher that was released direct-to-video in the UK at the end of 1989, and not made available in the USA until early 1991. I point this out because it doesn't have the 'feel' of a theatrical release. While there's some nudity, there's hardly any gore until the final 'kill' (not that I care personally; I'm just reporting). Despite being second tier, it should be enjoyed by fans of, say, "Happy Birthday to Me" (1981), "Zombie High" (1987) and the later "Class Warfare" (2001).

Ludwig works well as the star with her distinctive, pretty face. She was 28 during shooting and left acting for good in 1990 after an 11-year career where breakout success was denied her. Also on the feminine front, Kathleen Kinmont, from "Halloween 4" (1988), has a noteworthy sequence in the opening act. Meanwhile Heidi Holicker is a highlight as Sarah in a small part; you might remember her as Stacey in "Valley Girl" (1983).

On the other side of the gender spectrum, Gregg Allman from the Allman Brothers, and Cher's ex-hubby, has a notable cameo as an aged-hippie "faculty advisor."

While this has a comic booky direct-to-video vibe, it's colorful and a fitting choice if you're in the mood for something Halloween-ish, like "Night of the Creeps" (1986), just not as good production-wise. I'd watch it any day over the overrated and ridiculously contrived "Scream" (1996). Sure, this is contrived and cartoonish too, not to mention predictable, but it's more palatable and less eye-rolling.

The film runs 1 hour, 36 minutes, and was shot in Los Angeles at the VA Hospital in Brentwood and the Higgins-Verbeck-Hirsch Mansion in Windsor Square.

GRADE: B-

Don't let the IMDB rating fool you.

[brandonw-96245 · 8/10 · 13 December 2021]

This is a grossly underrated whodunnit slasher will all the quirks we know and love from 80 slasher films. The story almost seems Giallo in nature. VERY underrated. People are way to harsh on this film. We have a killer dressed in a cloak wielding a medieval ax killing coeds in a "seemingly random" fashion. What's not to love? The kills are a bit modest but I believe that's because of the budget, it doesn't try to do too much. This 80 slasher is like if scream and American pie had a weird horror baby.

Light on gore and thrills, but just enough cheesy 80's charm

[acidburn-10 · 5/10 · 28 November 2022]

'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.

"This is RUSH WEEK!"

[Backlash007 · 11 June 2006]

~Spoiler~

Rush Week is another uninteresting slasher from the late 80's. This time our killer dons a cloak, an "old person" mask, and a double edged axe. So it's nothing groundbreaking. It seems like the filmmakers wanted to make Animal House into a slasher movie. Much of the running time consists of college pranks and the typical hijynx that goes along with that. The problem with this movie, other than the glaring predictability, is that the death scenes all occur off-screen. There's plenty of nudity to speak of, but no gore whatsoever. So I guess you could say they got it half right. One very strange aspect of this film is the casting of Gregg Allman in a minor role. He seemed very out of place and very wasted. Also watch for Halloween 4's Kathleen Kinmont and Friday the 13th 5's Dominick Brascia.

Not bad

[BandSAboutMovies · 5/10 · 4 October 2021]

Toni Daniels doesn't want to write the same college newspaper stories as everyone else at Tambler College. Luckily for her - or maybe not - there's been a series of on-campus disappearances and at least one murder, all connected to Rush Week (and that one murder connected to a nude modeling session inside the science building that had to be for the infamous "foreign investors").

Rush Week came way late to the slasher boom and as such has been forgotten. Leave it to the maniacs at Vinegar Syndrome to find it, fix it up and then explain to us just why it has merit. One of the joys of this movie is that it springs major music surprises on you, like The Dickies showing up and a random Gregg Allman cameo as a character named Cosmo Kincaid.

There's also some star power with Roy Thinnes as Dean Grail and Kathleen Kinmont, who was in Bride of the Re-Animator and Halloween 4 as Kelly Meeker, makes an appearance.

This movie straddles the line of giallo and slasher, not for any artistic merit, but for the m.o. Of its killer, who wants to purify the college of all of the sinful women who keep taking nude modeling jobs and posing in the buff in lecture halls. What Have They Done with Your Daughters?

Director Bob Bralver is mostly known for his stunt work, but he's directed plenty of TV - The A-Team, Riptide, Knight Rider - and also made American Ninja 5 and Midnight. You may be forgiven if you think that this resembles a TV movie, as it's relatively bloodless, but it replaces any viscera with more nude flesh than several films - if that's your thing. I mean, you're reading our site so it probably is.

Rushed, Weak

[NoDakTatum · 3/10 · 26 October 2023]

Dude! Somebody's, like, killing nubile young co-eds and the only one who can solve the murders is a cutie-pie spunky young college newspaper reporter! Dude! "Rush Week" is yet another in a long line of uninspired slasher films. A young transfer student must write a fluff piece about rush week. She falls for the president of a wild fraternity, who also happens to be our main suspect in the murders. Young women are being hacked open with a giant axe just after posing nude for photographs taken by the cafeteria cook. The women are disappearing all over, and of course the final frat party has a Halloween theme, just to throw in more red herrings than you can shake a severed head at. The party scenes feature so many poor local bands trying to make the most of their big cinematic break, I wanted to hunt down the party committee chair and off him with an axe. The way too long finale takes place in "the science building," apparently fictional colleges do not name their buildings after former university presidents, and the real killer is revealed.

The film piles on so much evidence that the frat president is the killer, you can pretty much guarantee he is not. He takes long midnight walks alone, has vicious mood swings, and goes to rescue spunky reporter in the finale wearing the exact same hood and robes as the killer. Is the killer the cafeteria cook? No, he just takes the nude pictures, he does not seem the killer type. Is the killer the biology gofer named Mort who skulks around the university's only cadaver? No, this minor suspect disappears half way through the film. Is the killer the spunky reporter's advisor, Gregg Allman? No, he has two scenes that last slightly longer than his marriage to Cher, and he proves he should not quit the classic rock county fair tour to start doing Shakespeare. Is the killer the dumb-named Dean of Students Grail? I was hoping his murdered daughter's name was Holly Grail, but no such luck. He is the only adult who is preoccupied with all the sin going on during rush week...hmmm... The final nail in the coffin, as it were, is that we never see the nude models killed. Sure, the maniac comes in and swings an axe, but no blood and no bodies! The whereabouts of the bodies is never discussed and the crime scene has just three drops of blood. The only murders onscreen occur in the finale, and now we find out where the special effects budget went. In desperation on the film makers' part, the killer even jumps up to attack again after everyone figures they are dead. Like most Hollywood films set on campus, no one ever goes to class, they just party. "Rush Week" is no rush, and very weak. I do not recommend it.

Low on gore but there's boobs galore!

[Stevieboy666 · 5/10 · 17 September 2023]

It is Rush Week at Tambers College and several female students have vanished after posing for topless photos taken by the very suspicious looking kitchen cook. The Principal doesn't seem too concerned and there's not a police officer in sight so it's down to new student Toni Daniels (Pamela Ludwig) to investigate. "This is real life, not some stupid horror movie" says one character at the start, stupid maybe not but certainly not good either. The Golden Age of the Slasher Movie was long dead by 1989 though Jason, Michael and Freddy were still busy slashing teens in their respective franchises. So Rush Week is several years late to the party but for fans of the sub genre it is still a slasher movie that is worth seeing (though maybe just once). There is plenty of female nudity plus a lot of the men show - or "moon" - their bare backsides, however gore is in very short supply. Apart from a fairly decent decapitation all of the other kills are either off-screen or blood free, and this is a real shame because it lets the film down. There are a couple of red herrings but the identity of the killer comes as absolutely no surprise. The acting is pretty good and it does have that wonderful 1980's look, feel and sound, it just lacks the crucial red stuff.

Pretty girls in a failed horror pic

[lor_ · 5 June 2023]

My review was written in January 1991 after watching the movie on RCA/Columbia video cassette.

"Rush Week" is a 1988 slasher film long on pretty girls and short on gore. It's a belated direct-to-video release.

Durable if cornball format has coeds being killed on a college campus during the frats' annual rush week ceremonies. Only fledgling reporter Pamela Ludwig believes in the disappearances; the stupid dean (Roy Thinnes in a poorly acted transparent bad guy role) keeps pooh-poohing her evidence.

It isn't until the climax, when the ax wielding killer is beheaded, that the film delivers the makeup effects fans have come to expect from this genre. Instead, all the murders take place offscreen and director Bob Bralver seems more intent on satisfying voyeurs.

In fact, the female victims all appear topless (no pun intended) and are extremely well-endowed; Kathleen Kinmont (pre-marriage to Lorenzo Lamas), Toni Lee and Laura Burkett. By this standard, mosy heroine Ludwig is never in any real danger of being wasted.

Rocker Gregg Allman guest stars but makes no impression as Ludwig's stoned-out faculty advisor. Film's mixture of gags from an "Animal House"-type pic doesn't work in the horror context. Killer's identity is telegraphed blatantly in the first reel.