Jeff (Dean Hamilton) is the hunky but moody head of BDB, a fraternity’s whose chief goal seems to be to traumatize as many people -including the audience of this film- as possible, and he’s set his sights on Toni (Pamela Ludwig), the new reporter for the school paper. At first, Toni ain’t too sure about this triple threat BMOC, studmuffin, and computer science major but he slowly begins to win her over. Her biggest distraction being the fluff piece that she’s supposed to be writing about rush week turning into real journalism about missing coeds and a necrophilia-centric pornography ring taking place in the science building. Meanwhile, a killer in fraternity robes with a funked-up face is hacking away at the student body with a huge axe.

Stuntman turned director Bob Bralver sneaks in this fun late 80s slasher entry that I’ve been mixing up with Pledge Night (1990) for years. I love finding a new-to-me titles and Rush Week (1989) does not disappoint. The cast is a lot of fun with plucky journalist/final girl Toni, played by Pamela Ludwig, who retired from acting after the offbeat vampire film Pale Blood in 1990. Her bubbly blond pal is a singer in a rock band and is played effervescently by Courtney Gebhart. Soap opera actor Dean Hamilton is a bit stiff in the lead but he’s just so dreamy that you won’t care. Speaking of deans, character actor Roy Thinnes plays the intense Dean Grail. He was in everything from “Falcon Crest” to “The X-Files”.

Political correctness? Never heard of it, bro! Rush Week has some Animal House-style pranks but delivers them with an expert level of homophobia. There’s also gratuitous nudity from numerous members of the female cast nearly every 5 minutes. Sadly, there’s only one male butt and no flopping dingles. I guess jokes at the expense of gay men are cool but showing a penis would’ve destroyed the very fabric of the straight male members of the audience’s reality. Sigh. They don’t make them like this anymore, folks! All I can say is uh, I’ve seen much worse in 80s movies. So yeah, it was a simpler (read as: stupider) time.

Despite being around 5 minutes too long and riding the line between trashy versus sleazy, Rush Week is an energetic and goofy slasher that’s mostly bloodless until a few kills near the end. This would make a great double feature with either Splatter University (1984) or Killer Party (1986). Hell, this movie has so many slasher tropes in it that it even made up a new one: Gregg Allman! In the 80s, if your slasher film didn’t have Gregg Allman, did you even make a slasher?

Vinegar Syndrome really knocks this one out of the park visually and aurally speaking. Rush Week looks stunning on this Blu-ray. There’s some grain though nothing distracting, the colors and vibrant, and a few shots in the finale look like they were filmed yesterday. As far as extras go, there’s another entertaining and fact-filled commentary from the crew of the Hysteria Continues podcast. There’s also interviews with cast members, Courtney Gebhart and Dean Hamilton. Gebhart is a joy to watch as she’s explosively enthusiastic and Dean Hamilton is charming if a little subdued. Both have very positive things to say about the film’s director and had good experiences working on the film.