This is one of those Lifetime films that has several different titles. The poster says Deadly Dormitory. Letterboxd claims that the title is Deadly Dorm. If you want to watch this film on Prime, you’ll have to look up College Professor Obsession. Me, I’m going to go with Deadly Dorm because that’s the easiest to say and the quickest title to type.
First aired in 2021, Deadly Dorm tells the story of Jenny Willis (Grace Patterson), a high school track star who is recovering from a knee injury. She’s finally well enough to accept a partial scholarship to an exclusive college. She tells her parents that she’s willing to go to a state school, but her parents insist that they will be able to pay for college. The whole opening of the movie reminded me of that old commercial they would show where recent high school graduates would record themselves saying, “I am going to college,” as if that was some sort of rare thing. I remember one guy who said, “It’s oh-fish-ee-al,” and I was just like, “Maybe don’t say it like that once you’re on campus.”
Anyway, Jenny enrolls in the college and moves into the dorm. Everyone she meets acts shocked when they hear which dorm room she’ll be moving into. It turns out that the room was previously occupied by a girl who died under mysterious circumstances. She was on the roof of the dorm, and she either fell, was pushed, or jumped. Jenny freaks out when she realizes that she’s going to be sleeping in the dead girl’s bed. Seriously, Jenny, just buy some new sheets and calm down.
Jenny is scandalized when her psychology professor (Randy Wayne) tells her that, if she wants to get better grades, she should try dressing a little better and showing off her legs and cleavage when she comes to class. Jenny is upset, and she has every right to be, even though I do agree that Jenny’s wardrobe is a bit on the frumpy side. Jenny’s roommate and new best friend, Beth (Johanna Liauw), says that the professor is a jerk but he also has tenure, so maybe it would be a good idea for Jenny to just give him what he wants.
Jenny starts to investigate on her own, and she soon comes to believe that the dead girl was also harassed by the professor. What if the professor killed the girl who used to live in Jenny’s dorm room? What if the professor has killed several people on campus? Does tenure cover that? It probably does at a private institution like this one. Jenny really should have gone to a state school.
On the one hand, I appreciated that this film had a lot of twists and turns in the plot. It embraced the melodrama, and I support that. I have to admit, though, that Jenny and her overprotective mother (Jocelyn Saenz) both kind of got on my nerves. Jenny was such a generic character that I actually felt sorry for her roommates. One character ends up seriously injured as a result of helping out Jenny, and it was hard not to notice that Jenny didn’t really seem to feel much guilt about that. When it came to college friendships, my firm rule was that I didn’t want to be dragged into anyone else’s drama, and Jenny doesn’t seem like she would have respected that.
The best scene in the film was when Jenny tried to stand up to her professor in the middle of class and the professor responded by announcing that she had borderline personality disorder and all of the other students just nodded in agreement. That felt like the most realistic scene in the film, as it captured how people will believe anything as long as it’s said by someone in authority.
