>
> <?php
>
> 	$this = 'hi'';
> 	fpassthru();
>
> ?>

Hmm, this looks okay to me. What happens if you enter the command
:!php %


> :make
> shell returned 1
>
> Hit ENTER or type command to continue
>
> I wonder if my errorformat is not correct?
>
> set errorformat=<b>%*[^<]</b>:\ \ %m\ in\ <b>%f</b>\ on\ line\ 
> <b>%l</b><br\ />

Ah, yes. Test a faulty file again with
:!php %

Then look at the error codes. If they don't have HTML tags in them, the 
line should be
set errorformat=%*[^<]:\ \ %m\ in\ %f\ on\ line\ %l