Sorority House Massacre (1986)

If you like 80s fashion, then by all means, seek out this film. There's a great scene where the richest girl leaves the house and everyone tries on her clothes. It's a moment that gives the film some nudity for the producers, some horrible library music for those that love 80s schmaltz and plenty of sweet, sweet shoulderpads and pantsuits for those that like that sort of thing (Becca).I felt like there was a movie in here yearning to break free, to reject the urge to copy and become a strange American giallo of its own. It gets close, but if you have the same wish as me, prepare to be frustrated. My theory is that there are two budgets in life: money and time. You can get this movie relatively inexpensively, but you'd be better off watching any number of better constructed slashers.Read more at bandsaboutmovies.com/2017/07/08/sorority-house-massacre-1986

This tiresome slasher yarn is lacking in wit, sophistication, originality, action or quality; all of the reasons you would want to watch a movie in the first place. Why did I decide to rent this film in the first place if it was so bad, you may ask. Well firstly the box art - many a time I have been suckered into seeing a film because of the cool box art. Secondly, I found this on the Medusa label, and there used to be a lot of interesting films on that label. Sadly this is not one of them. The best thing about the movie is the title, although sadly there isn't a "massacre" of any sort really.Sure enough, the film opens with lots of p.o.v. camera-work and tinkly music. The plot in a nutshell is that teens are terrorised at night by a killer who has escaped from an asylum and turns out to be the brother of the lead. I'm surprised Moustapha Akkad didn't sue the makers of this HALLOWEEN rip-off. Then again as Roger Corman is behind this movie nothing would surprise me. What happened to that guy anyway? He started off by paving the way for the genres with his enjoyable B-movies of the late '50s, and has ended up producing all sorts of rubbish in his later years. The film is very cheap-looking, and in particular has some really bad sets which just look plain wrong. The most imagination is summoned in a dream sequence in which the lead discovers a load of weird life like dolls sitting around a dinner table, but that's it. Otherwise its business as usual with lots of irritating teens talking, messing around, and a bad guy picking them off one by one (in the last twenty minutes that is).Watching a film in which teenage girls talk about the reasons for their hairstyles and try on various items of hideous '80s clothing isn't my ideal choice for an evening's entertainment, although the latter event is merely a gratuitous opportunity to throw in some extra nudity from the girls. With Roger Corman I wasn't surprised, although a scene later on in the film with a nude man was pretty shocking. The acting is awful, the cast bland and wooden, but that doesn't matter anyway as the script is rubbish to begin with. In an asylum scene one of the orderlies has some funny lines but that's about as unintentionally funny as the script gets and only provides a few chuckles here and there.What else is there of note? In one scene characters watch HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP on television, another Corman reference and the film's nicest surprise. Is it scary? Nope, because the killer is just an ordinary Joe who you've passed on the street a million times. He becomes indestructible at the end of the film, but that just serves to drag out the running time even more, so that the last ten minutes drags like two hours. Watch out for a hilarious moment where the killer dives in through a window. On the first floor. Is he pals with Superman or something? So, in the end, SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE is the bane of American '80s cinema, and a fine example of the trash that the slasher genre spawned. There isn't even the saving benefit of any gore for the horror fans, as the oh-so-imaginative killings are reduced to repeated non-bloody stabbings. This is a film ridden with annoying flashbacks, silly slow-motion dream sequences and false scares, and isn't to be recommended to your worst enemy. It's not even funny-bad. It's just boring.

This is the kind of bad 80's slasher flick that I love. It hit every cliché in the book (killer locked in an asylum and breaks out to go after his sister that he tried to kill a long time ago.) It is very clearly a rip-off of Halloween, which is one of my all time favorite movies. Maybe that's why I liked this so much. The only thing that was a little repetitive was the dream sequences. As a young girl, Beth escaped her brother Bobby who killed her family. Now, years later she joins a sorority. Bobby breaks out of the asylum and goes after Beth to finish the job. He'll kill anyone who gets in his way. If you love campy corny cheesy slashers from the 80's, you'll definitely love SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE!!!

A college student moves into a sorority house. Her psychotic brother escapes from the asylum where he has been committed, then descends on her new home and starts hacking his way through her house mates.This slasher film is almost completely devoid of interest. It seems to derive its ideas from Halloween (1978) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). From the former the basic storyline is taken and the latter provides the idea of a killer inhabiting the heroine's dreams. I'm not really saying that something totally derivative is automatically a bad thing. Sometimes more of the same is perfectly acceptable. No, the problem here is that movie is very dull. We have the usual assortment of knuckle-headed teens and a boring killer who is as inhuman as usual. It's too safe for its own good. It's not especially gory or sleazy. It's just bland; a coffee table slasher. Seemingly it spawned a sequel so I guess it has its advocates. I suppose fans of 80's slashers might get a kick out of it.