Sorority House Massacre (1986)

When people think of trashy 80s slasher films, this is the kind of movie that comes to mind. A bunch of sorority girls have a slumber party with their boyfriends and only one will survive unslashed - but not before a good serving of boobies, some tasteful man butt (which is either clothed or exposed depending on the camera angle), and a clothes changing montage with music that seems ripe for a vaporwave remix. The script is barely even TV quality, the acting is too restrained to convey any real tension, and the villain basically has no motivation. He's just a scary guy who waves a knife around and occasionally connects it with a screaming bimbo. If you're in the mood for junk food then this is worth an impulse watch (it's only 70 minutes, after all), but if you're actually looking to be scared or thrilled, don't bother.

Beth (O'Neill) visits her new sorority house and gets a familiar and scary vibe from it. When she was very young it was her family's house. Her older brother Bobby (Russell) murdered her entire family and was put away in a mental home leaving her as the only survivor. No, it's not Halloween time, but the maniac escapes and goes back home to kill his remaining sister and any nubile Sorority girl who gets in his way. Borrowing heavily from John Carpenter's "Halloween", delivers mostly what you expect a slasher movie with some Elm St. dream sequences for good measure. To be fair, the movie is at least competently made and first time Director Carol Frank manages some decent moments of suspense and some old fashioned stalk and slash. The movie is ripping off everything it can but manages to be entertaining in a cheap way. Relatively bloodless, this movie delivers a few nasty knifing s but no new ground is broken. Slasher fans might enjoy a cheap thrill from this one.

In what is deemed as somewhat of Halloween rip-off, Sorority House Massacre is Carol Frank's first project as director, and her last to boot. While her credits in the film industry are minuscule, she completed work as an assistant to the director of The Slumber Party Massacre, released in 1982. Frank must've been impressed by the film's output because here we have another Slasher that features sorority girls frantically trying to escape a knife-wielding killer in their night gowns.Beth, after the death of her aunt, moves in with her sorority girlfriends. She's been suffering from chronic nightmares that seem to hold no relevance to her existence; the elements include a menacing male killer and a mysterious house that she's never visited. Beth's friends attempt to dissect these dream sequences – meanwhile, a dangerous patient escapes from the local mental ward. His goal? To bring death and destruction to the unsuspecting troupe of young women. Readers should be advised that this film is commonly confused with The House on Sorority Row, with good reason of course. Slasher films can be broken down further and categorized into neat little compartments and in this instance, witnessing college girls get bested by a maniac is practically a sub- genre of its own.Here we have all of the most common mainstream 80's elements you can think of – and much to your 80's-driven satisfaction, wrapped up in a video montage that features the girls trying on clothes. While the music plays on, almost as if it was ripped straight from a sitcom of 25 years ago, they model brightly-colored dresses, outfitted with shoulder pads, complimented a step further with pictures of Dee Snyder from Twisted Sister on the wall. It's probably the most cheesy and out-of- place montage you'll ever see in a horror film…not only is it ridiculous but the editing for this particular sequence is absolutely shocking in how pitifully it's done – like watching an episode of Charles in Charge while huffing a cheap can of Krylon.This film desperately wants you to love it, and I have to admit, it does have its charm. I was never really one to praise a film for being charming on account of how bad it is, however; lines of dialog within are too horrid to recount. The act of being thorough with reality isn't really a priority of Sorority House Massacre especially if you consider a scene in which an institution orderly enters the room of the uncontrollable maniac with headphones on. He is swiftly dispatched of. Why, if this man was filled with rage and anger, would they not warn the rest of the staff? Why would another employee carelessly stroll into his quarters woefully unprepared? What nonsense. The reason that Sorority House Massacre is compared to Halloween is mainly because of the story – we have a young woman who has an odd connection to the male killer – a killer who's been locked away in a facility for 15 years. His weapon of choice is a knife and his propensity to outlive mortal wounds is reminiscent of Michael Myers. People make the mistake here, though, in just assuming that the director wanted the madman to be indestructible; I don't think that's the case. I wouldn't be surprised if this title was influenced by the John Carpenter classic, but I can't say it's a rip-off…it's too convenient. It's worth noting that this film spawned two sequels – Sorority House Massacre 2 and Hard to Die, both released in 1990. I won't be covering these follow-up films in this review, however, so you can exhale with relief.So…what's the word, hoss? Should you strut down to your local video store, rummage through the Netflix archives, or scan torrent banks to scout this movie out? If you care to take note of this film's release, 1986, you should know what to expect in terms of a Slasher film. Aside from the more well-known titles that offered a refreshing take, flicks this late in game regurgitated old ideas. If you've been on a long journey to complete the quest of tracking down every 80's Slasher, like I have, you might want to add this one to the list. It's not original and it's only entertaining in the way of it being humorously bad; certainly not a serious investment but one worth a look for a completest.

"Sorority House Massacre" is a really troubled slasher with a few good areas.**SPOILERS**Visiting some friends, Beth, (Angela O'Neill) finds that Linda, (Wendy Martel) Sara, (Pamela Ross) and Tracy, (Nicole Rio) are moving into a sorority. When they get settled in, she begins to start having weird visions and dreams of a psychotic figure threatening and torturing her. As the others laugh it off to her new surroundings, they invite their boyfriends Craig, (Joe Nassi) Andy, (Marcus Vaughter) and John, (Vinnie Bilancio) over to help them with a special school project they've signed up for. As night falls, they suddenly start to disappear around the house, and it soon becomes apparent that a serial killer has been stalking the group, and that a deadly secret from the past has allowed for him to select the location, forcing them all to run for safety.The Good News: This here wasn't that great, and only had a couple of good points. One of the main ones is that, when it finally gets slash-happy at the end, it's entirely watchable. There's a large amount of stalking and chasing, which are the strong points. The chase across the house reveals plenty to work with, from the attack in the bedroom to the frantic search through the living room and kitchen being the big ones. There's even some good moments from the end of the backyard encounter all the way to the pretty creepy basement encounter that brings up the whole plot in great detail that makes it seem like it's new and different when it's really not are some of the best points drug up during these moments. The house itself is fairly inventive and allows for some really nice scenes to come about through the placing of the action. The only other point of note is one really cheesy scene where a couple are making out inside a tent outside the house. The girl gets killed so the guy, butt-naked, wearing nothing but trainers runs into the house and begins spouting one of the most hilarious lines ever. It's quite cheesy, and really applies in the situation, making it all the better to appear in such a cheesy film. Otherwise, that's all the film has going for it.The Bad News: This one actually has a couple of pretty big flaws. One of them is just that very little actually happens for the first three quarters of the film, and then most of the kills are crammed into the final quarter. For the rest of the film we're given plenty of uninteresting scenes of girls talking, girls dressing up in each other's clothes, some more girls talking and some guys talking to the girls, resulting in a film that is quite boring for most of the time. These belong elsewhere, least of all in a slasher film, and they're so aggravating and unimportant to the film that even appearing in the film results in a film with an incredibly slow build-up for no point and makes for a really dull period. These should've been trimmed down and made even less significant than what they really are. Even worse, there's a couple of problems with the ending. When the psycho finally turns up at the house, the so-called massacre is nothing more than a series of below-average kills done very quickly, all with the same pitiful knife. There is very little blood involved and there is no creativity to the killing, making the killer as boring and unimaginative as the kills, which is pretty hard to achieve. The last big flaw is the incredibly clichéd appearance of so many different parts of the film. The opening is a direct rip-off from a very famous slasher, the not-so-shocking twist revealed at the end is cribbed directly from the particular film's sequel, and as a whole it feels very much a retread. Overall, it's a really lower slasher.The Final Verdict: With more problems than good points, this one falls down the rung of the slasher genre and as a whole is really underwhelming. Check it out for hardcore slasher fanatics only, or are in the mood for cheesy fun, otherwise there's far better ones out there more deserving.Rated R: Violence, Nudity, Language and a mild sex scene