Pledge Class

It's great Vinegar Syndrome keeps unearthing forgotten b-movies. Here (meaning Finland) most of their releases are not just obscure, but films that were never released at all. Although I must say the excitement of seeing something new makes the experience kind of fragile. You forget a bit too easily that most of these titles are straight from the bottom of the barrel.

That being said, Pledge Night is not that bad, or at least not in the same pile as their worst releases. The actors actually feel like students, they have a chemistry, the movie has a point and an understandable structure and the sets feel believable plus there's surprisingly many outdoor shots, which boost up the mood since there was a snow blizzard during filming. The original soundtrack cues and Anthrax songs fit in nicely plus Joey Belladonna plays a cool cameo.

Considering the budget, the effects are pretty cool and creative too, although you can tell how they've made most of them. I'm not sure if some of the effects shots were never re-discovered or if the budget just wouldn't budge, but they set up some of those scenes so the viewer is waiting for it to escalate, but then cut into something else, which is a bit of a drag. Surprisingly some of the frat boy stuff is actually more gross than the bloodshed, and it's been reported that writer Joyce Snyder researched the subject thoroughly, so that part of the suffering was real!

So if you go in with zero expectations and realize that what you're seeing isn't exactly spectacular, it is an enjoyable horror comedy. It feels like they really tried to get out the best of it and had a lot of fun.

Pledge Night (1988) is a really good cult horror movie.The film is about Larry Bonner, a young college kid trying to get into this fraternity. He becomes friends with the other pledges as they all go through "hell week", but once Larry's mother finds out that her son is being hazed, she tries to tell him to leave the fraternity. Larry's mother tells us her boyfriend, Sid, died in a hazing over 20 years earlier. Larry does not listen to his mother, until the ghost of Sid returns to wreck havoc on the fraternity. See, you should always listen to your mother! The first 45 minutes are very funny as the pledges have to do very "entertaining" games and rituals, such as the "cherry race". As I said, the first 45 minutes of the film are amusing, it's like watching Animal House or Revenge Of The Nerds. But, after the 45 minute mark, the film turns into your typical 1980's slasher film (which is just fine!)complete with fairly gory special effects. This movie is hard to track down on vhs, but you can find a so called "uncut" copy on pal dvd through Dragon Entertainment.

I'm of two minds when it comes to the smash hit horror-comedy "Pledge Night". One the one hand, it's sloppy, cheap looking, and they seemed to make the story up as they went along. But on the other hand, it has a cherry bomb exploding in a man's buttocks. So I can't make up my mind as to whether I like it or not.

It's about these guys who are trying to get into a fraternity. The hazing scenes, which take up the first half of the movie, are pretty funny. There are cherries up the butt, bug-eating, butt-paddling, poop-licking, and butt-branding. (This movie is very obsessed with men's anuses. A good drinking game would be to sip whenever a guy's butt is shown or talked about, or whenever something is put inside a guy's butt). There are endless conversations about hazing and the meaning of fraternities, peppered with lots and lots of statistics. About forty-five minutes into the movie a Freddy Kreuger-rip off named "Acid Sid" shows up and starts killing the characters. Sid is really dumb. He first appears as a hand in a toilet, which should clue you in to the level of terror in this film. Sid is supposed to be the vengeful ghost of a guy who was killed in a botched hazing prank twenty years earlier. He's also a hippie, so while killing he makes "funny" 60s wisecracks like "Where's the protest?" and "This one's for Spiro Agnew!". (Why would a hippie be joining a frat anyway?)

As stupid as Acid Sid was, I think I liked this movie more than I hated it. All the guys playing pledges are hilarious. My favorite was Silvera (instead of drinking an initiation epicac, he suggests "We could stick it up our @ssh*les, or rub it on our hair and bodies!"). Dirty Pledge Richard Goodman was funny too. Try not to laugh as he wanders around whispering "BODINE?" really loud, while looking straight at the camera. The key appeal of these characters is that they're all played by actors who look like regular guys with 1980s hairstyles. They all look like they could be cruising around my neighborhood in a Camaro, blaring Whitesnake on their way down to the Twist-n-Creme. The women in this movie also look like normal, small-town gals (The female lead is built like a hockey player). This has a certain appeal as well, until they start getting naked. These women should be dental assistants or supermarket check out workers, not showing me their yummies in a horror movie! And I could have done without the world's oldest stripper, who appears in a party scene in which she hits a guy on the head with her gigantic breast (the guy looks and acts just like the Club Scum MC from "Hobgoblins").

In conclusion, this would make for a good evening if watched in conjunction with another, better horror flick. You could enjoy the good movie, then enjoy the first half of "Pledge Night" and doze off whenever Acid Sid is around.

The producers Shapiro/Glickenhaus, who were also responsible for one of my all time-trash favorites (Frank Henenlotter´s "Frankenhooker") made another "Friday"-rip off possible, which is better than most of the reviews say about it (What does not mean that "Pledge Night" is a good film!)...

The story is about a sadistic student´s establishment-ritual, where the newcomers have to drink from toilets or get branded... (That´s the first half of the film..!). One night however the monstrous Acid Sid, who looks like Alice Cooper with a cauterized face, returns and starts to take bitter revenge, because the trick they played on him about twenty years ago has been a little bit too deadly!

Probably the most interesting fact is that Joe Belladonna, former vocalist of the US-Speed Metal-Band Anthrax, has a small role. The rest is business as usual: some dumb youths get killed one by one, just with the difference that you mostly don´t see the murder, only the results... The most grotesque death is when a guy is strangulated by a spine.

It´s okay to watch "Pledge Night" one time, if you haven´t seen it you won´t miss anything!

As a silly frat boy prank Young Sid is boiled in a tub of acid.Years later he returns to wreak havoc on the new generation of brothers in his old fraternity.Young Sid is played by Joey Belladonna,the vocalist of thrash metal band Anthrax.He later appears as Acid Sid,an undead pledge who died many years ago in the same house."Pledge Night" is a wonderfully silly and vastly enjoyable fraternity slasher with some grotesque death scenes and plenty of nudity.The story doesn't make a lot of sense and there are some absurd moments of blatant stupidity.If you like trashy heavy metal related slasher flicks like "Rocktober Blood" or "Terror On Tour" give "Pledge Night" a chance.7 cherry bombs out of 10.My favourite kill scenes:a boy has a cherry bomb shoved up his ass and a hand comes up out of a toilet to kill another sorry loser.