Killer Party

Killer party offers a combination of horror and laugh-out-loud bad effects. the storyline is not new and at times is very predictable but what saves the film is that you can't help but get involved. the film achieves the difficult balance between being hilariously poor and being at times truly terrifying.

a true 80s horror film. it is perfect for light hearted entertainment, offering both laughs at the low budget effects and occasional moments of terror.

I thoroughly enjoyed this 1986 creepy camp classic that in my humble view is a Canadian Cult classic. No, it is not a horror film in the real sense of the horror genre, nor is it a comedy. What I will say is that this fraternity is one that people figuratively and literally "die for!"

If I were to compare it to the 1978 comedy fraternity phenom of Animal House, I actually enjoyed Killer Party much more because it does not rely solely on gross humor to satisfy its college and younger audience. Killer Party provides an abundance of camp, comedy, a little bit of horror, a little bit of suspense and a lot of mystery as to who is actually killing off the school faculty members and the frat boys and girls?

Since this film was released more than 30 years ago and I just watched it, I must say that it holds up very well and should be considered a five (5) C which stands for Canadian, Campy, Creepy, Cult, Classic!

I give Killer Party an entertaining 8 out of 10 rating!

Not sure how things worked in the 80's, but I was in a fraternity in the 90's. If we had a bad relationship with a sorority, we'd give them an opportunity to get their philanthropy hours in and do all the heavy lifting - we'd follow it up with a cook out and beer. The bee / voyeurism scene would've gotten people kicked off campus. It's kind of an unintentional theme throughout this movie; attempts at portraying normal frat rat shenanigans come off as creepy and uncomfortable - we had a Martin type at our school and he didn't make it the full four years.

All that being said, the three female leads (only one of whom has an IMDB pic) are actually pretty good actors. I don't need that to enjoy a slasher movie, but it holds this one together for the most part. I totally bought their portrayal of goofy, ambitious college girls.

The kills are pretty average, but it's not offensively boring like Popcorn or Killer Workout. If you're going down the rabbit hole, might as well add this one to the list.

(** out of *****)

It's another sorority pledge/killer-in-the-house flick, with three pretty sorority babes and all their friends getting butchered at an April Fool's Day costume party by the vengeful spirit of a reincarnated fraternity pledge. Only, none of this really gets going until the last half hour -- for most of the movie, we're treated with long, dumb scenes of typical fraternity/sorority hijinks, pranks and shenanigans (I wish my college experience had been half as fun as this movie makes it look.) Also, I docked this movie half a star for the obnoxious and totally unnecessary double-fake-out beginning (a movie inside of a stupid, "Thriller"-like music video inside of a movie). Finally, we get to the haunted house, where the resurrected killer walks around in a deep-sea diver suit and uses such diverse tools of the slasher trade as a hammer, a trident, and a guillotine. In the climax, one of the girls gets possessed and starts snarling and slobbering and crawling around on chandeliers and ceilings (not an altogether unimpressive performance, actually.) There's minimal nudity and all of the violence is off-screen. Paul Bartel makes one of his typical B-movie cameos as an uptight college professor, and the three main girls are played by Elaine Wilkes, Sherry Willis-Burch, and Joanna Johnson. Also with Martin Hewitt, Alicia Fleer and Ralph Seymour (from "Fletch"). The theme song played over the opening and closing credits (the chorus goes, `These are the best times of our life, these are the best times. ... ') sounds like a generic ‘80s song, but hearing it after most of the cast gets wiped out was amusing in a (most likely unintentional) ironic sort of way.

HIGHLIGHT: Johnson's performance as the drooling, wall-climbing, possessed college cutie, Jennifer, is the film's highlight. She's no Linda Blair, but, for this kind of derivative, low-budget trash, she's not half bad.

"Killer Party" opens like no other horror/slasher movie ever. It's a good 9 minutes before the actual movie begins. The opening 9 minutes pull the rug out from under the viewer not once, but twice! These two opening segments did a fun job of jumping on the clichés of the time. Gotcha scares, drive-ins, and hair rock music videos routinely seen on MTV. It is an absolute blast. The actual movie tells the tale of three young women pledging to a sorority on campus. They have to go through the usual pledge/hazing shenanigans. Unfortunately, a party is to be held in an abandoned frat house, where a pledge was accidentally killed years before. It appears this pledge does not rest in peace, and the party-goers are about to find out the hard way.

"Killer Party" is a horror movie with a sense of humor. Not only the humor that is in the movie in itself, but the fact that the film knows what kind of movie it is, and has fun with it. The movie just has a sense of fun all around it. Great locations, 80s nostalgia in your face, and just enough eerie atmosphere here and there. It does slow down in some spots, but it isn't a concern. However, for a slasher/horror movie, the death scenes are relatively tame, and not all of them do we see for long or, in some cases, at all. No matter. The movie was written as a fun horror movie, and that's what we get. A horror movie with humor, standard slasher conventions, a taste of the supernatural, a dash of college hazing hi-jinks, and it's own music video! "Killer Party" really does seem to be the "Everything and the kitchen sink" horror movie.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.