Hermanas de sangre

For a sorority initiation, a group of pledges and there pledgemaster must spend the night in a haunted bordello. A killer also happens upon the scene. Slow moving slasher film with no appealing characters, little logic, poor effects & music score, and slack direction. A total failure in all respects. Rated R; Nudity, Sexual Situations, and Violence.

This movie is awful, nothing was good about it at all. The girls were ugly, the effects were horrible, and the story was even worse. I can't believe they actually made this movie, what were they thinking? Probably nothing, I give this movie a DO NOT BUY or RENT recommendation.

"Blood Sisters" was just a terrible movie. The story went: a bunch (too many, actually) of sorority pledges spend the night in a haunted ex-bordello. Inside, there are a lot of ghosts (including lesbian ghosts, kids), but nobody pays them any mind, they only care about the psycho that slaughters them easily and unnoticed during the night. There was a foreign feel to the film, though I think it was American, and it felt like it was made around 1981, although the tape claimed it was ‘87. There's a ton of nudity and disturbingly pornographic closeups of kissing, and some pretty brutal killings. Listen for great dialogue like, "You don't have a father...do you know what that makes you? A pervert!" Usually, these movies are fun, and I love to watch them, but not "Blood Sisters." It was dark, dull, illogical, and not really worth watching.

My review was written in June 1987 after watching the movie on Sony video cassette.

"Blood Sisters" is a relatively new horror film (lensed last year under the generic title "Slash"), but relies on an old-hat format that genre fans tired of at least five years ago. Pic bypassed theatrical distribution for home video use instead.

Filmmaker Roberta Findlay's script mixes one part "The Nesting" and one part "Hell Night": seven pledges to Kappa Gamma Tau sorority ar escorted to a spooky old mansion by sorority sister Linda (Amy Brentano), where they have to spend the night without getting scared while searching for objects (a la scavenger hunt) as their initiation assignment. Of course frat boys have rigged up the place with practical joke tricks.

Per a helpful prolog sequence, she was a brothel 13 years ago where a prostitute and her customer were killed by shotgun blasts. Sure enough, the traumatized little boy (locked in a room by his prostie mother during childhood) has grown up and is killing the pledges one by one. Adding a supernatural element, the girls, to varying degrees, see hallucinations in the mansion (especially in mirrors) of the ghosts of the dead prostitutes and their customers.

PIc consists mainly of the girls wandering around the house searching with flashlights, picked off in gory fashion. There is plenty of nudity and softcore sex (including the requisite lesbian scene) but no scares and little of interest. As a snotty pledge, Maria Machart is the prettiest actress in the cast, but none of them have challenging roles. Special effects are minor.

While these things may seem like fun new additions to the slasher movie subgenre, this film flat-out fails to deliver on all counts.

It begins with a psycho kid blasting a fat hooker and her trick with a rifle at a whorehouse, before cutting to modern times (13 years later) at the Kappa Gamma Tao sorority house. After wasting time at a bar and with a sex scene, sister Linda (Amy Brentano) takes seven pledges to the now abandoned brothel for an initiation scavenger hunt. The house has been booby trapped by fun-loving frat guys (who look like they're reaching their 40s), but ghosts and a psycho killer show up.

Director/scripter/cinematographer Roberta Findlay, whom I believe is one of the most prolific female filmmakers of all time, handles some of the supernatural scenes reasonably well given the budget (a standout being an interesting ghost/mirror sequence), but, with its low-grade cast of unknowns, dark/dreary atmosphere and derivative storyline, BLOOD SISTERS isn't a bit of fun to watch. And I still have no idea why the house is full of ghosts of people who used to work there since only two murders were actually committed.

Guys just wanting to see sexy babes cavorting around in little clothing may be equally disappointed by the selection of actresses on hand. A few of the actresses are attractive, but aside from Marla MacHart, there are really no stunners here, though some of them do appear topless from time to time. In addition, it's is so slow-moving that it takes nearly an entire hour until the first murder!