Sorority House Massacre

Sorority House Massacre isn't too bad at all, but there is nothing original or fresh about it either. The basic plot is the same as Halloween (killer from an asylum escapes in search of his sister) and borrows a little from Nightmare On Elm Street (lots of weird nightmares about the killer). The nightmares don't really add much to the film, so I think it would have been better if they had been left out. The build up to the climax is a little slow, but once the action kicks in there are surprisingly a few tense moments, such as when the killer tries to climb in through the window.

Overall, Sorority House Massacre is just an average slasher flick. Watchable, but not very original. Also not very gory, so gore-hounds should look elsewhere.

"Sorority House Massacre" (1986) combines the plot of "Halloween" (psycho killer escapes asylum and goes after his little sister) with the sorority house setting of "The House on Sorority Row" (1983) and "Black Christmas" (1974). But the production values are subpar by comparison, sparking some to call it the worst 80's slasher film.

It's true that the movie starts shaky with filmmaking akin to an old soap opera, but it builds some suspense in the second half. And there are a few gems, like when Beth's sorta-date (the short, dark-haired guy) says, "I just like being with you." This shows that the writer actually put in some effort despite the Grade B (or Grade C) production values. The fact that there's no camp and everything plays out deadly seriously is a plus.

The film is short and sweet at 1 hour, 14 minutes; it was shot in Los Angeles.

GRADE: C

Beth moves into a sorority house where a family was once killed. Soon the killer returns to continue his bloody rampage and murder a bunch of screaming sorority girls and their boyfriends.

The killer is a lot like Micheal Myers without the mask. He has a big knife, he is a heavy breather who doesn't say much, and he likes to stand in shadows a lot. He does, however, have a much faster pace. Extremely low budget, acting is nothing special, cinematography looks like something a kid could do, but with a running time of 1 hour and 15 minutes not a total waste of time for slasher fans.

* out of ****

(**1/2 out of *****)

This is the only movie in the slasher-slashes-girls-in-their-nighties series -- which includes the "Slumber Party Massacre" movies and Jim Wynorski's "Hard to Die" (he also directed the sequel to this one) -- that stands on its own. It has nothing to do with the others, and, storywise, it's better. Angela O'Neill plays a traumatized college girl who has sleeping and waking nightmares about a madman who murdered his family, except for one sister (guess who it is), twelve years ago in the house that is now O'Neill's sorority house. When she and three of her sorority sisters are left alone for the weekend, her dreams come true when the same nutcase escapes from the mental hospital and comes back home to finish the job. I'm not gonna lie to you -- this is far from great -- but, it is surprisingly suspenseful in parts, the characters are fairly likable, and, unlike most of these other movies, the script does a believably good job of keeping the girls trapped in the house. There is a silly dress-up montage (including the obligatory topless scenes), the obligatory false-scare climax (including a totally unnecessary final murder that ticked me off), and lots of scenes of knives going into stomachs and backs. Otherwise, the T&A is not as rampant as in the other nightie slashers, but the story is (slightly) more rewarding.

HIGHLIGHT: One sorority chic and her boyfriend are fooling around in a tent in the backyard when the killer ruins all their fun by slashing up the tent and stabbing the girl right between the -- well, not the eyes -- and her boyfriend ditches her and runs, screaming and buck-naked, back into the house.

Mad killer escapes from an insane asylum and goes after his sister (does this remind you of anything?), with whom he shares an unexplained telepathic link. This film is not too bad of its type, but it's just too derivative of both "Halloween" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" (there are many ominous dream sequences). The main heroine is fairly engaging, but the rest of the characters are almost indistinguishable from one another (and the men are badly acted, too). (**)