Sorority House Massacre II

Sorority House Massacre II is a great improvement on the original which was basically a rip off of Halloween. In this installment scantily clad sorority girls move into the house where the original took place. There are flash backs, but not to the original Sorority House Massacre, but to the original Slumber Party Massacre, I guess even the film makers got confused, but who cares? This movie is "chopped" full of hilarious dialogue and nudity. Lets not forget Orville Ketchum who gives a stunning performance as the neighbor. Is he the killer or is he out to help the girls? You'll have to see for yourself and you won't be disappointed. This is a classic slasher flick with all the ingredients to keep you entertained for 90 minutes. I mean these girls take 30 minute showers to just clean their breasts, there isn't any hot water, but they can't sleep if they feel "dirty," and they search the house for their missing friends in their underwear. This flick is awesome! Check it out, you won't be sorry.

I'm with Joe Bob on this one.

****SPOILERS AHEAD****

What other movie shamelessly borrows lengthy scenes from another totally unrelated movie ("Slumber Party Massacre") and uses them as flashback sequences, but with completely different back story and character names? This technique, by the way, kept this movie from being less than 70 minutes in length.

What other movie could boldly insert a lengthy topless bar scene (featuring the late porn-star deluxe, Savannah) simply to cast suspicion on the neighborhood pervert? Well, wait a minute...I guess a lot of more mainstream movies do that, too.

But you have to admit that this movie confirms what we males have always suspected: When women get together for a sleepover or slumber party, they spend half their time running around the house naked and the other half wearing the lingerie that even Victoria's Secret refuses to sell.

****END OF SPOILERS****

But above all, this movie is watchable. It's not too long, the scenery is interesting, and the blood is evenly spread throughout the movie. What more can you ask for from a B-movie?

The story of this one involves 4 hot students moving into a new sorority house, that was once the site of a multiple murder. As well, the home features a truly creepy, raw meat gnashing neighbor. Anyways, at about 20 min. into Sorority House Massacre II I noticed an odd thing. The flashbacks we were being shown were from Slumber Party Massacre. This seemed odd to me. I mean the film has nothing to do with Sorority House Massacre 1, yet uses footage from Slumber Party Massacre. Doesn't this make it Slumber Party Massacre IV? Oh well, when you start looking for who-dun-it campus slashers to make sense, you are getting yourself stuck in a vortex of puzzles more mysterious then the ingredients of Col. Sanders secret blend of herbs and spices. Back to the movie; there is a good enough story, tongue in cheek style, and a decent enough amount of T&A to keep any true 80's cheesy horror filmster happy. Watch for adult film's Savannah to show up in her attempt to break into mainstream Hollywood film making. That alone helped me decide to give it a 7 1/2 for 10! Now go out and take on the day!

(*1/2 out of *****) I gotta admit -- it was tough giving this one a low score simply for the base reason that viewers are treated to an absolute cavalcade of bodacious babes in the skimpiest of lingerie, and every single one of them has her own topless scene to boot. But, I gotta be true to myself and rate this according to how it represents the horror/slasher genre, and, unfortunately, it's represented pretty poorly with this derivative junk. This was released the same year as Wynorski's Hard To Die, and both movies have some of the same actors and use flashbacks from the original Slumber Party Massacre rather than the first SHM (don't ask me why.) The plots are also nearly identical, right down to the ho-hum demon posession that's thrown in for laughs. Orville Ketchum also repeats the same role he played in Hard To Die. I don't know if his character is supposed to provide comic relief or what, but, under Wynorski's terrible direction (as in Hard To Die), he gets real tiresome real fast. Overall, this is a poorly-written, highly exploitative, and frustratingly tedious mess, but -- damn me for being a sexist male -- them girls is hot!

HIGHLIGHT: Not to beat this thing into the ground, but I honestly don't think this flick goes five minutes without a gratuitous T&A shot (or two). I need to get out more. ...

Clearly a film shot on a weekend, this girls-in-peril flick clearly has an element of self-parody involved -- every cliche is present, and the pains the filmmakers go to to keep the women from just leaving the damned house is inspired! What makes it a schlock masterpiece is the straight-faced performance of Zoran Hochstetter as the Detective on the case who likes to sit in strip bars and ruminate -- I checked the database -- the guy's a cinematographer (!!!!) -- he should get an Oscar! Well, maybe not, because the true inspiration of this film is the character of Orville Ketchum (great name), the strange next-door neighbor who might be a homicidal maniac or a misunderstood anti-hero -- the actor Pete Spellos has a great straight face and pulls off this insane character. I also rented "Hard to Die," which is a sequel to this and is almost as fun....makes a good double-feature with "Hollywood Boulevard" or "The Great Texas Dynamite Chase" or one of those Claudia Jennings flicks of the 70's...