Sorority Party Massacre

Now if you are looking for a good bad horror movie this is your movie but if you are a fan of bad horror movies you already know that any horror movie that has ron jeremy in it is a good bad horror movie. That's why I gave it a generous 5 stars. That being said, I watched this movie because I wanted to watch college kids dies. I literally looked up "movies where college kids die" on Google and this wasn't the movie I was looking for. I wanted realistic deaths and gore but this movie wasn't that. It WAS a good bad horror movie but that's all it was.

Ordered to find a missing daughter, a detective's investigation leads to a small-town gathering of sorority girls for a special pageant only to learn the missing girl is the first in a maniac's rampage against them and must protect the remaining girls.

This is decidedly a mixed bag of a slasher that has a lot going for it and a lot of flaws. One of the biggest issues here is the rather convoluted back-story to the killer that really makes no sense at all, especially with the ridiculous explanation given for the rampage which is quite shockingly stupid. As well, there's the fact that there's more than one. That really makes for quite a confusing set of actions in the later half when the movie twists itself around to throwing in twists for the sake of twists when it makes no sense. There's at least four different occasions when the film could've ended without so much as really raising an eye to the fact that there's a new twist coming about simply for the sake of showcasing something new or supposedly shocking but really does nothing. As well, for something supposedly set-up as being this sleazy it's really not with very little skin on display and almost acting shy about doing so when it does, for there's a lesbian character that repeatedly tries to sleep with everyone but never does except in clothed flashbacks, and the few times it tries to show it off they're hidden in obscure angles or generally try as little as possible to show them off, and it really stinks of false advertisement to supposedly be this raunchy and sleazy but really not. Finally, the fact that this is a missing-person's investigation for the majority of the running time means that there's very little slashing going on until the final half-hour, when things really get going but the majority of the first half is pretty much all shot with barely any action going on at all with the group running all over town trying to find out what's going on with the missing girls. That said, there's still some good stuff going on here as, though there's a rather lame back-story for the killer, the mystery of who's behind it is handled rather well and is a pretty competent guessing game overall. As well, the kills are shockingly brutal and provide plenty of variety and originality with them being based on the individual's own fears, which is a handy trick for further keeping the killer's identity a secret, and when it's all wrapped up with a great body count and plenty of action in that final half, there's some solid work here that does recover some of the flaws present.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Nudity.

In the intro some college girl has car troubles and stops at some desolate station. It's night of course and she's by herself with her dog. At some point she gets calls from a creepy voice asking her what she's afraid of and what's the scariest way to die for her. We learn that her father is a cop. But with a disabled car and little phone reception all she can do is run. The creep follows her and sprays acid on her body and face.

After this longer-than-necessary into follows some of the longest intro credits I've seen. Finally the next scene begins. Some violent detective is reprimanded by his boss, who is the intro girl's father. He puts the detective on leave, but he offers to looks for the daughter who hasn't checked in for a day so the dad is worried. He agrees and sends detective Watts to investigate.

When he arrives he meets the dumb and clueless local sheriff. The girl was on her way to a sorority competition where girls get a chance to win a grant. None of other girls have seen the girl. Watts discovers that she's not the first girl to disappear but over the decades dozens of girls have. The sheriff had no idea.

Now as they start investigating, power is cutout wherever they go, phonelines are dead everywhere, and the girls start dying according to their greatest fear, which is something they had to reveal when interviewed by the woman in charge of the grant and owner of the place the girls are visiting. There are a lot of suspects here. Eventually we learn who is behind the killings and why.

Sorority Party Massacre is the kind of movie you want to like. It has a strong but long intro, a good cast with Downey, O'Ross, Mauro, Sorbo, Mandylor. It has a bunch of girls. It has the resources and a rich story. What it doesn't have is a sorority party and not much of a massacre. For a B-movie, acting is very good all around. Quickly though you notice the main problem, which is a rather odd one. The story is told from the perspective of the cop, not from the perspective of the victims, one of the girls. It's a strange choice, which I guess could have worked, but here it just doesn't. Downey is a good actor and a good lead. Still, you keep waiting for the perspective to shift toward the girls. It never does. As a result, for most of the movie you don't care for the girls or their fate as their characters are never really established and also get little screen time. For a "...Massacre" titled movie, there is not enough violence or gore. And almost no nudity. The lovely Eve Mauro gets to play a nasty violent chick unfortunately.

Another problem is that instead of going for straight horror they went for goofy comedy, which at no point was particularly funny. Some of it is slapstick and adolescent. The story at least proved to be more involved than expected. I'd even say they ended up trying to do more than they should have. There isn't jut one, but several twists increasing the unlikelyhood of it all.

Sorority Party Massacre is unfortunately a wasted opportunity. The name of this movie shouldn't be taken seriously.

As an incurably devoted fanatic of 80s horror, I always get hopeful and slightly excited when encountering a new film with a typically eighties title and plot description such as "Sorority Party Massacre". And I guess I'm not the only one, neither. Especially the past 10-15 years, there have been loads of remakes of 80s classics, horror flicks that are supposedly set in the 80s, or at least generate a throwback to the lifestyle and atmosphere of that wondrous decade. Alas, though, with almost every attempt they make, one must face the painful and irrevocable truth: genuine 80s movies could only be made in the 80s, and they are gone forever.

"Sorority Party Massacre" is a bizarre piece, and a wildly uneven and chaotic flick. The opening sequences seem to be another weak imitation of Wes Craven's "Scream" that narrowly caused my eyes to start rolling. But then, most of the film turns into a deliberately tongue-in-cheek and light-hearted parody of the entire slasher genre, and even though it was quite bad and amateurish, I must admit it was enjoyable and often hilarious. All the clichés and stereotypes are here, in XXL-size I may add, and there's gore, nudity and absurd killing methods aplenty. It often remains an over-enthusiast but inept fan-boy movie, mind you. For example, the montage to show lewd the bunch of sorority queens are, or the little clips to illustrate just how ill-tempered Detective Watts is, are clear indications of how writer/director Chris Freeman desperately wants to demonstrate how cool he is. But hey, we can sure live with that, but then the finale truly screws up things completely. It isn't easy to come up with a strong climax and original culprit-revelation, I'll gladly admit that, but some of the twists here are too many, and too dumb.

Apart from a handful of randomly hot young actresses, "Sorority Party Massacre" has two or three decent B-actors (Ed O'Ross, Richard Moll), and a bunch of people that used to perform in totally different types of films/TV-show, but somehow managed to make a new career out of appearing briefly in lousy horror productions. I'm referring to Kevin Sorbo (wasn't he Hercules?), Leslie Easterhook (how do you go from "Police Academy" to Rob Zombie movies?) and Ron Jeremy (he just turns up everywhere, I guess).

With a name such as "Sorority Party Massacre" then you know that you will either be in for a very cheesy and campy slasher movie, or you will be in for a hilarious spoof on the slasher genre. With that in mind I sat down to watch "Sorority Party Massacre".

Bad mistake...

I managed to sit 45 minutes into the ordeal that is known as "Sorority Party Massacre" before I gave up on finishing the movie and just got up to find something else to watch. The storyline was just unfathomably boring and slow paced, and in those 45 minutes that I endured very little, and I do mean very little, had happened at all. And I totally lost all interest in watching the rest to see what happened.

Slasher movies have a tradition of being cheesy and low budget, but this one is the crowning on the cake. "Sorority Party Massacre" turned out to be a very, very boring movie.

The characters in the movie were characters that you hardly cared for, and you didn't really care if they lived or died. As in contrast to movies such as "Friday the 13th", where it is not just a matter of if they will die, it is a matter of how they will die. Such was not the case with the cardboard cut-out characters on parade in "Sorority Party Massacre".

I had hoped that seeing Richard Moll in a movie such as this might actually have helped the movie along, even if just a cameo. But I frankly don't recall seeing him here or remembering him here.

This is a movie that I have no intentions of returning to finish at a later point in time, because the movie just never appealed or spoke to me in any way.