Sorority Party Massacre

Sexy college girls endure gore galore when a psychotic killer with a taste for sorority sister torture arrives. But when this party gets started, will they receive an advanced degree in extreme horror?

Staci Layne Wilson of Dread Central pins this as "an incompetent, messy mish-mash of Scream, Student Bodies and 'Reno 9-1-1.'" Well, that about sums it up. Thanks, Staci!

While there are some decent scenes, and a few actors who deserve a bit of credit (and many who do not), this just amounts to a lot of nothing. I mean, even for a film called "Sorority Party Party", it is pretty disappointing. Next, the same writer-director is bringing us "Bachelorette Party Massacre", which I am sure will be more of he same tripe.

"Sorority Party Massacre" was directed by Justin Jones, Chris Freeman and stars Ed ORoss,Kevin Sorbo,Richard Moll, Leslie Eastbrook, Louis Mandylor, Tom Downey, Marissa Skell, Eve Mauro, Yvette Yates, Adrian Kirk, Alison Mei Lan, Rebecca Grant, Casey Fitzgerald. The film is about a sorority house worth of girls out for some great P.R.as finalists, to become the winner of an exclusive grant.. (Or something like that). A detective finding his career as tragic as the sorority girls personalities is all that stands between the girls and a brutal killer.

"Sorority Party Massacre" is a cliché slasher comedy that knows it is a cliché slasher comedy. It plays up the vapid superficial aspects of bimbo meets death as if the film's very life depended on it. It is not a spoof horror comedy though because the darkness is and atmosphere of classic slasher horror is very well present in the film. However the ridiculousness of the characters and melodramatic "acting" is just too much to consider the flick a straight up slasher flick. At times it feels a little too "Prom Night III" and at other moments it is very "Sorority Row". The story is layered with typical sub-plots and explanations that can pass as long as you don't get too in depth with the film's story. The gore and kill shots are well done and very entertaining. This film is not a stellar work of slasher horror movie making but it warrants respect for the simple fact that it is a very fun, slasher comedy that brings the babes and the blood. It manages to capture the atmosphere and classic style of 80's slasher, as well as the campy comedy of satire. The film doesn't really bring anything new to the genre but it doesn't take anything from it either. I enjoyed the movie.

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.

There's an opening sequence that suggests this is going to be a fairly standard horror movie with a madman offing sorority members. It has a charismatic actress, an interesting death, no hint of any humor, and... OK, granted, a plot that basically rips off Scream but at least makes it look like the film is headed somewhere. It's so completely not. The rest is a completely different movie. Suddenly it thinks it's a goofy comedy whodunit mystery, but it fails at everything. Instead of having an armchair detective trying to solve the mystery of what happened on this secluded island community, it has a cop who was suspended from his city job for being cartoonishly violent. Not very funny, right? Well, it just gets worse from there. The plot doesn't make much sense when you think about it. And, worst of all, there's no reason to care about any of these characters or anything that happens. It's just not any good, and wouldn't be without a total rewrite. Most of the actresses seem like they could have been pretty good with a decent script. Maybe next time the filmmakers can try making a horror movie instead of just pretending to be one to trick people into watching it.

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).