Sorority House Massacre

I had resisted renting this for a long time, expecting something very typical and stupid. And in some ways, it was pretty campy (watch for the dress-up session!) but once the horror gets started, it gets pretty good.

Beth, a girl plagued by obscure but genuinely creepy nightmares, moves into her new sorority, just when most of the girls leave for Memorial Weekend. She stays back with three others, who, that night, are joined by four guys for a night of fun. Seems pretty typical, right? Yeah, I suppose. But it does get good.

Through some study on the dreams, and memories, Beth realizes that this is the house she used to live in until her brother killed the family and attempted to kill her. And, surprisingly, it's not one of those "what a coincidence!" things when the crazy brother escapes the local asylum. It seems as if the the brother and sister have some connection in their dreams, and he knows she is at the house. So he breaks free (pretty easily) and goes on a hunt for her, but only after wreaking havoc in town, stealing a car, and breaking into a hunting store to get a knife and kill the owner.

It's nighttime, and it looks like Beth's dreams are becoming reality. They even find a hidden knife under a brick in the fireplace that she thought she imagined. Then the brother gets there, and the fun begins.

It's not stalk 'n slash, though, except for a few. Three guys are killed off, and then, when making out with her boyfriend, a girl is killed in a tent, and her boyfriend buck naked, escapes, gasping, "Some guy just killed Tracy!" Okay, so it is pretty campy, especially because he remains naked for a few minutes before miracuously finding some (girls?) pants in one room. Then the surviving four realize that they are trapped...with the killer...in the house....

Very good from there. The characters are likeable, and the killer is very twisted. It's great when he sees each of his victims as a family member he killed, right down to the end of the climax, which ends so well with Beth saying something like, "Get away from me, you sick son of a b*tch!" when she finally finds a knife while he is pulling her towards him.

Overall, an innovative movie, if you can look past the many stereotypes, and the cheese. The acting isn't terrible, and the characters become likeable, especially the last two girls. Definitely check this out, just for the really great horror towards the end.

Sorority House Massacre could be forgiven for shamelessly aping other horror films such as Halloween (and it's first sequel) and The Eyes of Laura Mars, but it has the audacity to bring absolutely nothing original to the plate at all which makes the whole film feel like watching paint dry.

In the film, we have a young sorority girl plagued with visions of her insane brother who killed her family and, now, wants to come after her and her sorority friends after breaking out of an asylum. Clearly, not the most original plot in the world, but if Sorority House Massacre had at least attempted to bring in some fresh characterizations, interesting dialogue, or maybe an inspired sequence of suspense or two, it wouldn't have felt so stale.

Listen, I've suffered through a lot of bad movies in my day, but the exciting thing about them is that, sometimes, they're so awful they almost turn into bizarre comedies full of weird line readings, insane dialogue, completely inhuman responses to big twists, etc. For me, the worst thing a film can do is be boring or mundane without a single inspired moment and, honestly, most bad films are usually far from boring.

This brings me to Sorority House Massacre - a film so dull, passionless, and lacking in anything remotely resembling excitement that I'm surprised I remembered it enough to give this review.

It manages to cram the plots of Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street into one, but it does absolutely nothing of note. Usually, in even the worst of slasher films, there's a character or death scene or two worth remembering, but there's absolutely nothing to latch onto here. It's all just going through the motions.

If you value your time, skip it.

"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

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.