The Hazing

In a Halloween night, five students participates of a scavenger hunt trying to join the sorority Sigma Si and Delta Pi. They are divided in two groups, and one of them has to steal an ancient book of magic from their weird Professor Kapps (Brad Dourif). Doug Leary (Phillip Andrew) and Marsha Glazer (Tiffany Shepis) break in the professor's house while he is performing a satanic ritual with a student he has just sacrificed, and Kapps attack the students, but accidentally is impaled by a spear. Marsha and Doug leaves the house and brings his staff and his book of incantation to destroy the evidences and drive to an abandoned house, where the two groups have to stay until the next morning. Meanwhile, two seniors students from the frat house have prepared pranks in the house to scare the sorority pledges. But the evil spirit of Professor Kapps possesses Doug, slashing the group of students that have to fight to survive.

"The Hazing" was a good surprise. I was expecting a bad horror movie, but actually it is good and funny, and entertains. Even the gore scenes are hilarious, and in spite of not having exceptional performances, the cast is nice. There are many beautiful women naked, gore, and lots of humor, following the pattern of 1986 "House", "Vamp", "Frankenhooker", "Idle Hands", "Evil Dead" and many other flicks. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Jovens Amaldiçoados" ("Cursed Youngsters")

A group of college students are sent on a scavenger hunt on Halloween night to find and retrieve several things as part of an initiation into a college fraternity. One of the items they have to find is a Necronomicon- type of book from one of their teachers, that can unlock some kind of doorway to hell, or something like that. Two of them think that they have accidentally killed the teacher, but he's taken to a local hospital and put on life support and kept alive. His spirit (I think) returns and tricks one of the students into reading the book and opening the gates of hell, and starts killing the rest of them. Sound familiar? Teach's body has to die before he can possess someone new though. Then after being shot by a cop at the hospital seven times from a six shooter, he manages to say 'Thank you'? Then tries to possess and kill all of the college students at his house that night responsible for his death, or near death.

Despite the derivative way this sounds, it's actually kind of a fun little movie, Tiffany Shepis and a couple of other hot girls only help matters, but it's uneven and can't quiet decide if it wants to be a horror movie or a satire, or just another rip off. The fact that it is so derivative obviously doesn't help, as it borrows heavily from Evil Dead and the remake of House on Haunted Hill: a scene here looks a little too much like the lockdown scene and its aftermath from that movie, and the old record player left over from the 1930s in this film looks really familiar too. This movie starts slowly, then gets good, then starts to fizzle away, and goes on once scene too long. The effects run the gamut from being surprisingly good to really tacky (a girl turned into a life-sized plastic doll?) but if you've ever wanted to see a girl attacked by a demonically possessed four foot long tongue, this is the movie for you then.

It's good overall, better than one might expect, but it could have been so much better. The theme song 'Do the Zombie Dance' sounds like they were either drunk or intentionally trying to sound stupid for some reason.

With all the inane, witless garbage being released to theaters, it is always a shock to find a gem like this that for some ridiculous reason went straight to video. This film has style, originality, humor, imagination and intelligence. Not to mention decent direction, editing and acting. The characters appear at first to be your average stereotypical horror grouping of who-will-die-first-and-how?, and then the film throws all that away to keep you not only guessing but thinking. What more could one ask from a movie one has to pay to see in a theater? Except that you won't find this anyplace but the local video store. Forget big screen releases with super-serious A-list stars and nonsensical, hole-ridden plot lines, just go to the video store and rent this movie. The Hazing is for those who can appreciate clever, imaginative horror like Hostel or The Evil Dead series, and it is a shame this was never brought to box office.

Exactly what you would expect from a B-Movie. Deritive, gratuitous nudity, boring in parts, ridiculous gore and cheesy special-effects. Of course it could have been better, better acted (defintly) better written, directed, etc. But then I guess it wouldn't have been a B movie. The actors pretty much sucked, in fact this pretty much seemed like an episode of buffy the vampire slayer or something except with a lot of blood, profanity and nudity.

Tiffany Shepis must be singled out. She absolutely is the scream queen of the new millennium. Not that acting really matters in these movies, but she was better than any of the other actors. She's also smokin hot, in that plastic jump suit thing she wore for the whole movie - wow! Her posterior is absolutely stunning in that outfit, I mean it every single time she turns around you can help but check her out. And near then end of the film the viewer is rewarded with seeing her completely nekked.

So if your a looser b-movie horror buff (like myself), check this out. If not, you should probably avoid at all costs.

During a hazing on Halloween, seven college students get trapped in a Fraternity house with an unholy book that attracts the spirit of a crazy professor who threatens to possess them. Can any of them make it out alive?

"The Hazing" (2004), retitled "Dead Scared," is a low-budget slasher with an amusing edge. It borrows from the first two "Evil Dead" flicks and is just as good or better. One of the highlights is brunette Tiffany Shepis as Marsha and blonde Nectar Rose as Delia, the former in a shining bodysuit and the latter in a bunny costume.

The movie runs 1 hour, 27 minutes and was shot in Los Angeles.

GRADE: B-