Sorority House Massacre (1986)

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Troubled young college student Beth (a solid and sympathetic performance by Angela O'Neill) has a strange feeling about the sorority house that her friends reside in. Her pals dismiss her warning about a knife-wielding killer. However, Beth proves to be right after psycho Bobby (a creepily intense portrayal by John C. Russell) escapes from a mental hospital and heads straight to the sorority house so he can embark on a murderous spree. Writer/director Carol Frank maintains a swift pace throughout, draws the characters with more depth than usual, generates a reasonable amount of tension, and delivers a satisfying smattering of tasty gratuitous female nudity as well as a sufficient helping of bloody violence. Moreover, Beth's various dreams and visions provide a sizable jot of eerie and unsettling surrealistic oomph. The actresses are quite pretty and personable: Wendy Martel as sweet psychology major Linda, Pamela Ross as perky ditz Sara, and Nicole Rio as bitchy party gal Tracy. Michael Wetherwax's spirited hum'n'shiver synthesizer score hits the shuddery spot. Marc Reshovsky's slick cinematography makes good use of a prowling hand-held camera and offers plenty of strikingly offbeat visuals. Recommended viewing for slice'n'dice fans.

A little girl's brother kills the whole family but her (she escapes by hiding in the basement). He is committed, and she grows up with a new family, eventually going to college, where she joins a sorority. Due to a memory block, she doesn't remember that the sorority house was her childhood house. Her brother senses her presence in the house and escapes so he can finish the job he was unable to complete. The whole story of this movie is all too familiar, being a die-hard fan of the Halloween series I felt like I was experiencing déjà vu. With that being said, it was not a bad movie. It had pretty decent acting, and the story is also good but not original. The killer reminds you a lot of Michael Myers. And this has gotten lots of controversy. Story: 4/10 - The story is not at all original and is greatly influenced by John Carpenter's Halloween.Picture Quality: 7/10 - For its time, it is a well shot film. Acting: 6/10 - Actors and actresses do a somewhat believable job.Characters: 6/10 - The main girl is well developed, but all other characters lack development. The killer is way too much like Michael Myers, but does have some separating features such as talking.Sound: 5/10 - Sound quality is good, they do not do a very good job with the soundtrack and effects.Overall Rating: 5.6Scare Rating: 2/10

This movie is so bad - that it's actually entertaining. If you love the 80's - the bad hair, the bad clothes, the bad acting - then is for you. The lead actress - she certainly wont be accused of overacting - she literally had just one facial expression no matter what was happening. I watched it all in disbelief. The scenes in the mental clinic were a joke. I literally thought they were kidding. I am so sorry that this review has such a negative tone - but I just had to write this - even if nobody ever reads it - I will feel as though I have helped humanity a little bit. Easily one of the worst slasher movies I have ever seen. So of course I want to see it again.

"Sorority House Massacre" is a really troubled slasher with a few good areas.**SPOILERS**Visiting some friends, Beth, (Angela O'Neill) finds that Linda, (Wendy Martel) Sara, (Pamela Ross) and Tracy, (Nicole Rio) are moving into a sorority. When they get settled in, she begins to start having weird visions and dreams of a psychotic figure threatening and torturing her. As the others laugh it off to her new surroundings, they invite their boyfriends Craig, (Joe Nassi) Andy, (Marcus Vaughter) and John, (Vinnie Bilancio) over to help them with a special school project they've signed up for. As night falls, they suddenly start to disappear around the house, and it soon becomes apparent that a serial killer has been stalking the group, and that a deadly secret from the past has allowed for him to select the location, forcing them all to run for safety.The Good News: This here wasn't that great, and only had a couple of good points. One of the main ones is that, when it finally gets slash-happy at the end, it's entirely watchable. There's a large amount of stalking and chasing, which are the strong points. The chase across the house reveals plenty to work with, from the attack in the bedroom to the frantic search through the living room and kitchen being the big ones. There's even some good moments from the end of the backyard encounter all the way to the pretty creepy basement encounter that brings up the whole plot in great detail that makes it seem like it's new and different when it's really not are some of the best points drug up during these moments. The house itself is fairly inventive and allows for some really nice scenes to come about through the placing of the action. The only other point of note is one really cheesy scene where a couple are making out inside a tent outside the house. The girl gets killed so the guy, butt-naked, wearing nothing but trainers runs into the house and begins spouting one of the most hilarious lines ever. It's quite cheesy, and really applies in the situation, making it all the better to appear in such a cheesy film. Otherwise, that's all the film has going for it.The Bad News: This one actually has a couple of pretty big flaws. One of them is just that very little actually happens for the first three quarters of the film, and then most of the kills are crammed into the final quarter. For the rest of the film we're given plenty of uninteresting scenes of girls talking, girls dressing up in each other's clothes, some more girls talking and some guys talking to the girls, resulting in a film that is quite boring for most of the time. These belong elsewhere, least of all in a slasher film, and they're so aggravating and unimportant to the film that even appearing in the film results in a film with an incredibly slow build-up for no point and makes for a really dull period. These should've been trimmed down and made even less significant than what they really are. Even worse, there's a couple of problems with the ending. When the psycho finally turns up at the house, the so-called massacre is nothing more than a series of below-average kills done very quickly, all with the same pitiful knife. There is very little blood involved and there is no creativity to the killing, making the killer as boring and unimaginative as the kills, which is pretty hard to achieve. The last big flaw is the incredibly clichéd appearance of so many different parts of the film. The opening is a direct rip-off from a very famous slasher, the not-so-shocking twist revealed at the end is cribbed directly from the particular film's sequel, and as a whole it feels very much a retread. Overall, it's a really lower slasher.The Final Verdict: With more problems than good points, this one falls down the rung of the slasher genre and as a whole is really underwhelming. Check it out for hardcore slasher fanatics only, or are in the mood for cheesy fun, otherwise there's far better ones out there more deserving.Rated R: Violence, Nudity, Language and a mild sex scene