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House on Sorority Row
is a painfully vacuous horror film. It arrived at a time when slashers
were popular, but the entire scenario, characters and even fatalities
scream of generic. Regardless of which pieces were actually original
in 1983, this tired formula has been done to death. While most of
the other thrillers of the 80s tried to create a unique villain,
House on Sorority Row suffers from a completely forgettable antagonist,
devoid of a favorably unique weapon, who only becomes mildly entertaining
when briefly cloaked in a jester costume.
Stubborn, bitter Mrs. Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt) runs her sorority
house like a reform school. Her mysterious past is stranger only
to her annual closing of the house every June 19th. But this year,
the sorority sisters are as rebellious as their house mother is
obstinate, and no one will get in the way of their plans to host
a graduation party in the building. Not even Mrs. Slater. But
after a vengeful prank against the callous old woman goes too
far, panic sets in and the girls attempt to hastily cover up their
misdeed. But someone knows what they’ve done, and as sorority
girls begin turning up barbarously murdered, young Katey (Kate
McNeil) must uncover the terrible secret behind the house on Sorority
Row. |
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It starts with a bad
flashback – the kind that doesn’t go anywhere, fails
to snap into reality at an unsettling moment, and remains foggily
disorienting for much too long. Once that’s out of the way
(and 24 years later), the film establishes the bubbly, giggling
college girls who drunkenly sit in a circle, toasting themselves
while in sexy nightgowns – just how we imagined sorority girls
to act. When bodies start piling up and the sisters get separated
(with intelligent reasons such as locating a pool light breaker
in a dark, atmospheric bunker, just to prevent someone from accidentally
turning on a light in a filthy swimming pool that hasn’t been
used in ages), all signs point to Mrs. Slater and her wickedly pointy
cane. Perhaps they should have stuck to their original prank of
putting glue on her toilet seat.
Even in the horror of murder and killing, the party must go on. House on Sorority Row doesn’t even try to persuade the audience that it’s anything more complex than a series of bloody deaths, loosely tied together with a ridiculous plot. Most of the attacks are agonized, screaming faces cut to black – the more gruesome demises probably weren’t convincing even during the premiere. With an unsatisfying, incomplete conclusion (thanks to a hasty re-edit) and sparse seriousness, House on Sorority Row is most entertaining as a comedy, or fodder for poking fun at poor filmmaking ideas. At least we learned that when running from a ruthless killer with no escape route in sight, falling on the floor in despair is an invaluable defense mechanism. - The Massie Twins
Click HERE to read the Review of The House on Sorority Row Click HERE to read the Review of Sorority House Massacre Click HERE to read the Review of Sorority House Massacre II Click HERE to read the Review of Sorority House Massacre III (Hard to Die) Click HERE to read the Review of Sorority Row (2009) Click HERE to read the EXCLUSIVE Interview with Leah Pipes, star of Sorority Row (2009)
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You are wrong. Look up the unreliable narrator theory. Think about the hallucingenic ending and ask yourselves whether the film actually has a fixed ending.
As for "sparse seriousness". This is fairly smart 80s slasher film. anything other than "sparse seriousness" would be misguided.