Sorority House Massacre (1986)

What makes it different from others?

Truly Dreadful Film

Absolutely amazing

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

"Sorority House Massacre" is one of those movies with constraints in budget or talent or both that prohibit you from making any investment of time or consideration in anything that happens on screen.It's like watching a movie playing in the house next door and you're trying to peer through the window to get a good look at the screen. Maybe there is one or two moments in it where you would have liked to understand what's going on, but you can't, because the budget is so low that it keeps you outside, or maybe the actors are too bad to generate interest, or perhaps it's the direction.Who cares? The point is, the movie is thoroughly unconvincing.The plot is basically a "Halloween" rip off, but it's told so badly you could miss that. It's about a girl who is in college and has a mental block about something in her past involving a man who breaks out of a mental institution at the beginning of the movie. He does this so easily you wonder why they even bother showing it. Why not just start with him out, and leave the escape up to our imagination? Anyway the movie tries to build suspense for his arrival home and the imminent and titular "massacre" with an endless barrage of tedious and inept dream sequences. These fantasies just become distancing when they are supposed to be horrifying. Furthermore, the actress who plays the protagonist is unable to make her "character" interesting enough to even want to get into her head. We know that she's related to the killer and that he's coming back to get his revenge. We didn't need so many interminable dream sequences to point that out. You get it almost immediately.It's funny that "Halloween" had a lower budget than this, and that was able to establish some key details with ease, like Laurie Strode as a fully fledged character, and Michael Myers as a terrifying embodiment of evil. This movie completely fails at establishing anything like that.According to the IMDb plot description, what sets off the protagonist of "Sorority House Massacre" remembering her evil brother, and what makes him come back to take revenge (or whatever you call what he is doing), is the fact that the titular "sorority house" is the same house that they grew up in, where he first went on a killing spree. I missed that detail in the movie, but if it's really true, it's the dumbest thing about this whole debacle.

This is the kind of bad 80's slasher flick that I love. It hit every cliché in the book (killer locked in an asylum and breaks out to go after his sister that he tried to kill a long time ago.) It is very clearly a rip-off of Halloween, which is one of my all time favorite movies. Maybe that's why I liked this so much. The only thing that was a little repetitive was the dream sequences. As a young girl, Beth escaped her brother Bobby who killed her family. Now, years later she joins a sorority. Bobby breaks out of the asylum and goes after Beth to finish the job. He'll kill anyone who gets in his way. If you love campy corny cheesy slashers from the 80's, you'll definitely love SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE!!!

A little girl's brother kills the whole family, but she escapes by hiding in the basement. He is committed, and she grows up with a new family, eventually going to college and joining a sorority. Due to memory loss, she does not remember that the sorority house was her childhood home.Thank you, Roger Corman, for producing this cheap attempt at a slasher, cashing in on a craze at the time. You are a producing genius.I am more than a little confused by the "trying on the wardrobe" scene. Did it help the plot? No. This seemed like an excuse to play bad music for a minute and show three girls in various stages of undress. While (for good or bad) nudity is a crucial part of the slasher, this pushed the concept of "gratuitous" to new levels.The film was written and directed Carol Frank, assistant to the director of "Slumber Party Massacre". Clearly that film's influence on this one is obvious, if for n other reason than the title. And Frank has done little else in the world of movies... very mysterious. (For what it is worth, this film is more than good for a first time director... the potential for a career was certainly there.) The lead actress, Angela O'Neill, is unknown to most people, but she is actually now a success in Hollywood -- in the arts and props department. She has worked on such films as "American Beauty" and "Apollo 13". If this film did nothing else for the world of cinema, it launched O'Neill's career, and has benefited us all.

In what is deemed as somewhat of Halloween rip-off, Sorority House Massacre is Carol Frank's first project as director, and her last to boot. While her credits in the film industry are minuscule, she completed work as an assistant to the director of The Slumber Party Massacre, released in 1982. Frank must've been impressed by the film's output because here we have another Slasher that features sorority girls frantically trying to escape a knife-wielding killer in their night gowns.Beth, after the death of her aunt, moves in with her sorority girlfriends. She's been suffering from chronic nightmares that seem to hold no relevance to her existence; the elements include a menacing male killer and a mysterious house that she's never visited. Beth's friends attempt to dissect these dream sequences – meanwhile, a dangerous patient escapes from the local mental ward. His goal? To bring death and destruction to the unsuspecting troupe of young women. Readers should be advised that this film is commonly confused with The House on Sorority Row, with good reason of course. Slasher films can be broken down further and categorized into neat little compartments and in this instance, witnessing college girls get bested by a maniac is practically a sub- genre of its own.Here we have all of the most common mainstream 80's elements you can think of – and much to your 80's-driven satisfaction, wrapped up in a video montage that features the girls trying on clothes. While the music plays on, almost as if it was ripped straight from a sitcom of 25 years ago, they model brightly-colored dresses, outfitted with shoulder pads, complimented a step further with pictures of Dee Snyder from Twisted Sister on the wall. It's probably the most cheesy and out-of- place montage you'll ever see in a horror film…not only is it ridiculous but the editing for this particular sequence is absolutely shocking in how pitifully it's done – like watching an episode of Charles in Charge while huffing a cheap can of Krylon.This film desperately wants you to love it, and I have to admit, it does have its charm. I was never really one to praise a film for being charming on account of how bad it is, however; lines of dialog within are too horrid to recount. The act of being thorough with reality isn't really a priority of Sorority House Massacre especially if you consider a scene in which an institution orderly enters the room of the uncontrollable maniac with headphones on. He is swiftly dispatched of. Why, if this man was filled with rage and anger, would they not warn the rest of the staff? Why would another employee carelessly stroll into his quarters woefully unprepared? What nonsense. The reason that Sorority House Massacre is compared to Halloween is mainly because of the story – we have a young woman who has an odd connection to the male killer – a killer who's been locked away in a facility for 15 years. His weapon of choice is a knife and his propensity to outlive mortal wounds is reminiscent of Michael Myers. People make the mistake here, though, in just assuming that the director wanted the madman to be indestructible; I don't think that's the case. I wouldn't be surprised if this title was influenced by the John Carpenter classic, but I can't say it's a rip-off…it's too convenient. It's worth noting that this film spawned two sequels – Sorority House Massacre 2 and Hard to Die, both released in 1990. I won't be covering these follow-up films in this review, however, so you can exhale with relief.So…what's the word, hoss? Should you strut down to your local video store, rummage through the Netflix archives, or scan torrent banks to scout this movie out? If you care to take note of this film's release, 1986, you should know what to expect in terms of a Slasher film. Aside from the more well-known titles that offered a refreshing take, flicks this late in game regurgitated old ideas. If you've been on a long journey to complete the quest of tracking down every 80's Slasher, like I have, you might want to add this one to the list. It's not original and it's only entertaining in the way of it being humorously bad; certainly not a serious investment but one worth a look for a completest.