Fraternity of Horror

Previously unreleased I watched this as an extra on the 88 Films Blu-ray release of "Night of the Demon" (1980), it is very easy to see why it hadn't been released before. Three males pledges (who look older than High School kids) and their dates go to an old abandoned house as part of their frat initiation. The current storyline given here on IMDb is inaccurate. A college kid is playing pranks on them, there is an old tramp living on a lower floor and remarkably there is an alien complete with scientific equipment in the basement! This is the stuff of Ed Wood. It does not help that the picture quality is very poor but this is a really bad movie, non actors, cheap effects, laughable script. Before the "kids" go off on their quest they are attending a frat party where they get down to some groovy dancing with a clean cut rock and roll band (The Spinners (?)) playing a track that goes "My juicy Woman", not sure how those lyrics would be perceived today, ha ha! This is a curiosity for those who enjoy such things, one for the connoisseur of low budget trash.

In this amateur-ish haunted house film, three American fraternity pledges and their unfortunate dates have two hours to complete a quest in a local spooky mansion. The prize is $100, an amount that makes these 1964 characters goggle-eyed with excitement. Before things get going, the Spinners sing a song called "Watusi Girl" to pad out the frat party opening. There is a hokey, Scooby-Doo-like charm to the simple proceedings in the mansion, and probably the whole thing would be more fun with a better print; it's likely the only one we'll ever have is this incredibly muddy and murky video transfer. That said, the film has quite an effective finale and peculiarly downbeat ending. As silly as the idea for the revealed antagonist is, the cacophony of non-stop screaming on the soundtrack that begins once he appears, the frantic acting that one can barely discern, and the creepy, dead-eyed mask on the villain (that looks a bit like Michael Myers's) manage to briefly create an atmosphere of hysterical fear. Unfortunately, even with this short running time, it's a bit of a chore to get there.

Fraternity initiation movie flick takes an unexpected turn when, after a couple of goofy pranks in an abandonned house to make scream the girls, six teenagers find themselves locked inside and everything goes proto-slasher. Enters a guy dressed like a Yeti or a sort of caveman who is suspected of the crime until he dies too. "We're not alone!" one of the guys says. The house has no windows, creepy stairs, hidden passages, and a cellar that contains... The THING!!

To compare it to another Fraternity-initiation-goes-terribly-wrong film, this one is pretty cool next to 'Ring Of Terror', made 3 years earlier. 'Ring Of Terror' had some cool shots and sometimes funny acting, but it's still painfully slow and doesn't give much of a payoff at the end that leaves you rather disappointed. I think this is not the case with this movie. After a short dance party, the movie goes right to what we've been waiting for: the old dark house, some mystery, some cadavers, and a couple of twists, maybe easy but rather effective, some masks and monsters, whatever how cheaply done from today's standards. It's a product of its time and in the average drive-in mood of the late 1950s/early 1960s.

What is also interesting is its director, long time actor Richard Crane here in his only directorial effort, symptomatic of the studio system's decay in the 1960s that led actors to try their luck by directing and producing their own movie, like Robert Hutton with 'The Slime People' (1963), or Ray Milland with 'Panic In Year Zero!' (1962). It turned out pretty well for Milland but for others it usually didn't go anywhere and just found them bankrupt.

What serves it badly is the quality of the only available transfer, evidently from a VHS tape and maybe even made out of focus when it was passed from the reels to the tape. This is really a shame because it makes the watching painful when the movie could be enjoyable to aficionados of the genre.

A last thing though, the sound choice of putting repeated never-ending piercing screams in the last scene could add some tension to the scene but it's rather hard to stand in my opinion, nevertheless no doubt some people will enjoy it.

After listening to two hot guitarists play a couple of good dance tunes at a Frat party, three unbearably handsome young men and their dates visit a deserted mansion, where a fourth hot guy awaits to set them up on a frat hazing/scavenger hunt with a cash payoff.

Upon arriving at the house, the entourage finds their fraternity contact has been killed by someone - or something - from out of this world. Locked in the house, the next two hours are spent trying to escape and/or find the killer before they themselves become victims.

Considering this was someone's very first attempt at film making, it isn't bad. Yes, the script needs a lot of work, but the attractive gents make it quite watchable, making the viewer nostalgic for the days of good haircuts, chiseled faces, athletic physiques, handsome wardrobes and a refreshing absence of tattoos and drug culture ephemera.

Go into it with your expectations realistic and enjoy it for what it is. I did.