Sorority Party Massacre

"Sorority Party Massacre" was directed by Justin Jones, Chris Freeman and stars Ed ORoss,Kevin Sorbo,Richard Moll, Leslie Eastbrook, Louis Mandylor, Tom Downey, Marissa Skell, Eve Mauro, Yvette Yates, Adrian Kirk, Alison Mei Lan, Rebecca Grant, Casey Fitzgerald. The film is about a sorority house worth of girls out for some great P.R.as finalists, to become the winner of an exclusive grant.. (Or something like that). A detective finding his career as tragic as the sorority girls personalities is all that stands between the girls and a brutal killer.

"Sorority Party Massacre" is a cliché slasher comedy that knows it is a cliché slasher comedy. It plays up the vapid superficial aspects of bimbo meets death as if the film's very life depended on it. It is not a spoof horror comedy though because the darkness is and atmosphere of classic slasher horror is very well present in the film. However the ridiculousness of the characters and melodramatic "acting" is just too much to consider the flick a straight up slasher flick. At times it feels a little too "Prom Night III" and at other moments it is very "Sorority Row". The story is layered with typical sub-plots and explanations that can pass as long as you don't get too in depth with the film's story. The gore and kill shots are well done and very entertaining. This film is not a stellar work of slasher horror movie making but it warrants respect for the simple fact that it is a very fun, slasher comedy that brings the babes and the blood. It manages to capture the atmosphere and classic style of 80's slasher, as well as the campy comedy of satire. The film doesn't really bring anything new to the genre but it doesn't take anything from it either. I enjoyed the movie.

This film begins with an attractive college student by the name of "Holly Fanning" (Casey Fitzgerald) getting lost while driving to a small lakeside town in California where she hopes to participate in a sorority contest. Unfortunately for her, while trying to ask for help at a remote house, she encounters a serial killer who murdering his victims in unique and horrible ways. The scene then shifts to Los Angeles with Holly's father, "Captain Dan Fanning" (Kevin Sorbo) of the Los Angeles Police Department, asking one of his agents named "Detective William Watts" (Thomas Downey) to go to that small lakeside town to investigate his daughter's disappearance. Upon getting there, however, Detective Watts soon realizes that, not only is the local constable "Sheriff Barney P. Lumpkin" (Ed O'Ross) totally incompetent, but that a serial killer has been operating there for years without anybody even noticing it. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that, although this movie started off reasonably well, it started to unravel about halfway through--and then completely fell apart at the end. To that effect, if it was intended to be a comedy, it wasn't funny. Conversely, if it was intended to be a horror film, it lacked any real horror as well. That being said, I consider this to be one of those films that could have been better with competent direction but, failing that, I have to rated it accordingly. Below average.

There's an opening sequence that suggests this is going to be a fairly standard horror movie with a madman offing sorority members. It has a charismatic actress, an interesting death, no hint of any humor, and... OK, granted, a plot that basically rips off Scream but at least makes it look like the film is headed somewhere. It's so completely not. The rest is a completely different movie. Suddenly it thinks it's a goofy comedy whodunit mystery, but it fails at everything. Instead of having an armchair detective trying to solve the mystery of what happened on this secluded island community, it has a cop who was suspended from his city job for being cartoonishly violent. Not very funny, right? Well, it just gets worse from there. The plot doesn't make much sense when you think about it. And, worst of all, there's no reason to care about any of these characters or anything that happens. It's just not any good, and wouldn't be without a total rewrite. Most of the actresses seem like they could have been pretty good with a decent script. Maybe next time the filmmakers can try making a horror movie instead of just pretending to be one to trick people into watching it.

As an incurably devoted fanatic of 80s horror, I always get hopeful and slightly excited when encountering a new film with a typically eighties title and plot description such as "Sorority Party Massacre". And I guess I'm not the only one, neither. Especially the past 10-15 years, there have been loads of remakes of 80s classics, horror flicks that are supposedly set in the 80s, or at least generate a throwback to the lifestyle and atmosphere of that wondrous decade. Alas, though, with almost every attempt they make, one must face the painful and irrevocable truth: genuine 80s movies could only be made in the 80s, and they are gone forever.

"Sorority Party Massacre" is a bizarre piece, and a wildly uneven and chaotic flick. The opening sequences seem to be another weak imitation of Wes Craven's "Scream" that narrowly caused my eyes to start rolling. But then, most of the film turns into a deliberately tongue-in-cheek and light-hearted parody of the entire slasher genre, and even though it was quite bad and amateurish, I must admit it was enjoyable and often hilarious. All the clichés and stereotypes are here, in XXL-size I may add, and there's gore, nudity and absurd killing methods aplenty. It often remains an over-enthusiast but inept fan-boy movie, mind you. For example, the montage to show lewd the bunch of sorority queens are, or the little clips to illustrate just how ill-tempered Detective Watts is, are clear indications of how writer/director Chris Freeman desperately wants to demonstrate how cool he is. But hey, we can sure live with that, but then the finale truly screws up things completely. It isn't easy to come up with a strong climax and original culprit-revelation, I'll gladly admit that, but some of the twists here are too many, and too dumb.

Apart from a handful of randomly hot young actresses, "Sorority Party Massacre" has two or three decent B-actors (Ed O'Ross, Richard Moll), and a bunch of people that used to perform in totally different types of films/TV-show, but somehow managed to make a new career out of appearing briefly in lousy horror productions. I'm referring to Kevin Sorbo (wasn't he Hercules?), Leslie Easterhook (how do you go from "Police Academy" to Rob Zombie movies?) and Ron Jeremy (he just turns up everywhere, I guess).

Ordered to find a missing daughter, a detective's investigation leads to a small-town gathering of sorority girls for a special pageant only to learn the missing girl is the first in a maniac's rampage against them and must protect the remaining girls.

This is decidedly a mixed bag of a slasher that has a lot going for it and a lot of flaws. One of the biggest issues here is the rather convoluted back-story to the killer that really makes no sense at all, especially with the ridiculous explanation given for the rampage which is quite shockingly stupid. As well, there's the fact that there's more than one. That really makes for quite a confusing set of actions in the later half when the movie twists itself around to throwing in twists for the sake of twists when it makes no sense. There's at least four different occasions when the film could've ended without so much as really raising an eye to the fact that there's a new twist coming about simply for the sake of showcasing something new or supposedly shocking but really does nothing. As well, for something supposedly set-up as being this sleazy it's really not with very little skin on display and almost acting shy about doing so when it does, for there's a lesbian character that repeatedly tries to sleep with everyone but never does except in clothed flashbacks, and the few times it tries to show it off they're hidden in obscure angles or generally try as little as possible to show them off, and it really stinks of false advertisement to supposedly be this raunchy and sleazy but really not. Finally, the fact that this is a missing-person's investigation for the majority of the running time means that there's very little slashing going on until the final half-hour, when things really get going but the majority of the first half is pretty much all shot with barely any action going on at all with the group running all over town trying to find out what's going on with the missing girls. That said, there's still some good stuff going on here as, though there's a rather lame back-story for the killer, the mystery of who's behind it is handled rather well and is a pretty competent guessing game overall. As well, the kills are shockingly brutal and provide plenty of variety and originality with them being based on the individual's own fears, which is a handy trick for further keeping the killer's identity a secret, and when it's all wrapped up with a great body count and plenty of action in that final half, there's some solid work here that does recover some of the flaws present.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Nudity.