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).
