Title says it all: Sorority House Massacre (1986)

Sorority House Massacre (1986) (AKA "Death House")
rating: **1/2
starring:  Angela O'Neill, Wendy Martel and Pamela Ross

In every successful movie, we get a clone. Whether it's a rip-off or a cash-in, one cannot beat the fact that most director would start off either doing a tribute to classic titles such as Halloween or Friday the 13th, or just thinly disguise a plot-copy with loads more blood and nudity.

Sorority House Massacre actually falls in the middle of rippping-off a title and just plainly tributing it, but otherwise, the simplicity of its plot, and lack of and inspired murder scenes makes this slasher title all but exciting.

Taking a weekend off with her girlfriends to a Sorority House, Beth finds herself not only moping for the death of her aunt, who has been raising her ever since she's orphaned, but plagued by a series of visions and dreams involving a bloody man with a knife. She might be seeing these all in her head, but she can't seem to shake off the strange familiarity she's having with the Sorority House itself. It's like as if she's bee there before...

Meanwhile, an escaped loonie, who also happens to be the guy in Beth's dreams, escapes from a mental asylum and began to make his way to the Sorority House, slaughtering everyone and anyone in the process. Were these kids in the wrong place in the wrong time? I Think Not!

Just in case you're not seeing where all of this is going, Sorority House Massacre is nothing more than a rehashed tale of psychos and bimbos, out in a night of terror and gore. However, terror isn't the film's strongest point and even more in terms of gore. The first hour had us watching Beth suffer one unexplained vision to another, having to theorize that she might be seeing some suppressed memories in the form of a clairvoyant vision. Then again, that ain't much of a theory now, isn't it? Not with a convenient power outage leading us to an old fashioned urban legend-story telling around a warm fire later on, which so happens to be also a hint to the connection of Beth to the killer. Believe me, if you'd seen as many horror flicks out there as I do, especially slashers, you wouldn't need a rocket scientist to figure that out.

The last half would be the part where all the gory kills should have been; either blame it on the low-budget or the stale plotting, the murders of this movie hardly met any of my bars, ranging uninspired around no more than hunting knife kills and some bad acting. Not gonna dwell into that since I really don't think we watch movies like these to criticize some talent's acting. We're more on rooting for their character's demise, so if they're dead, that's all we needed to see.

But, all in all, Sorority House Massacre is still a watchable cheese flick rental. Not much of the movie is any higher than any other DVD/VHS rental slashers out there, but it ain't any lower than them either. It's still a slasher movie, it did what it's supposed to, just that none of which is more than impressive. Acting? No. Gore? Hardly. Psycho? Just a guy with a knife and a linked past. Entertaining? Definitely Passing! Just open a hot bag of popcorn, some of your fave brew and you got yourself a worthwhile B-flick to enjoy!

Bodycount:
1 male head beaten against wall
1 elderly male hunting knife to the gut
1 male hacked to death with pickaxe (flashback)
1 female hacked to death with pickaxe (flashback)
1 male stabbed to death with hunting knife
1 female hunting knife to the chest
1 male hunting knife to the back
1 male hunting knife to the back
1 female stabbed to death with hunting knife
1 female stabbed on the back with hunting knife
1 male hunting knife through the neck
total: 11