42ndStreetFreak
12-06-2004, 03:14 PM
The House on Sorority Row (1983) http://www.beardyfreak.com/rvsorority.htm
Dir: Mark Rosman
A group of seven female Graduates decide to hold a celebration party in their sorority house against the wishes of the strict House Mother Mrs Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt), who normally shuts up the house at this time of year.
Slater has been in a fragile mental state since her mysterious pregnancy in 1961, where something went terribly wrong.
When the girls, lead by the arrogant Vicki (Eileen Davidson), refuse to back down Mrs Slater’s temper reaches boiling point and one night she slashes up Vicki’s waterbed, with her sharp pointed cane, as Vicki has sex with her boyfriend.
A furious Vicki plans revenge by playing a prank on Slater.
Against the wishes of the more level-headed Katherine (Kate McNeil), Vicki gets a supposedly empty gun to simply scare the House Mother.
But Vicki pushes the prank too far, resulting in the actual shooting of Mrs Slater.
Katherine wants to call the police but the rest of the girls shout her down, so instead they hide the body in the dirty swimming pool.
Keeping up appearances, the party goes ahead, and as the girls put on a calm façade a mysterious killer, wielding Mrs Slater’s wicked cane, stalks the night. And Mrs Slater is no longer in the pool…
The black and white pre-credits sequence detailing the sinister birth, or not, of Mrs Slater’s baby gets the film off to a nicely atmospheric start, and as the movie shifts into ‘modern’ day a well edited and staged credits montage of the girls beautifying themselves (backed by a classical score by the ever reliable Richard Band that utilises horns, strings and nursery rhyme female vocals to excellent effect) things bode well for a solid horror film with a touch of class. And for the most part that is what “The House on Sorority Row” manages to deliver.
The film has certainly aged when the fashions and above all the music supplied by the awful party band are taken into account, but this is common to most old school Slasher movies (though it’s something John Carpenter’s much earlier “Halloween” cleverly manages to avoid) and either harms the films or adds to their charm. “House” falls in between the two. There is charm here, but also an equal amount of embarrassment.
Acting wise, it’s hit and miss. There is a nice solid turn by Davidson as the bitchy Vicki and McNeil (who would go on to co-star in George A Romero’s sadly ignored “Monkey Shines”) makes Katherine a likeable heroine as she’s never an annoying ‘goody two shoes’, just a bit more moral than the rest of them.
The other girls are pretty much forgettable both as characters and in the way they are portrayed. Staple Slasher fodder is about as good as it gets.
The biggest letdown is Lois Kelso Hunt as the bitter Mrs Slater. She, like the film’s aforementioned aging, falls between two stools. She is neither ‘mad’ enough to entertain or tragic enough to feel any real empathy towards. There is much in her character to work with but it’s sad to say it’s a pretty lacklustre portrayal.
Director Mark Rosman has not done much else of note, and it’s a shame, as he keeps the movie flowing along nicely, with very few ‘dead’ periods so common to many of the 80’s Slasher films where there is no killing going on. There are no overly flamboyant set-ups, even for the murders, but all is at least competently done. Though the actual part does seem to vanish and then re-appear when it suits. And it’s loud while on screen, but strangely silent when not being directly covered.
But this ‘safe’ handling is perhaps the film’s biggest problem. Rosman does nothing risky that may rock the boat, but at the same time he rarely does anything really exciting to make anything stand out.
Much more badly paced films of the period, like the much loved “The Burning” and “The Prowler”, stand out (despite the sheer dullness between kills) because the murder set-ups and the effects themselves stand out.
Sadly, “House” does not have these set-ups or the excellent effects to go with its other strengths.
Most of the killings are obvious in their execution and gore wise there is nothing much here to get excited about. We have a pretty good throat skewing, a lame hand stabbing, a nasty if bloodless throat slashing and a cane through the stomach. The highlights are a messy multiple stabbing that ends with a nice eye-popping climax (though that seems to have been forgotten when the body is found and it bares no signs of the injury) and a classic ‘head in the toilet bowl’!
Overall the film is full of what have now become the staple clichés of the Slasher sub genre, like walking down dark corridors alone, checking out creepy cellars alone and (in its one scene of mild nudity) getting undressed to add to the venerability factor…and the cheap thrills. Which is good.
One very unusual addition though is the on-screen opening up of a condom packet during Vicki’s wetly interrupted coupling. Something that this reviewer has never seen in any other Slasher movies.
But basically “House” has all the ingredients that make and sometimes break these types of films. You either accept these set-ups or you don’t, but if f you refuse to, you will have a hard time enjoying these movies.
The one time Rosman does do something unusual is during some nicely macabre hallucinations suffered by Katherine that include ‘zombie’ corpses of her dead friends and the extremely weird sight of Mrs Slater's magically spinning cane!
It all ends on a rather rushed, and faintly unsatisfying, note but the movie as a whole is a well made, solid entry into the Slasher sub-genre and paced better than most. It just lacks any real spark.
Designed to be seen with a group of like minded teens at the local drive-in, rural picture house or urban flea pit, American Slasher films are a horror sub genre that fares worse than most when taken out of their natural environment (and time) and as such they have to be very special (or at least contain special elements) to really stand out, and play anything like as well as they did on their initial release, in today's rampant ‘home’ based viewing mediums of VHS and DVD. Few succeed.
Some do because their murder set-ups and effects are so well executed, or because the Director has some exciting ideas, “House on Sorority Row” is once again stuck in the middle, but is well worth your time if you can be motivated enough to check it out.
Dir: Mark Rosman
A group of seven female Graduates decide to hold a celebration party in their sorority house against the wishes of the strict House Mother Mrs Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt), who normally shuts up the house at this time of year.
Slater has been in a fragile mental state since her mysterious pregnancy in 1961, where something went terribly wrong.
When the girls, lead by the arrogant Vicki (Eileen Davidson), refuse to back down Mrs Slater’s temper reaches boiling point and one night she slashes up Vicki’s waterbed, with her sharp pointed cane, as Vicki has sex with her boyfriend.
A furious Vicki plans revenge by playing a prank on Slater.
Against the wishes of the more level-headed Katherine (Kate McNeil), Vicki gets a supposedly empty gun to simply scare the House Mother.
But Vicki pushes the prank too far, resulting in the actual shooting of Mrs Slater.
Katherine wants to call the police but the rest of the girls shout her down, so instead they hide the body in the dirty swimming pool.
Keeping up appearances, the party goes ahead, and as the girls put on a calm façade a mysterious killer, wielding Mrs Slater’s wicked cane, stalks the night. And Mrs Slater is no longer in the pool…
The black and white pre-credits sequence detailing the sinister birth, or not, of Mrs Slater’s baby gets the film off to a nicely atmospheric start, and as the movie shifts into ‘modern’ day a well edited and staged credits montage of the girls beautifying themselves (backed by a classical score by the ever reliable Richard Band that utilises horns, strings and nursery rhyme female vocals to excellent effect) things bode well for a solid horror film with a touch of class. And for the most part that is what “The House on Sorority Row” manages to deliver.
The film has certainly aged when the fashions and above all the music supplied by the awful party band are taken into account, but this is common to most old school Slasher movies (though it’s something John Carpenter’s much earlier “Halloween” cleverly manages to avoid) and either harms the films or adds to their charm. “House” falls in between the two. There is charm here, but also an equal amount of embarrassment.
Acting wise, it’s hit and miss. There is a nice solid turn by Davidson as the bitchy Vicki and McNeil (who would go on to co-star in George A Romero’s sadly ignored “Monkey Shines”) makes Katherine a likeable heroine as she’s never an annoying ‘goody two shoes’, just a bit more moral than the rest of them.
The other girls are pretty much forgettable both as characters and in the way they are portrayed. Staple Slasher fodder is about as good as it gets.
The biggest letdown is Lois Kelso Hunt as the bitter Mrs Slater. She, like the film’s aforementioned aging, falls between two stools. She is neither ‘mad’ enough to entertain or tragic enough to feel any real empathy towards. There is much in her character to work with but it’s sad to say it’s a pretty lacklustre portrayal.
Director Mark Rosman has not done much else of note, and it’s a shame, as he keeps the movie flowing along nicely, with very few ‘dead’ periods so common to many of the 80’s Slasher films where there is no killing going on. There are no overly flamboyant set-ups, even for the murders, but all is at least competently done. Though the actual part does seem to vanish and then re-appear when it suits. And it’s loud while on screen, but strangely silent when not being directly covered.
But this ‘safe’ handling is perhaps the film’s biggest problem. Rosman does nothing risky that may rock the boat, but at the same time he rarely does anything really exciting to make anything stand out.
Much more badly paced films of the period, like the much loved “The Burning” and “The Prowler”, stand out (despite the sheer dullness between kills) because the murder set-ups and the effects themselves stand out.
Sadly, “House” does not have these set-ups or the excellent effects to go with its other strengths.
Most of the killings are obvious in their execution and gore wise there is nothing much here to get excited about. We have a pretty good throat skewing, a lame hand stabbing, a nasty if bloodless throat slashing and a cane through the stomach. The highlights are a messy multiple stabbing that ends with a nice eye-popping climax (though that seems to have been forgotten when the body is found and it bares no signs of the injury) and a classic ‘head in the toilet bowl’!
Overall the film is full of what have now become the staple clichés of the Slasher sub genre, like walking down dark corridors alone, checking out creepy cellars alone and (in its one scene of mild nudity) getting undressed to add to the venerability factor…and the cheap thrills. Which is good.
One very unusual addition though is the on-screen opening up of a condom packet during Vicki’s wetly interrupted coupling. Something that this reviewer has never seen in any other Slasher movies.
But basically “House” has all the ingredients that make and sometimes break these types of films. You either accept these set-ups or you don’t, but if f you refuse to, you will have a hard time enjoying these movies.
The one time Rosman does do something unusual is during some nicely macabre hallucinations suffered by Katherine that include ‘zombie’ corpses of her dead friends and the extremely weird sight of Mrs Slater's magically spinning cane!
It all ends on a rather rushed, and faintly unsatisfying, note but the movie as a whole is a well made, solid entry into the Slasher sub-genre and paced better than most. It just lacks any real spark.
Designed to be seen with a group of like minded teens at the local drive-in, rural picture house or urban flea pit, American Slasher films are a horror sub genre that fares worse than most when taken out of their natural environment (and time) and as such they have to be very special (or at least contain special elements) to really stand out, and play anything like as well as they did on their initial release, in today's rampant ‘home’ based viewing mediums of VHS and DVD. Few succeed.
Some do because their murder set-ups and effects are so well executed, or because the Director has some exciting ideas, “House on Sorority Row” is once again stuck in the middle, but is well worth your time if you can be motivated enough to check it out.