Films That Witness Madness

review

THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW

Stop me if you've heard this one... A group of snotty girls pull a prank on someone that goes horribly wrong. Instead of reporting the accidental crime, they try to cover it up. Unfortunately someone knows what they've done and is dead-set on punishing the wrongdoers. That's the plot of a huge amount of slasher films, right? Pretty generic, huh? Kinda bland, eh? Well, in most films that would be true, but this ain't one of those films. An unsung slasher film, THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW doesn't have the massive following of FRIDAY THE 13TH, the artistic ambitions of HALLOWEEN, or the sheer insanity of SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT on it's side but it does have one thing countless other slasher films don't have... It has it's shit together.

The film starts with a flashback of a woman undergoing a particularly difficult child delivery. She's devastated when the doctor brings her bad news. Two decades later, the woman, Ms. Slater, is the house mother of a sorority. When she has the audacity to refuse to let her young charges throw a graduation party - and interrupts the bitchy Vicki and her boyfriend's coital session by popping Vicki's waterbed with her sharp-nosed cane - the girls decide they've had enough. Their revenge? A rather cruel prank complete with a gun full of blanks. Or at least partially full of blanks. Accidentally shooting Ms. Slater dead, they roll her up in towels and dump her into the pool. Halfway through their graduation bash a few losers decide to take a dip and the girls figure they've been busted. Wrong. The body is gone. And so is one of their friends. By the time all is said and done, Katherine - the good girl, naturally - is the only one left, the doctor from the opening flashback comes to help, and we learn that Ms. Slater's son isn't dead at all... just awfully fucked up, the side effect of potentially dangerous fertility treatments Ms. Slater underwent twenty years ago in an attempt to get pregnant.

A surprisingly meaty narrative and a collection of impressive set pieces help set this film apart from it's more predictable siblings. It's most certainly not without it's faults and failings, but THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW manages to contain the essence of the slasher film without all the groaners. Well, without as many groaners, I should say. There's plenty of "investigating strange noises" scenes, "slipping into barely there nightgowns" scenes, and even a few "can't run more than five feet without tripping" scenes that slasher fans love so much. But the payoff is well worth the wait. When the good doctor decides to try and take the killer alive, he injects Katherine with a potent tranquilizer. This gives director Mark Rosman the opportunity to throw in a few nightmarish hallucinations and phantasmagoric visuals - complete with Bava-style lighting - into the mix, providing a fresh alternative to the standard climatic chase scene. The final reveal of the killer - before this we've only seen hands and a pair of eyes - is a stunner, too. Dressed in a full-on jack-in-the-box clown costume, the brief on-screen appearance of the killer is a great memorable scene that unfortunately ends in a tired "is he dead?" shot that promises THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW 2. Thankfully that never happened.

Though, sigh, there is a remake coming... Gotta love the horror industry.

This is easily one of my favorite slasher films. While the standard slasher film does little more than force it's audience to sit there and passively accept all the bullshit the director and screenwriters throw at them before deciding to throw them a bloody treat, the numerous narrative angles of THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW keep things interesting and moving along at a nice clip. While all but two of the female cast keep their clothes on and the violence is meted out in 4 second chunks, slasher fans should find plenty for them to chew on. It's a great example of the genre and one of the more memorable horror films of the 80s.

Recommended.

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