THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW (1982)

THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW (1982)

Tagline: Welcome Home...to the Sorority of your nightmares.

(Horror, Thriller, Mystery) [R]

Slater is a dying breed. When she goes the whole species will be extinct.

In this one, a group of sorority girls plays a prank on the “house mother” after she slashes the waterbed of one of the girls. The prank goes horribly wrong and she is murdered. Someone saw the murder however and now they are killing the sorority girls one by one. 

Note – this movie has a plot a lot like 1930s Thirteen Women, which is widely considered the first “slasher film” ever made. 

Cinematically this movie is pretty strong with way better lighting and camera work than a lot of movies of the era. We also get some decent dialog and the story is actually pretty coherent. All the things that could completely ruin an 80’s horror movie, but for some reason, it all works here (mild sarcasm, but if you read this blog a lot, you know I love cheese). 

Acting-wise we’ve got some pretty decent actors and actresses in this. Of course, the males are only on the screen for maybe 7% of the movie if that. Katherine who is the most reluctant and shaken character in the film (played by Kate McNeil) looks like she could be Kristen Steward’s mom (only she could act). McNeil is still acting and recently appeared in the controversial TV show “Them”. I am guessing that I wasn’t the only one that noticed this effort from Jodi Draigie who plays Morgan was rough. She only has one other role aside from this movie. Several other actors and actresses in the movie however are still acting or had very successful careers. 

Heralded as one of the best slasher flicks out there, this movie isn’t without its flaws. One, is I think it’s very unlikely that anyone let alone like 5 people would jump into a moldy run-down bacteria-infested pool. It’s also impossible to turn a bathroom stall door of the type shown in the movie because there is not an outside turning mechanism on the door. There is also a scene where a guy gets shot in the shoulder and faints. Clearly, that dude wasn’t a hockey player in high school, because that bullet graze would have gotten a “what the crap” out of anyone it hit in real life. Others have mentioned that the doctor seems to have hardly aged a day from the likely 20 or more year span between the events that open the movie and the events taking place after the opening scene. I don’t consider this an issue, because Paul Rudd exists and he hasn’t aged since ANCHORMAN.

For me, this is a solid movie. I do wish that we had the plot balanced more to include some more interaction with the characters to flesh out their personalities more just so we could be given a chance of seeing who we wanted to root for etc. This movie does little time doing that with too many characters I guess, but this is a horror flick from the ’80s. 

In this genre, this is pretty good and I have to give it a 6 out of 7. The creepy level is near perfect.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF JFB AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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