Terry's Reviews
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Movie Reviews: |
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The House on Sorority Row Elite Entertainment – 1983 Written and Directed by Mark Rosman Starring: Kathryn McNeil Eileen Davidson Lois Kelso Hunt Harley Jane Kozak |
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| I first had the opportunity to see this slasher
film back in 1983 at a drive-in performance. Watching it again, 18 years later was
certainly a pleasure. House on Sorority Row is better than most slasher films, mostly
because it has a strong score by Richard Band, solid cinematography by Tim Suhrstedt and
some true suspense generated by director Mark Rosman. Seven sorority girls reach the end of the school year and decide to have a graduation party in their Pi Sorority house. This goes against Ms. Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt) the house mother’s wishes and causes a confrontation. The girls go ahead anyway. The leader of the girls, Vicki (Eileen Davidson) is caught making love with her boyfriend. Ms. Slater takes her cryptic cane and splits open Vicki’s waterbed, ending their fun and embarrassing the young lovers. Determined for payback, Vicki plans a cruel prank. Unfortunately everything goes wrong and Ms. Slater ends up dead. Or does she? The girls take Ms. Slater’s dead body and submerge it into a pool. When her body disappears, the killings start. One by one each girl is stalked by someone using Ms. Slater’s cane. The murders themselves, which are the focus of most slasher/splatter films of that time, work not so much because of the average special effects, but because Rosman takes the time to mount tension. Small props immensely help the film in the form of children’s toys, which are left out as bait for each potential victim. An eerie jack-in-the box, a little red ball, these are just a couple of tools the deranged killer uses. Richard Band also links music to these adolescent moments, but each time the mood becomes creepy. I’d say there are two sequences that come together perfectly, which always helps elevate a film above the competition. The ending, which may seem a cliché now, totally freaked out everyone back in 1983. |
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