The House on Sorority Row - 1983

I never know what to say in the opening paragraph here.  I need like a standard introduction.  That's why I like the movies with alternate titles, but I don't count those unless they're readily apparent, usually by having inconsistency with what the internet calls it and what the film calls it.  Also, there's the whole "other language" thing where titles didn't translate.  This film is apparently also known as "House of Evil" and "Seven Sisters" but nothing I saw or noticed on the film would give it that title.

Basically it's a revisit to my slasher genre, made in 1983 just in time to capitalize on the surge of slashers coming out.  Not the first nor the last to place it at a school, also not the first to do it in a sorority, and also not the first to have female nudity.  Let's start adding up the other cliches here, shall we?

In this installment of "girls die because _______" (fill in the blank), the girls accidentally kill their cruel school teacher and control freak Dorothy.  They do it in a pretty insane fashion too, they're going to pull this really elaborate prank with a real loaded gun, one girl points it at her, pretends to shoot one of her friends, and makes her get into a pool.  Then they shoot at her and miss on purpose, at which point they all start laughing.  Then she climbs out of the pool, hits the girl with her cane, and the gun goes off again, shooting Dorothy dead.  What the fuck?!

Why would you have real bullets in the gun?  Why would you have bullets at all, wouldn't it work the same to point an empty gun at her, she doesn't know?  And why pretend to shoot one of your friends?  Yes, at the time being it makes sense, the girl who got shot was protesting the punishment of Dorothy, but wouldn't it have been equally believable to just, you know, point a fucking gun at Dorothy and not have that whole scene happen?  It's so stupid!

That scene alone probably gives this movie it's cult following, besides the fact this is 80's horror that follows all the rules.  Anyways, the "ghost" of Dorothy comes back and sometimes it looks like she's killing people, sometimes it looks like someone else is killing people.  I would think they weren't sure how they were going to end it, from everything online I read, the production wasn't exactly straight and easy step by step, and I think they just had to work with what they had a lot of the time.  But in general you have scared girls left and right, some decent deaths, and a genuinely weird ending.

How does it stack up to the other classics?  Well, it's not even close for me.  This had no innovation really, it's just by the numbers.  The deaths were ok, but nothing too special.  I think I'd take just about any other even SORT of well known movie over this.  I'd say, in terms of originality, characters, deaths, and general fun factor, Memorial Day Massacre wins hands down.  Obviously, The Forest would probably still lose.  And, I haven't really reviewed many slashes on here.  Which, for me is strange cause I love them.  I have been thinking of rewatching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre recently.  I might.

So, I guess it gets like 2 stars or something.  It just wasn't that good, people.  Nothing new brought to the table, and it wasn't even fun to watch.  Maybe with some die hard horror slasher fans, it'll be better.  Or some beer in you.  I dunno.