Obscure Slasher Week: House on Sorority Row

Hello all and welcome to the last day of Obscure Slasher Week.  We end on a far amount of nudity, college girls meeting their tragic end and gasp the killer revealed as someone you more or less expected.  A true product of the 80’s in its vain attempt to cash in on the popularity of Friday the 13^th and Halloween.  So grab some liquor, have pre-marital sex and enjoy a little reefer.  This is House on Sorority Row.

Yes they're real Tiffany and bite me!

Ohmigod Spoilers!

Seven sorority sisters decide as a final hurrah they will have a big farewell party but their previous place fell through.  Guess there was only enough funds for booze rather than booze and a rental so given the place is closing up for the end of the year.  Vicki (Eileen Davidson of Easy Wheels, Eternity, Santa Barbara and The Bold and the Beautiful), Liz (Janis Ward of Steambath, Remington Steele, T.J. Hooker, and Matlock), Jeanie (Robin Meloy of The House on Sorority Row), Morgan (Jodie Draigie of The House on Sorority Row),Diane (Harley Jane Kozak of Parenthood, When Harry Met Sally, Arachnophobia and Dark Planet) Stevie( Ellen Dorsher of The House on Sorority Row) and Katherine (Kate McNeil of Monkey Shines, As the World Turns, Sudden Death and Space Cowboys) are living it up when House mother Mrs. Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt of Homicide: Life on the Street and Head of State) is most vexed about this and wished the home to be empty as per her yearly ritual.

Way to accessorize Vicki!

She shuns the girls and stomps downstairs to tear up and burn on the sorority chapter pictures.  Previously in a flashback sequence 20 years ago she had difficulties in child labor and the doctor gave her the bad news.  Flash forward to the present day for a dose of exposition by the same doctor but it is obscured with hyperbole and metaphor of that tragic night. 

The girls gather together to play a prank on Mrs. Slater by stealing her incredibly sharp walking cane and tossing it in her filth and scum ridden pool then taunt her at gunpoint to go swim for it.  Quite by accident Vicki fires a .45 caliber round right through Mrs. Slater and the girls form a pact to hide Slater’s corpse in the swimming pool until their graduation party can be finished.  None of that go to the cops and explain nonsense for these ladies of virtue.

Remember girls, no riders!

Now I have just a few critiques and observations about the film.  A fair amount of crane shots are found in this film of which IMDB tells us it was done from a cherry picker.  The FX for the gore scenes could have benefited from some black dye in the karo syrup to let the blood look less orange on film.  Some of the incidental music was lifted from the infamous film Manos: The Hands of Fate and it is only through Mystery Science Theater 3000 that I know that little tidbit.   The storyline is enjoyable, the characters are flushed out and all in all it is an impressive production.  I have seen better and far far worse so yes this was well conceived.