13 Days of Halloween: The House on Sorority Row (1983)

'The House on Sorority Row' is one of the more well known slashers during the early boom of the 1980's. The plot is your typical revenge story commonly found in these types of films involving the accidental death of someone and a group of young college women desperate to keep it a secret. Only somebody already knows what they did, and he's not happy. I know what you're thinking: 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' right? I don't blame you as I thought the same thing (especially when viewing the 2009 remake 'Sorority Row') however this film beat it to the punch by oh about twenty years (if you don't count the novel by Lois Duncan). The truth is 'House' is not going to win any awards even by slasher standards. It's as by the book as you can get with a flick like this and yet there's something here that makes me remember it among the dozens of others.

For one, the girls themselves are actually the antagonists for a lot of the film. They're snobby, bitchy, and the majority of them deserve everything that comes to them. Even when we're left with a 'final girl' I can't really say that she was any nicer or a better overall person, she almost just seemed like a pick out of the survivor hat. Another memorable aspect is it's heavy gore and quite graphic kill scenes which were quite extreme at the time and most stick out in my mind such as a girl's head in a toilet. Strangely though, what I don't remember much of when thinking of 'Sorority Row' is the killer himself, something most slasher fans would consider a big negative. I have to agree here because while the killer himself does horrific and scary things he has no presence himself and only in the last five to ten minutes do we see him in a creepy clown outfit. It's disappointing to say the least.

So in the end, 'The House on Sorority Row' is nothing special as far as horror movies go especially among the crowded market of the time. But I think it is those memorable kills and overall bizarre atmosphere the movie radiates that keeps its memory alive in us long after we've sat through it. Do I recommend it? To slasher fans hell yes but if you're a casual horror fan you've seen this film dozens of times before and will likely brush it off as fast as you did the remake.

( C  )