Underrated Slashers: The House on Sorority Row
The House on Sorority Row is a 1982 slasher film written and directed by Mark Rosman. It can get pretty corny and stupid at times but overall it’s worth the watch, especially if you are into 80s slashers.
The movie begins with a doctor tending to a pregnant woman and they tell her they’ve lost the baby. The next scene shows college girls graduating and everyone packing for the summer with a pretty great score.
The obvious final girl, Katie, doesn’t want to move back home after graduating. They immediately mention how dirty the pool is which is a pretty clear sign that it’s gonna be brought up later, same thing with a gun scene a few minutes later. In the following scene, we meet Mrs. Slater and her doctor who is reiterating that “her condition is getting worse.” He then gives her a new tag in case there are problems and I have no idea what that means.
The girls are then shown partying at the sorority house. Mrs. Slater is the owner of the house and sorority house mother and she is pissed off they’re drinking and still there at all. One of the couples that got to the house late start fucking and get caught by Mrs. Slater and she gets all pissy again.
There are so many moments in this movie that you’ve probably seen in other slashers, it hits lots of the tropes. The girls plan to pull a prank with the gun on Mrs. Slater and you immediately know how it’s gonna play out. They trick Mrs. Slater with the gun and then end up shooting her by accident. Katie wants to call the ambulance but they make her keep quiet about it and leave her in the pool since the party is about to start.
Once the party is happening, some chud wanders off to take a leak and gets murdered by Mrs. Slater’s cane. Most of the people shown at the party look no younger than 36. One of the girls goes into the basement alone and doesn’t immediately nope the fuck out of there when she sees and hears shit moving around. She obviously dies for being an idiot in an off-screen death.
I thought it was pretty funny when they called the fat guy pig. Someone turns on the pool light and the girls run out there and find no one except the sea pig. They, now believe Mrs. Slater is still alive and begin to freak out. Slater’s body ends up falling from the attic onto one of the girls and Katie ends up smacking Vickie(the leader-ish girl) for wanting to hide the body again.
Every girl in this movie has pretty nice tits, the essential in an 80s slasher.
The next girl who gets murdered dies making the stupidest face, it’s great. The girls, minus Katie, then try to hide Slater’s body and end up throwing her in a dumpster and it reminds me of the Spongebob episode with the health inspector. Katie stumbles upon a room full of kids' toys, and her love interest follows her. Because when you're in a horror movie, exploring creepy rooms is a must.
At around 54 mins in one of the girls is left alone while trying to start a van and she obviously dies but she dies being shot with an arrow through the fakest hand prop I have ever seen.
It cuts to these morons literally crashing the dumpster with Slater’s body in it directly into a cop car. They get lucky and get a warning since the cop gets called in.
One of the girls, Jeannie, gets attacked but gets away and when Katie is tending to her, she doesn’t stick with Katie or just go closer to the party. She actually grabs a knife to try to defend herself, but she ultimately dies in the best death scene so far.
Mrs. Slater’s doctor shows up at the house after Katie calls the number on the tag she found on the floor. He reveals that Mrs. Slater was the pregnant woman from the start of the film. Meanwhile, the girls are at the cemetery trying to hide the body and the first girl dies with a bloodless throat slit. But by far the best death in the movie goes to Vickie who dies getting stabbed with a cane in the eye. The doctor quickly realizes that Mrs. Slater's son is still alive, which reminds me of "The Boy.”
The house is locked down, and it turns out the doctor drugged Katie and plans to use her as bait to catch the attic-dwelling son. There’s a pretty trippy drug sequence.
Peter (the love interest) gets shot in a dumb way and the doctor gets distracted letting Katie run away. He then gets killed while chasing after her.
The killer is shown wearing the most janky, bootleg Micheal Myers mask and the final girl showdown includes way more visual gore than has been shown all movie. I think it would’ve helped if the gore was more present throughout the runtime.
The killer then shows up in a clown costume and homegirl has the worst aim in history since she can’t shoot this guy right in front of her.
And just when you think it's all over, the movie hits you with a cliffhanger ending – because nothing screams horror cliches like a "STILL ALIVE??????????" conclusion. All-in-all the movie is worth a watch if you’re into very by-the-books, cliche 80s slashers. It’s not great but there definitely are worse things you can spend your time on.