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Review: Sorority Party Massacre

SororityPartyMassacre2I’ve been looking forward to this day since I interviewed actress Marissa Skell back in 2011. And I’m very surprised to see that she has a much bigger role than I originally anticipated. It’s a definite win for Sorority Party Massacre, but what did I think of the movie as a whole?

Sorority Party Massacre is written and directed by the up-and-coming master Chris W. Freedman along with low budget icon Justin Jones. The long list of cast members includes Marissa Skell (“Scream Queens,” “Anyone But Me”), Eve Mauro (“CSI: Miam,” Zombies vs. Strippers), Ed O’Ross (Lethal Weapon, “Six Feet Under”), Thomas Downey (Jolly Rogers: Massacre at Cutter’s Cove, The Beast of Bray Road), Richard Moll (“The Dukes of Hazzard,” Scary Movie 2), Ron Jeremy (porn and other things…),  Amanda Barton (Hillside Cannibals, Dracula’s Curse), and Leslie Easterbrook (The Devil’s Rejects, Rob Zombie’s Halloween).

“In danger of losing his badge, a big city detective agrees to aid a small town sheriff in a routine missing persons investigation only to discover that at least one girl has gone missing in this sleepy fishing town each year for the last twenty years. When a body finally emerges on the lake and suspects literally crawl out of the hills, the two lawmen realize they’re being toyed with and to make things worse, the killer seems to have set his eyes on a group of sorority girls who are not only isolated by the lake, but have their own nefarious plans in mind. Outnumbered and out of options, the two lawmen must solve the mystery of the missing girls or suffer the same fate.”

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. I REPEAT, SPOILERS AHEAD!

What I find particularly interesting about Sorority Party Massacre is that it is the first in the sorority/slumber party horror subgenre to focus primarily on the detectives instead of the drop dead beautiful sorority girls. It wasn’t until 3/4 of the way through the movie that I noticed this. The plot focuses on the small town sheriff and big city detective with the sorority girls only appearing as supportive cast. Not only that, but characters you expect to survive a lot longer bite the dust pretty early on. It’s a complete role reversal for everyone involved – and without following the stereotypical horror formula – becomes a very modern and original take on the subgenre.

SororityPartyMassacre1This title is also a horror-comedy, with the comedy aspect being very downplayed. Often in horror-comedies the horror is downplayed and the vulgar, potty humor takes over. Again, taking a subgenre and flipping it on its head. Don’t get me wrong, Sorority Party Massacre has its fair share of swearing, odd word pairings, and fart noises, but luckily they aren’t overused to a point of becoming obnoxious (see Scary Movie franchise). If anything, the subtle use of high school/college aged humor is appreciated in its rare moments because it breaks up the mystery solving or repetition of scenes. What I found to be the most laughable was a scene towards the end where a character is lit on fire. The surviving sorority girls panic and run – horribly, on purpose – while screaming in different directions. The over-reaction coupled with the intentional bad acting was beyond hilarious to me.

The acting here superb as well. Sorority Party Massacre has a seasoned cast of name talent – Leslie Easterbrook, Ed O’Ross, Richard Moll, etc – who are matched perfectly with a fresh batch of fledgling stars. This is the first time I’ve seen Leslie Easterbrook perform since her Rob Zombie involvements and she is as stunning and sinister as ever, even in a sorority mother role. Imagine my shock when she was killed off somewhat early! That said, the performances here were phenomenal from the cameo appearances to the leading roles. Hell, even Ron Jeremy pulled in his best acting performance to date here! My favorite character? Detective Watts (Thomas Downey) who teeters on and off the edge of killing someone himself throughout the entire feature.

Here’s where things begin to get a little dicey.

I was somewhat disappointed in the use of special effects, practical and CGI. The death scenes kicked off awesomely with one of the sorority girls being melted alive with chemicals. After that, however, the deaths were either average at best or happened semi-off camera. I was so happy to see such a big cast/character list, thinking of all the fun ways they’ll get massacred, but ended up wanting more. I get it. The movie was supposed to be more of a murder mystery meets dark humor kind of film, but it was marketed as a slasher. I wanted much, much more slashing! More blood! More gore! The most grizzly of effects were used on Detective Watts and he survived. That says something…

My biggest problem with Sorority Party Massacre was the reveal of the killer at the end. Not only was it filled with action sequences that portrayed the college girls as secret karate masters, but it became strikingly confusing as to who exactly murdered who. Yes, there is more than one killer in this movie, and the reveal at the end is sloppy at best. It’s odd and confusing, and more importantly it doesn’t feel the least bit realistic. This is where the movie lost me and instead of applauding a major role reversal again, I was left thinking that the writers of Sorority Party Massacre were drunk while hashing out the last half hour of the project. Or, ok, let me be more specific. One killer had a believable motive – if she was the only one to survive the slaughter, then she would be the winner of the power and grant by default. If she was the only killer in the entire flick, then I would have liked the ending a lot more. Going overboard with backstory and secret agenda was a huge decider against this movie. Sometimes less is better!

Positive and negatives aside… Hell, Sorority Party Massacre is still a really fun flick. I didn’t even mind the lack of multiple topless scenes! At the end of the day, I would definitely watch this movie again and for that I rate Sorority Party Massacre as a 7.2 out of 10!

Michael DeFellipo

(Senior Editor)

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