During my freshman year of college two of my roommates pledged a fraternity. The idea of being embarrassed and tortured just to pay to have friends was never very inviting to me. Oh, the days I wished a killer clown would hack them to pieces while they were out doing pledge business. Unfortunately, that never happened…but at least I could see what the fantasy would have been like in Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island.
Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island is a slasher flick written and directed by Mark Jones. Cast members include Tyler Farrell, Gary Berglund, Helen Bowman, Jeff Capps, Jon Devin, Danny Gomez, Anthony Flessas, and Scott Fletcher.
“Several people at Felix University want the brothers and pledges of ZAP Fraternity dead, but now someone with an Ax to grind is killing them off one by one at the old haunted river park island. While on the island, a few of the college students learn what happens to people to blindly follow leaders without asking questions. Jack Jones must stop the clown, save the fraternity and find the courage to come out of the closet by sunrise.” –IMDB
I don’t know if I was naive or just not paying attention when I rented this title, but Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island is clearly marketed at the gay male audience, or women who like watching shirtless men in horror films. I have nothing against the gay community, but I do have something against director Mark Jones for making this coming out story so over the top yet so important. Yeah, there’s no “it gets better,” story here. Basically the main character illudes to his homosexuality the entire movie and then just blurts it out at the worst imaginable time. I could continue to discuss this point, but then I’ll get into theme territory like “can a gay male be accepted into a straight male, womanizing frat?” and honestly, this title isn’t classy enough to go into themes…
What drew me to this title in the first place was the idea of a bunch of macho men being picked off by a killer. In 97% of all horror films it’s women being targeted or both groups at once. It was a new idea, I thought, and felt it would have been cool had it been done well enough – ya know, divide and concure makes killing a dozen men a lot easier. However, Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island falls victim to lots of indie horror pitfalls and that subtracts from the originality of the script. Poor lighting, bad casting, bad acting, horrible special FX, and an awkward clown killer. I mean, I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on it. This was actually more enjoyable than anything you’d see from David DeCateau. At least this film had plot progression and not just long b-roll shots, endles male shower scenes, and a film that would only be 15 minutes long if you took all that out (1313: Cougar Cult damaged my soul irrepairably).
So, what do I rate this? Hm… That’s a hard one (no pun intended…). Wasn’t really my style and was very low budget, but – eh… I’ll give it a 4.3 out of 10.
