ReasonablePiper This movie isn't very scary, but it's never boring. The basement and the climax have tension, but the rest of the movie just isn't scary. In fact, there are more funny moments than scary ones: some girls at the party gush over how cute an average guy is when he gives the goofiest, cheesiest smile imaginable; Mrs. Slater tries to be intimidating, but the acting just comes off as cheesy.There are some things that are confusing: the prank scene and Eric. When Vicki points the gun at Mrs. Slater, the girls think it isn't loaded because Vicki said it wouldn't be. She then points it at a lamp post and shoots it, breaking the glass. A friend comes up to stop her, and Vicki shoots her in the leg. They then reveal that it was a prank, and Vicki wasn't really shot. Then the gun goes off and Vicki accidentally shoots Mrs. Slater for real. What was really in her gun? Blanks, bullets, or a mix? If Vicki shot her friend with a blank, then where did the fake blood come from? And how did the lamp break if she was using blanks? For the lamp to break, she had to have been using at least some real bullets, but the movie never really explains how all this happened. The second confusing thing is Eric. The doctor says Eric died at birth and Mrs. Slater just pretends that Eric lives to make herself feel better. But during the climax, Katie fights the killer, who appears to be a man, and Ms. Slater seems to have been dead the whole time. If this were true, then how would the doctor have not realized the baby was alive? The baby he delivered was either already dead or died soon after, certainly before Mrs. Slater woke up. So assuming she got her baby back after for a funeral, the doctor should have realized the baby was alive. If this is what happened, the movie didn't make the twist very clear.

TheBlueHairedLawyer The House on Sorority Row is a classic low-budget Eighties slasher, but its got a genuinely creepy-as-hell ending scene... let's just say it's got a clown involved.Anyway, the plot follows a gang of girls living in a sorority house, under the thumb of strict Mrs. Slater, an old woman with a haunting past. When Vicki gets caught having sex and Mrs. Slater pops her water bed on purpose, Vicki decides to play a mean prank on the old lady. Unfortunately it all goes very wrong, and soon the girls are being picked off one by one at their own party.I loved this movie; sure it was kinda cheap but if you're a fan of the slasher genre you'll probably love it, too. It has cool soundtrack, decent-enough acting and a good story to it.

culmo80 This is exactly the type of film that embodies the 80's slasher-horror genre.This film has great atmosphere, suspense, and some great kill scenes.While the mystery and the twists are easy to see coming, that is mostly the fault of the genre over-doing this in the thirty years since this movie was released. Spoilers:As someone who has seen a lot of horror movies, I fully expected the killer to be someone else other than the mother. Early on, I never assumed the pregnancy had ended in a stillborn baby or anything like that. The movie does a good job of trying to get the viewer to buy that it is the mother who is borderline psychotic, and had I not been fully expecting a twist, I would have followed that line of thinking.The acting is good enough for a movie like this. I think sometimes people expect Academy Award-winning acting out of horror movies and I think they miss the point. The acting isn't intended nor does it need to carry the film like in a drama.The death scenes are done very well. In the age before CGI and multi- million dollar horror films, the production crews of these films had to use their minds to figure out how to do the impossible; kill someone on screen. Movies like this and Halloween do the death scenes very well. Action-in-the-shadow is a simple yet effective technique, as are the quick shots of someone getting stabbed. The shots are quick enough so the mind can't register that you are in fact looking at a fake body or a fake weapon, but just long enough so you see the person getting it.I really can't fault this film for anything that other reviewers did. Maybe younger people, who didn't live in the 80's wouldn't appreciate something without top-notch effects or gallons of fake blood...I don't know.Anyway, this is a classic slasher-horror film, before the genre got stale (forever) with constant sequels and remakes.

Scott LeBrun "The House on Sorority Row" is one of the finer examples of slasher films, a genuinely creepy and moody movie with a particularly ominous and mysterious killer. The story is one of those "prank gone wrong" deals: fed up with their crabby, odd duck of a house mother, Mrs. Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt), a group of sorority sisters decide to pay her back for spoiling their fun. When the prank results in Slater's death, the girls go out of their way to cover up their mess, not knowing that somebody else witnessed the whole thing from an attic window and is coldly determined to make sure THEY pay a steep price. Writer / director Mark Rosman, who amusingly enough went on to direct things like 'Lizzie McGuire' and "A Cinderella Story", started out working for director Brian De Palma, and brings a fair amount of style to his story, not content to go with some of the clichés of slashers. For one thing, he wanted his victims to be culpable individuals, and not get punished for such arbitrary things as premarital sex. He also was determined to have a downbeat ending unlike much of what we see in slashers, although his preferred resolution ultimately got cut down. Some good black comedy and tension arises over the matter of what to do with Slater's supposedly dead body; for example, the girls getting nervous over the possibility of somebody turning on the lights for the pool where the body was dumped. There's some real atmosphere and spookiness to some of the suspense sequences, some delicious hallucinatory visuals (after the last one standing has been given a sedative), and a killer whom we never really see; they're most often behind something or wearing a mask and/or costume. The extent of whatever problem they have is never given much detail, except of course for the potential for violence. There's a mild bit of gore, although nothing in the way of bare female flesh. The acting is better than usual for this sort of thing, with co-stars Kate McNeil, Eileen Davidson, and Harley Jane Kozak going on to success in both movies ("Monkey Shines" for McNeil, "Arachnophobia" for Kozak) and soaps such as 'As the World Turns', 'Days of Our Lives', and 'Santa Barbara'). Hunt indeed has the right look for Mrs. Slater, although she would be dubbed in post production as it was felt her real voice wasn't intimidating enough. A big part of the effectiveness lies in the lush music score by ever reliable Richard Band. And the movie also shows, once again, just how incredibly formidable clown get ups can be in this context. Newcomers to slasher films are strongly advised to check out "The House on Sorority Row" and have some good chills. Eight out of 10.