The early 1980s were the golden years of the slasher film. The stage had been set by the likes of Halloween and Black Christmas and we had already been introduced to Jason Voorhees. What came after was a steady parade of slashers in different settings but following a similar formula.
1983 saw the release of The House on Sorority Row. This film told the story of sorority sisters who play a prank that goes horribly wrong. They cover it up but, as we all know, these things have a way of coming back to haunt the perpetrators. The concept was retooled in the wake of Scream for a new generation of horror as I Know What You Did Last Summer (whether intended or not). Now, in the present, we get a mash-up of the original idea and the retooling bearing the title Sorority Row, and you know what? It is not half bad; of course, that makes it not half good, too.
I read that there had been a plan in place to have this movie cut for a PG-13 rating following the "success" of Prom Night. Fortunately this idea never came to fruition — if there was one obstacle this movie did not need to overcome, it would be to be saddled with a lack of blood. There is not much worse than a bloodless slasher. Of course, blood alone does not make a good horror movie, but in most cases it does not hurt, and in some cases it can make a bad movie somewhat watchable for the typical gorehound.
Sorority Row does not break any new ground in its depiction of pranks gone wrong and the results that come from that. We open with a walkthrough of the Theta Pi sorority house in the throes of a knock-down, drag-out kegger. Hard bodies litter the rooms, the stairs, and the pool. Our tour ends with a focus on our primary victims... er, girls as they set into motion a series of events that will ultimately lead to their downfall, even though they do not yet know it.
It seems that one of the girls' boyfriends was caught cheating. In retaliation the girls have planned a prank where one of them fakes a seizure and death. The guy freaks out as the girls band together to help the poor guy out, but things go wrong when the distraught fellow takes a tire iron to the "dead" body. This reveals the ill-planned prank and forever bonds them as they plan.
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