SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE

Having reaped a handsome return from the release of Slumber Party Massacre, Roger Corman put plans for a follow-up into motion. Again hiring a female first-time director to be in charge, he selected Carol Frank, who had assisted director Amy Jones on SPM, to hold the reigns. Frank wrote the script as well.

Though Slumber Party Massacre  had a feminist agenda in place, along with a decidedly tongue-in-cheek attitude, Sorority House Massacre is a more straightforward rip-off of Halloween, lifting a few ideas from A Nightmare on Elm Street as well.

Beth (Angela O'Neill) begins to have violent nightmares the day she moves into the sorority house of Theta Omega Theta (not a real sorority, for those of you looking to pledge). At the same time, a patient in a local asylum is getting restless for the first time in years.

What's going on here? Only the most farfetched movie coincidence of the decade. Seems Theta Omega Theta House is the same house Beth lived in as a wee child. There, her brother killed the entire family, with Beth narrowly escaping with serious stab wounds. Brother Bobby (John C. Russell) went to the nut house and Beth forgot the whole thing. "Hey," she later says to a pal, "do you remember everything that happened to you when you were five?"

Well, she's got a point there. I can remember the musky scent of the pony we got for Christmas, and the colors of the tulips my grandmother planted, and where I was the first time I saw Kansas City Bomber. But that time my brother massacred the entire family didn't stick out in my memory palace that well. No doubt Sorority House Massacre will quickly fade from my memory, too.

Experienced viewers can probably fill in the rest of the plot from there. Bobby's doctors are confounded by his brainwave activity at times (during Beth's dreams). The dream sequences allow Frank's Kubrick-like symmetrical sense of composition come into play. Some of the imagery is pretty creepy -- lots of blood, dolls and even lost marbles. Most of the sisters take off for Memorial Day weekend, leaving only the less well off girls like Beth, Linda (Wendy Martel), Sara (Pamela Ross), and Tracy (Nicole Rio) to stay behind on their own.

Bobby manages to break loose from his padded cell and get out of the Peligro Valley Mental Hospital, headed for his old house to finish his work (after a quick stop at a hardware store). The girls plan a party, inviting over some boys to up the body count, including that cute guy Beth's had her eye on.

The police are notified that Bobby Henkel is on the loose, but no one goes looking at his old house, or thinks to check on his sister. Did Frank name Henkel for the famous knife manufacturer (his weapon of choice) -- or for Kim Henkel of Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

Bobby cuts the power to the house, so while one victim heads for the fusebox, the others -- watch TV! There's a lot of clever dialogue in the script, and it breezes along pretty well, but how could they have missed a gaff like that? Oh, and what do they watch on TV? Why Slumber Party Massacre, of course.

Bobby continues to pick off victims, and sorority girls run from one room to another in their nighties for, oh, the next fifty minutes. Finally there's a showdown in the living room, with Beth surviving long enough for a reunion with her big brother. Then she stabs him.

No matter how cheap they are, Corman's pictures always have good sound and nice photography. The DVD transfer does justice to these qualities. The bright white walls look so freshly painted, I feared the cast would brush against them and smear their silly '80s wardrobes.

The disc comes with a Sorority House Massacre trailer, which strangely enough has Spanish subtitles. There are also trailers for Slumber Party Massacre, Seduction of Innocence and Emmanuelle: First Contact.