The House on Sorority Row 1982 The House on Sorority Row 1982 User Reviews

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• The Scariest Things Podcast Episode CXXXVII: The Psychology of Horror Movies
• Poster Reveal! Pigeon Shrine FrightFest Announces Change of Venue for Its 25th Anniversary
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• Movie Posters We Love: BEST Horror Movie Posters of 2023
• The Best Horror Movies of 2023: The Scariest Things Podcast 177
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Before attending NYU, he was part of a fraternity at UCLA, and he based his concept on his college experiences. Rosman’s script focused on sorority sisters being threatened after a prank gone wrong but were more than just victims. After gathering a budget of $300,000, Rosman started casting in New York and Los Angeles before filming began in 1981. The movie was shot on location in and around Pikesville and the University of Maryland, though the production struggled financially. After principal photography wrapped, Film Ventures International picked the film up for distribution and gave additional funds for post-production. Richard Band, who later scored Re-Animator and Puppet Master, composed the score with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

The Scariest Things Podcast Episode CXXXVII: The Psychology of Horror Movies

It was moderately successful when it was released and is now a cult classic among fans of the genre. More disappointing is the mono audio on the alternate director’s version, heard in lossy Dolby Digital. It lacks the presence and punch found in the PCM audio heard on the other version. The House On Sorority Row has maintained its popularity over the decades as a cult favorite in the slasher genre thanks to a lively cast and the fine direction from Mark Rosman. There’s peer pressure, there’s social acclimatization, there’s the freshman 15, there’s the daily grind of keeping one’s grades in check to maintain that almighty scholarship, and then there’s the relationships. The social bond that’s created can be a lasting and spiritually satisfying affinity, but the bond can go so deep that it’ll eventually turn collegiate relations sour and crazy.

Poster Reveal! Pigeon Shrine FrightFest Announces Change of Venue for Its 25th Anniversary

Following a limited 1982 release, The House on Sorority Row hit theaters nationwide in 1983. Sorority Row is a sinfully entertaining remake about drunkards, fornication, and the unspeakable horrors of upper-class white America. Tremendous strides are taken to separate the more familiar hunt-and-gut Sorority Row from Mark Rosman’s vastly more complicated The House on Sorority Row, as cattiness becomes a calling card that makes Mean Girls look like Kindergarten Yo Momma. Scummy pools are swapped for overheating hot tubs, a very House Of Wax (2005) finale goes up in flames, and there’s no grand reveal of bodies despite the chilling image of sunken souls in The House on Sorority Row that remains seared into my memories. What’s most interesting is that each version appears to be from different film scans.

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The elements are serviceable at best and almost appear unrestored in the theatrical version. While purists may want the pure grindhouse slasher vibe given off by the decidedly less impressive looking theatrical cut, there’s no doubt the raw video quality is far better on the director’s alternate version. Leave it to MVD to barely spotlight the more aesthetically pleasing alternate version, placed in the special features menu. The school year is over and the girls decided that the time is ripe to roil in boys, new wave, coke, champagne, pools, and stacks of People magazine. Director Rosman employees an interesting drinking game device where he has the girls unfold their character types by disclosing their deepest secrets, their desires, and their heavily clouded wants and needs. Of course no good post college party goes unpunished and the girls (Katey, Vicki, Liz, Jeanie, Diane, Morgan, and Stevie) are quickly interrupted by their imperious house mother, Mrs. Slater.

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Dr. Beck accompanies Katey to the cemetery, where they find Vicki and Liz's bodies as well as Slater's still in the van. Deciding that Slater must be alive, the girls begin searching for her after the party comes to a close. Morgan enters Slater's room, where the latter's body falls on her from the attic hatch. Meanwhile, after finding guests attempting to enter the pool, the girls realize that if the pool lights are turned on, Slater's body will be revealed.

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The House on Sorority Row asserts Vicki (Eileen Davidson) as the coverup mastermind so that we can sympathize more with her sorority accomplices. Sorority Row implicates everyone immediately — in the latter, we’re rooting for deaths from the shocking roofies-and-voyeurism prank introduction. Looking for retaliation, Vicki and her friends pull off a prank on Mrs. Slater that goes disastrously wrong, resulting in an accidental death. Thinking of her future, Vicki stupidly believes covering up the death makes more sense than reporting it. The wild graduation party proceeds forward in full swing as the sorority sisters start getting killed off by a mysterious figure dressed up in a clown costume. Sometimes you want to watch Grade-A trash get every fatal stab, blunt force trauma, and punctured artery they deserve.

And while Gosling deserves praise as the unhinged Julian, I’d argue that Vithaya Pansringarm steals the show here as “The Angel of Vengeance,” even if his untranslated dialogue is likely to be unintelligible for most viewers. In the finished film, Gosling plays Julian, an American ex-pat running a Muay-Thai boxing club alongside his sociopathic brother Billy (Tom Burke). When Billy gets himself killed after sexually assaulting and murdering a teenager, Julian is tasked by his disturbed mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) with tracking down those responsible for the death of her first-born child.

Overall, The House on Sorority Row deserves its cult status as an underrated slasher classic. When the senior sorority sisters of Theta Pi decide to do in their demented house mother, someone seeks revenge, and begins a night of terror and madness. The House on Sorority Row was named one of the greatest slasher films of all time by Complex in 2017.

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Stevie goes into the basement to disable the breaker, where she is accosted and stabbed to death by the killer. Later, the pool lights are turned on, much to the girls' alarm, but Slater's body is nowhere to be found. Refn originally came up with the idea for Only God Forgives immediately after completing 2009’s Valhalla Rising and becoming confused by feelings of anger and existential dread during his wife’s second pregnancy.

Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger pen a script that differentiates itself with an introduction that implies alternative killer motivations, passages of time, and deeper contemplation of soul-eating secrets. Rosman torments his sorority sisters over a few nights and empowers fertility experiments gone haywire — Stewart Hendler oversees how bonds built under traumatic secrecy eventually crack over long periods. Sorority Row takes an idea and speculates further, where The House on Sorority Row crams as much murderous mayhem and Hitchcockian mystery into a single end-of-year serving. Scorpion Releasing put out two prior Blu-ray editions, including a limited 2018 release which boasted a new transfer, a 5.1 surround mix, and an isolated score missing from MVD’s disc.

In Revenge of the Remakes, columnist Matt Donato takes us on a journey through the world of horror remakes. We all complain about Hollywood’s lack of originality whenever studios announce new remakes, reboots, and reimaginings, but the reality? Far more positive examples of refurbished classics and updated legacies exist than you’re willing to remember (or admit).

I’m not saying it’s a flawless commentary given multiple caricatures like Chugs’ debauchery or Jessica’s Queen Beotch crown, but I wonder how audiences would receive Sorority Row today. It’s an inversion of fraternity horror films — or helpless female horror flicks — that’d possibly be lauded today for its punkish desire to prove girls can be just as demeaning, lewd, and horned-up. Then again, there’s no way something this skin-forward and faithful to T&A 80s midnighters would hit screens today. Whether caught in the remake storm or held as an antidote for the ongoing trauma-latent horror wave, I’m not sure there was ever a favorable window to release Sorority Row — and for that renegade reason alone, I’m glad this delinquent slasher exists. On the surface, The House on Sorority Row seems like any standard slasher film that ticks off all the checkboxes.