A troubled
sorority newcomer with amnesia Beth (Angela
O'Neill) is new at residing in a sorority house
with plenty of women students.
She also continues to have nightmares about a
psychopathic killer coming out to kill her and
also sees hallucinations about him too. She swore
that she resided at the sorority house as a
child.
Well she was right as a killer Robert
Henkel (John C. Russell) resides in a mental
hospital after killing his family and seems to
communicate with Beth through her dreams as he
manages to escape the hospital and heads towards
the sorority house in Los Angeles where Beth
resides while most of the snobby sorority sisters
leaves for the weekend to have fun.
Beth is alone in the house with only 3 of them by
the names of Linda (Wendy Martel), Sara (Pamela
Ross) and Tracy (Nicole Rio) that stayed behind.
Beth starts to remember her childhood life and
before the house she's living in now, was once
her family house plus Henkel is her older brother
and he's convinced to make his family extinct as
well as doing away the rest of her friends that
reside there along with their partying boyfriends
too.
While renting this video I was
hoping for another Slumber Party Massacre fun party T&A horror flick. Well it is in
that same trashy kind of vein but a little
darker.
The beginning looked fun and impressive to watch
in which it introduces the actors with the
sorority house when it's almost sundown and then
the name SHM splashes onto the
screen with blood effects splattering.
Then of course we have the newcomer named Beth
entering the front of the sorority house in which
there seems to be a dream sequence in which the
film seems to start off a little confusing along
with three little girls near the house and her
talking to them and then there's lots of horror
scene's with blood dripping everywhere including
on some pictures and the killer Bobby Henkel
communicating to her and trying to make his way
to killing her through mirrors or other objects.
I found alot of this seemed to borrow heavily
from the A Nightmare On Elm Street flicks.
Then there's fun times with the sorority sisters
trying on new clothes they just bought taking
their other clothes off and trying the new one's
on which should please any fan who likes some
skin in their slasher flicks.
There's also some good scene's with one of the
employees at the sanitarium named Larry testing
Bobby which seems to work well and describing why
this maniac is so disturbed in which seemed to be
necessary for a start to this story as well as
Beth sensing him too. Apart from this being a
slasher film there seems to be some moments of
supernatural elements too.
Then the sororty boys decide to hang out with the
girls and one of them tells the story about Bobby
near a fireplace which worked well in which he
describes the history of the family that was
butchered by this psychopath with a remaning
little girl making this a total mystery as to
what has happened to her. Also Beth tells the
others that Bobby has an old knife with stained
blood on it hidden in a brick of the fireplace
which seemed pretty chilling wondering how the
heck she knew this but yet she dreams this all on
what he did with his weapong after almost killing
the entire family. All of this mentioned seems to
be well written in.
Of course there has to be a sex scene by a
sorority copuple but they decide to do it in a
teepee tent and Bobby crashes their fun by
killing the girl first while the guy watches in
shock which seemed terribly written that he
doesn't try to do anything while this is
happening and later on runs into the house naked
of course.
Then there's more moments on the surviving
sorority sisters trying to escape and hide from
Bobby while he's onto them as well as trying to
communicate with one of them trying to figure out
who his sister is and planning to kill her in
which some of this was fun to watch and other
times it looked quite sloppy. Also, they try
different ways on killing him inclusing whacking
him with a shovel and hoping that they are safe
but we all know that in any horror flick that
won't put him out of his misery.
Then there's a great ending with Beth in the
hospital after thinking that she killed Bobby and
suddenly a halluicination with Bobby appears
before your eyes making the viewers thinking that
the nightmare isn't over. This seemed to look
quite clever for any ending to a slasher film but
after watching it all it for sure can be a happy
ending and not needing for there to be a sequel
since SHM 2 beared no
relationship to this one at all.
Bottom line is SHM is a total Halloween ripoff clone too trying to borrow similar
elements. This was released when producers
discovered that horror films sell so much when
they went right to video than a theatrical
release. This film didn't have a good enough
budget to go to theatre's (well maybe a limited
one).
Some interesting moments in this film yet the
plot has been overly done before. Oh well maybe
next time. Nice sunny shots in the quiet
neighborhood of Los Angeles though.
The
acting is in average shape but you can tell that
these actors do their best although most remain
virtual unknowns.
We have Angela O'Neill (Beth) playing
the Jamie Lee Curtis type of character
as she stands out the most in the film as someone
with amnesia and seems to do not too bad by
pulling off that character. However she is
sometimes stiff in her performance especially
when she tries to get emotional. There's a
moment on her using a shovel and
whacking someone in which this looked incredibly sloppy and
amateurishly performed.
Wendy Martel (Linda) also tries her best
with her role in the film and can easily pass as
playing another sorority outsider with Beth and
showing a nice friendship towards that character.
She shows a nice sweet and caring behavior in her
role and is realistic when she performs this way.
Nicole Rio (Tracy) seemed to come across as
someone who is very sarcastic and at times snobby
which she knew on how to do both of these not too
badly. Yet she also showed a good bubbly behavior
too which I liked as well.
Joe Nassi (Craig) seemed to have the
handsome type role that the sorority girls go for
but can he act? Not really as he seemed to lack
energy with his characteristics. Oh well not
everyone was born to act which explained on why
he did nothing else.
Vinnie Bilancio (John) seemed to bring on
his nice charming behavior as the partying type
who likes to tell creepy stories and can really
get into his role. A memorable scene trying to tell a ghost story at a
fireplace in the sorority house of what went on
there long ago as that looked impressively
performed as he does well with his serious voice
when talking about the ghost story. He is average looking and had
a cross look between a tough guy and a dweeb.
Still he does okay with his characteristics in
which this marked to be his first acting gig in a
film before working in a string full of made for
video and dvd independent horror flicks.
Marcus Vaughter (Andy) played a dorky
character in the film liking to tease others but
yet he seems very wooden in his performance and I
was not at all convinced with his work in it even
if he tried to be a typical ham in this flick. He doesn't react well at all by suffering in
pain and falling to the ground after being stabbed. This looked quite
amateurish.
The late John C. Russell (Robert Henkel)
looked perfect as the Michael Myers type killer
showing no expressions and a total evil look to
him too. Yet a weak blocking moment with him grabbing someone and banging his head a few times
against a wall which didn't look convicningly
violent or brutal.
We also have supporting actor Robert Axelrod (Larry) who tried to be good at playing an
employee at the mental hospital yet at times it
looked a little corny and made a bigger success
doing voice over's for animated shows.
Three women played by Wendy
Martel, Pamela Ross and Nicole
Rio are trying on new clothes and their
breats are revealed while doing so.
Nicole Rio unbuttons her top showing her
breasts in a tent from the backyard of the
sorority house.
Joe Nassi runs out of the tent and into
the sorority house butt naked showing some male
nudity too than just with the women in this film.
A
bed is bloodied.
Some people are briefly seen in a sorority house
slaughtered during a hallucination sequence like
being stabbed in the chest with a pick axe.
An employee at the hospital has his head banged
against the wall and blood is smeared from the
wall.
Many bloody stabbings.
The killer has a knife stabbed through his neck.
We
have some z-grade sounding but very effective
synthesizer sounds by Michael Wetherwax as he
composes great suspenseful scene's for the film
and plays a perfect opening to the film along
with some nice himing sounds too along with high
pitched hissing and ghostly type sound effect
music too. |