HAUNTED HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW

HAUNTED HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW

Hmm, I was quite surprised when I took in the title of this latest movie, directed by bright young thing Henrique Couto (though, cards on the table here – any hype regarding Couto, which I imagine there must have been, judging by other press, has passed me by for whatever reason.) Still, a haunted house and/or a sorority house...it's an interesting mash-up at least. In a lot of films from the 70s onwards, the sorority had taken over from the haunted house; one was troubled by ghosts, one with dickheads – or so it seems, but both meant horror motifs. So, what would both of those together mean?

We get the following set-up: horny couple break into known haunted house (seriously, do people do this? For reals? Even as a much younger 'un, I think - no, I know I'd have passed...) Within minutes the couple have fallen foul of an enormously-bosomed ghost. We cut forward in time – same house, but much lighter and airier – and a young woman is about to purchase the place in order to turn it into (you've guessed it!) a sorority. Doesn't she know about the house's dismal past? Well, duh, she has Googled it. Some of the new sorority sisters are already being troubled in their dreams by visions of the well-upholstered spectre; they clearly haven't Googled the house, so they move in anyway. Google eventually tells the sisters more: that this was a bordello in times gone by and the working girls there were all found frozen to death one day...

Soon, the girls are being plagued not only by the ghostie but by specifically tailored nightmares of their own; it's something of a 'demons of conscience' idea, although continuing the boob theme, most of these demons of conscience inevitably relate to some unwholesome nakedness in their past experience. Seriously, as a long-term horror and exploitation fan, it takes some going to make me notice norks in films these days, but here, it's pretty bloody conspicuous; I'd even say it'd make Linnea Quigley blush. Yep. That's what I said. It is (eventually) linked to the overarching plot as well, though for the most part it felt like what it was – sprinkling the maximum possible scenes with the maximum possible T&A and, incidentally, I might have said enough right there to garner the film a few more sales. If you want more, then you may feel more short-changed. Haunted House on Sorority Row does have ideas going on; it comes close to making the best of these on a few different occasions, but it is hampered by a few things. It's clearly made on no budget at all; I know many of these films are, but here the budgetary constraints are evident to the extent that the film struggles to get beyond them. It always looks a little too shabby, a little too awkward – a bit apologetic, almost. Whether this is what spills across into the performances, or whether it's the relative inexperience of the cast, I can't be sure – but there are sequences of achingly raw dialogue and jokes which just didn't land.

There are good points here; as mentioned, Couto makes an effort to splice two different sub-genres together, which shows some innovation on his part. There are some moments of snappy, trippy footage almost tucked away in the film and, perhaps surprisingly, once it gets beyond the boobs alone it's ...even a bit progressive, bringing up ideas of morality (such as 'slut shaming' and blame culture) which could even have been taken further, to good effect. Still, Haunted House on Sorority Row eventually ends up pulling in different directions a bit too much.

The 81-minute feature is accompanied by the standard Independent Entertainment extras: a short film, 'Bed Demon'; an audio commentary; a Making of featurette, and a trailer reel.

Review by Keri O’Shea


 
Released by INDEPENDENT ENTERTAINMENT
Region 1
Not Rated
Extras :
see main review
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