19 March 2024
Killer Party (1986)
91 min.
Directed by William Fruet.
With Elaine Wilkes, Sherry Willis-Burch, Joanna Johnson, Martin Hewitt, Ralph Seymour, Paul Bartel, Alicia Fleer, Woody Brown.
Also known as The April Fool, this supernatural-tinged sorority slasher comes from the same director who gave us the super effective revenge/exploitation favorite Death Weekend (1976) as well as the monster-on-the-loose horror flick Spasms (1983).

Phoebe (Elaine Wilkes), Vivia (Sherry Willis-Burch), and Jennifer (Joanna Johnson) are three young women who want to be initiated into the popular Sigma Alphi Pi sorority. As part of their pledge process, though, the three gals will have to host a party in the abandoned Delta Sigma fraternity house.

The problem? Well, it seems the Delta Sigma house is abandoned for a reason. A very important reason. Seems a frat boy was killed there as a part of a hazing incident some 20 years ago. And there's a deadly vibe to the place.

As partygoers begin to die one by one at the hands of a killer wearing a diving mask (don't ask), the girls must ask themselves: is the Delta Sigma house haunted by the ghost of the dead student? Or has a psychotic maniac decided to crash their party?

Horror films which attempt to combine the supernatural with the slasher subgenre rarely work...and Killer Party is an example of such a failing. Unfortunately, the competent direction by Fruet is sabotaged by a half-hearted, meandering script (courtesy of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter scribe Barney Cohen).

Part comedy, part horror, part spoof, this all-over-the-road slasher just can't make up its mind what it wants to be. And everyone suffers for it.

There are a few watchable performers here, and a couple of nice moments, but there's just too much unnecessary, confusing mayhem...and frankly, little of it is ultimately memorable. Some grimace-inducing comedic hijinx only serves to make matters worse.

(Look for Sherry Willis-Burch in another campus slasher Final Exam (1981), while Joanna Johnson would go on to a long stint on the television soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful).

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