Category Archives: Horror

I somehow managed to go nearly 30 years without viewing this gem. As a child, I remember the Sorority House Massacre VHS cover in the rental store and thought it looked pretty menacing. An aside, I first began watching scary movies as a young girl, mostly enjoying USA’s Up All Night and TNT’s Monstervision weekend B-movie series. So I rarely actually checked movies out from the rental stores until I was older. But when my dad and I would peruse the stores after school, I would usually wander off into the horror section and admire the glorious 80s cover art. I digress…

When I saw this cover posted in Netflix, I instantly remembered it from when I was a child and realized I had never actually watched it and added it to my queue. I didn’t let it hang out there for long and sat down to watch it the following weekend.

Much like a lot of great 80s cover art, the depiction is misleading. It isn’t about a rogue, sex-crazed maniac who has carefully selected a sorority house full of scantily-clad, defenseless chicks. But rather, the film revolves around Beth, a doe-eyed college student who is checking out a campus sorority to see if she wants to become a member. Through flashbacks and  scenes at a local psychiatric hospital, we learn that as a child, Beth’s brother Bobby slaughtered their entire family, but was captured before he could kill Beth.

Beth doesn’t remember any of this, and the audience doesn’t officially learn all of this backstory until later in the movie. But the allusions are clear so there’s really no surprise. It’s also not surprising when Bobby escapes the mental hospital and treks back to his childhood home, which is now the campus sorority house.

I will end this relatively vague plot summary here and note that Sorority House Massacre is extremely predictable, but is still fun. The sorority sisters aren’t “naughty” and we only see a smidge of nudity here and there, mainly when the sisters are getting ready for class. And I’m a girl so I can say this, but at no point during my college career-and I lived in the dorms for all 4 years-did I shower or change freely amongst my roommates. So this is just another little silly yet completely characteristic of the B-movie slasher.

One thing I’d like to add is that I saw this very close to when I first watched the remake of Black Christmas (2006). This is worth bringing up because unless you watch Sorority House Massacre before the Black Christmas remake, then you’ll most likely find yourself comparing the two throughout the viewing of Sorority House as I did. The similarities are glaring, especially regarding the sorority house being the former location of a mass murder and the killer has escaped from a mental hospital to hunt down a family member.

Of note, Sorority House Massacre is also frequently compared to Halloween (1978). I don’t disagree with that statement, but to me, Sorority House feels more like the Black Christmas remake. Sorority House obviously pre-dates the Black Christmas remake so I don’t hold at fault for Sorority House for having such a similar concept. I doubt you will encounter the same similarities with the original Black Christmas (1974) because it does have a different story than Black Christmas (2006)/Sorority House Massacre.

Overall Impression:

There are a little too many conveniences for me to rate this any higher than a 7-like how Beth mystically finds her way to the sorority house that happens to have been her childhood home. And that Bobby would know his sister is there, or that he would even know how to get back to the house after all those years. But part of the cheese of Sorority House Massacre is B-rated charm so this is relatively easily overlooked.

The dream sequences were pretty spooky. There was an eerie scene with the family sitting around the dining table; they looked like mannequins and then blood began dripping from the chandelier. There was also some decent yet tame kill scenes. These scenes weren’t graphic but the gore felt unique (a little reminiscent to me of the Italian giallo style).

Pros: fun, classic B-movie 80s slasher
Cons: silly-not genuinely scary, felt too similar to other horror classics, bad acting

Mashup status: Ancestrally speaking, this is the child of Halloween (1978) and the aunt of Black Christmas (2006) with most every cliched 80s B-movie horror gimmick you can think of.

Rating: 7/10

I don’t know who this ethereal woman is, and levitating and fog have absolutely nothing to do with this film’s story, but I still really liked this movie!

As much as it pangs me to admit, and despite the fact that I will probably receive a lot of criticism for my approval, I really did enjoy Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia. I’m a supporter of all production categories of the horror film genre; I truly enjoy B-movies, low budgets, direct-to-video/streaming, indie, and yes even mainstream horror. I do think that mainstream horror has gotten a bad wrap in recent years (with the exception of some-for example, James Wan) but generally, I have liked much of the big budget horror I have seen recently.

Two other reasons I enjoyed this Ghosts of Georgia: 1) the ghost story is my favorite sub-genre of horror and 2) I’m from Georgia. I was interested in the historical aspect of the south because-I’m not biased or anything-but I think the south has such a rich (and albeit unsavory) history, I was interested in how it would be depicted in this movie.

I was also anticipating this movie because I genuinely enjoyed the first Haunting in Connecticut movie. I had also heard that this one-despite the odd name and having zero to do with the first-is loosely based on a true story. I know, I know-there are oodles of horror movies “based on true events.” In this one, the characters have the same names, and the story about Mr. Gordy is reported to have happened, however beyond that, the crux of the movie-the underground railroad-was Hollywood’s way of elevating the story. For me, it worked.

We begin with perhaps one of the most cliched horror movie openings: a family is moving from the hectic city life into a “new” (read “old and haunted”) house in the remote countryside. In addition to mom, dad, and young daugther Heidi, mom’s flitty sister Joyce also moves in with the family. She is staying in an uber creepy RV on the property. Some spooky things begin to happen at the Wyrick ‘s new residence, namely with Heidi; she is an only child and begins to have conversations with an invisible friend named Mr. Gordy.

Mom-who is of the high-strung, stay-at-home variety-begins to get weirded out and fearful of Heidi’s relationship with her “imaginary” friend. We learn that mom has psychic abilities-she can see/talk/interact with dead people-however she represses her abilities by taking loads of medication. As Heidi’s relationship with Mr. Gordy develops, Mom worries that her daughter might have inherited her psychic abilities. Predictably, we learn that a man named Mr. Gordy once lived at the Wyrick’s home, and Heidi can even pick him out of a collection of pictures unprovoked.

Through her interactions with Mr. Gordy, and some encounters mom has while off her meds, as well as the typical horror movie research/investigation done by the family, we learn the property was once the part of the underground railroad. The former owner-the Stationmaster-was also a taxidermist. And in the woods, underneath the ruins of the former cabin is a labyrinth of dirt hallways used for housing slaves.

This is where I will end my plot summary. I will say there is a twist, one I was generally surprised by. There was also the expected “save the kid from evil ghosts” action scenes. These were pretty silly and predictable but the bad guy was creepy enough that I tolerated these scenes. The ending was a cheesefest but stick around until just before the credits and you’ll see some candid photos of the actual Mr. Gordy and the Wyrick family.

Overall Impression:

I liked this much better than the first Haunting in Connecticut film-I have no qualms admitting that I enjoy a “sequel” more than an original since these two movies are really not related. On that note, I will say that Ghosts of Georgia feels similar to the first.

Overall, the movie was fun, moved quickly, and really held my interest. Abigail Spencer (the mom) was tiresome but perhaps that was just her character. And Chad Michael Murray I felt was miscast; I could see him netter as an older brother rather than the dad. The star was Emily Alyn Lind; child actors can typically wear on me but Emily carried this movie well.

Beyond the cast, I also commend the writer. The Civil War is really overlooked by the horror movie industry. I can rattle off a dozen Nazi zombie flicks but I struggle to think of other Civil War movies besides than this one, Dead Birds (2004), and perhaps Ravenous (1999).

Pros: great pacing, spooky, rich story, genuinely scary bad guy
Cons: absurd and misleading title, cheesey ending, mainstream

Mashup status: Think The House of Dies Drear (1984)-shoutout to those who know this movie!-meets Scarecrows (1988) and The Messengers (2007)/Messengers 2: The Scarecrow (2009).

Rating: 7.5/10