Thursday, July 27, 2017

Sorority House Massacre II (1990)

How bad is it? It's exactly the rubbish the title suggests.
Should you see it? Yes, for two contradictory reasons.


Something must be wrong, as this is the second Jim Wynorski film I've said good things about this week [Sorceress]. He's made this film and concurrently shot "Hard to Kill" which is essentially the same film, but not good enough to review. It has every cliche imaginable and delivers the goods promised in the title, making this a typically misogynist slasher film. Its prurience is so apparent and its titillation so constant, some have argued that it was meant as a parody; I've seen enough Wynorski films to know it's not, but it's interesting to watch it that way.

The film has flashbacks to the wrong movie - it shows "Slumber Party Massacre" shots, rather than "Sorority House Massacre." Did Wynorski not know - and is that why this film has no connection to the original - or is this an in-joke? Again, it's interesting to speculate. The plot has girls rehabbing the building of the first film because it's cheap and could make a decent sorority house - then they get killed, one by one.

There's a maniac running around with a guitar with an attached giant drill, a phallic symbol that'd be hard to miss if there weren't odd moments of riffs in unusual places... I can't make my point without a spoiler. You can skip this next paragraph, if you care.

SPOILER
The obvious killer weirdo is not the actual killer. One of the girls has been possessed by a spirit uncovered in the rehab of the building. When the typical climax, where the killer takes an inhuman amount of punishment before finally being offed, happens, it's happening to an innocent man! That's original, and a bit unsettling, if you think about it.

There's a twist at the end that actually works, though it kind of subverts the whole film and even the whole genre. Whether that's good or bad is moot; it's an enjoyable watch.

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