KILLER PARTY (1986)

3 stars

Arrow Video. Limited Edition Blu Ray. 10th August

There be spoilers ahead….

The film opens like an old fashioned chiller, with creepy music and a misty graveyard – a funeral service for Annabelle Fitzwilliam Carslow. She is mourned by her lifelong friend and companion, plus her sister, her loving son Daniel and her daughter in law Stephanie.

Stephanie asks if she can return to ‘speak’ to her mother in law. “I hope you rot in hell” she says, as she is unceremoniously dragged into the coffin and the lid closes – as it descends into the basement to be pushed into the cremation oven. But this is a fake out – it’s a drive-in movie!

There watching, April’s boyfriend Josh is trying it on. She resists to go get popcorn but there is nobody in the concessions so she helps herself to a bucket.

Back at the car… no Josh – till she is attacked by him. Cut to a heavy rock band playing a song about April, cut in with scenes of bloodied victims and her being chased by ghouls. It’s a White Sister video ‘You’re no Fool’. So a kind of double fake out.

Quite why the film has this is at the start is beyond me – apart from spinning out the runtime.

The actual story has Jennifer (Joanna Johnson), Vivia (Sherry Willis-Burch) and Phoebe (Elaine Wilkes) desperate to get into the sorority Sigma Alpha Pi. They have one more day before they will learn if they have been successful. Hell night is upcoming and we have already seen the old abandoned, creepy building, which will obviously feature in the girls initiation. Despite the warning from Mrs Henshaw (Pam Hyatt) who tells them all to stay away.

Could it be to do with the gravestone Henshaw visits in the backyard of the house? She goes there and speaks to whoever it is buried there, saying it was an accident and it’s time to forget. So some mysterious history there…

Of course the warnings are ignored, and the sorority sisters hold their initiation ceremony in the possibly haunted house. It is not long before strange things start to happen…

Mediocre at best, this was directed by Canadian William Fruet, who helmed several other horror movies during his career including DEATH WEEKEND (1976), CRIES IN THE NIGHT (aka FUNERAL HOME, 1980) and SPASMS (1983). He has also done quite a bit of TV work including ten episodes of FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES (1987-90). So he really should have known how to make a better, more intense thriller – especially with a title like KILLER PARTY. This is clearly intended as a comedy/horror and with the young ladies involved there is some brief nudity plus frat boys misbehaving.

A mix of comedy, slasher-cum-killer on the loose, plus a supernatural demonic portion thrown in for good measure, but this means it doesn’t seem to know what direction it wants to take. It ends up as a listless, bloodless affair with the killings, when they eventually arrive, mostly cut away from. Nice to see Paul Bartel pop up as one of the professors at the university.

Steve Kirkham

EXTRAS

Brand new audio commentary by film critic Stacie Ponder

Archivals interview with actor Ralph Seymour; with actress Sherry Willis-Burch; with writer Barney Cohen; with composer John Beal; with special make-up effects artist Gordon J. Smith; with production designer Reuben Freed

Two visual essays (because one isn’t enough) by film critic Alexandra West of The Faculty of Horror podcast and by film critic Mike Muncer of The Evolution of Horror podcast

From Burbank It Came: White Sister and Killer Party, an archival featurette

Image gallery

Plus Collector’s booklet featuring new writing by film critics Alison Lang and Amanda Reyes and Reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Colin Murdoch