Introduction
Anyone who visits this site regularly will certainly recognize the name Roger Corman—not just vaguely, but with a probability of about 99.9% they will have seen at least one film from the endless list that makes up the B-movie king’s filmography, whether knowingly or not. After all, Corman had been enriching the world of cinema with dozens of cheap exploitation films since the 1950s, always riding whatever genre wave happened to be popular at the time.
As soon as a new trend emerged, he was already there, cranking out something quickly and cheaply, only to dump it into drive-in theaters or video stores. Monster movies, Gothic horror, animal attack films—there was always some theme that could be turned into quick cash.
All the more surprising, then, that Corman initially avoided one particular genre wave, or at least joined it rather late: the slasher boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s. After the massive successes of Halloween (1978) and Friday, the 13th (1980), the timing would have been perfect for him to unleash a handful of knife-happy body-count movies.
That finally happened in 1982 with The Slumber Party Massacre, which was unusually directed by a woman, Amy Holden Jones, who also wrote the script. Interestingly, the film was originally conceived as a contemporary critique of the horror genre, but Corman diluted these ideas in favor of delivering the expected genre thrills.
After that, things went quiet again. The slasher wave had already begun to fade by 1984, degenerating mostly into cheap direct-to-video productions. And it was precisely here that Corman struck again in 1986 with Death House, also known as The Sorority House Massacre.
Plot
It’s evening. As eerie music plays, the camera slowly approaches a large house while the opening credits roll. Its windows are brightly lit, yet the place somehow still appears abandoned.
The film proper begins with Beth, dressed in a hospital gown, looking deeply distressed. A woman named Miss Laurence approaches her and asks how “this could have happened.” Beth then begins to recount the story, explaining that everything started when she entered the house.
And indeed, something seems terribly wrong with the sorority house Beth visits after the death of her last remaining relative, her aunt. When she enters the building with her luggage at night, the first hallucinations appear: dolls sitting at the dinner table, bleeding ceilings—the usual haunted-house imagery. Creepy children in the front yard are also present, warning her about the place.
At the same time, we are shown a man in a mental institution screaming in his bed until he has to be sedated. This very man soon appears in Beth’s nightmarish visions. A bad omen?
When most of the sorority members leave for the weekend, Beth remains alone in the house with three other young women. Despite the initially relaxed mood, her ominous premonitions continue to haunt her…
Review
Frankly, based on this brief plot summary—or rather, the recap of the film’s first few awkward minutes—you can already piece together the entire rest of Death House, provided you’ve seen at least one slasher film before. The movie mixes together a variety of genre clichés and story elements established by the early classics: a handful of teenagers in an isolated house and a deranged killer. Naturally, it’s eventually revealed that there’s a “hidden” connection between the murderer and his victims.
Subtlety is not the film’s strong suit. The background is painfully obvious early on, and IMDb even spoils it outright if you glance at the synopsis. On top of that, the film throws in a bit of occult mumbo-jumbo and prophetic dream sequences clearly borrowed from A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984).
In short, the film copies and blends familiar slasher scenarios without contributing anything genuinely new. That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem—if the execution worked. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.
Starting with the direction itself: it’s no surprise that Corman didn’t allocate a generous budget for this production—reportedly around $300,000. But that alone isn’t an excuse when you consider that Halloween had only about $25,000 more to work with.
Atmosphere is virtually nonexistent. The locations are limited to the dull sorority house and the mental institution, of which we barely see more than the killer’s sparsely furnished room. The murderer himself is also anything but frightening. He appears to possess some sort of telekinetic abilities and seems to exist in a constant half-sleep state. His face is rarely shown, but he never comes across as a truly menacing presence.
As a result, the visual monotony becomes exhausting. The dream sequences add nothing of interest, and the weak “shock effects” fail to generate any tension.
There’s also very little in the way of actual violence. While the frequent POV shots repeatedly tease the killer finally going to work, his eventual appearances are deeply disappointing. The kills are not only uncreative but also extremely tame and bloodless. The sole murder weapon is a knife, used exclusively to stab wandering, clueless teenagers in the gut.
Beyond that, the killer ticks all the classic slasher boxes à la Michael Myers: he moves slowly, repeatedly returns after being incapacitated, and even falls from a window at one point—well, not quite out of a window, but at least from a ladder leading up to one.
While the camera work initially shows some promise—with POV shots and longer tracking movements adding a bit of momentum—it becomes increasingly static toward the weak finale, further draining what little impact the already generic ending might have had. To make matters worse, the lighting is often so poor that it’s difficult to see what’s happening—assuming you still care at that point.
At the very least, the acting isn’t a complete disaster, though expectations for a low-budget slasher are naturally low. Angela O’Neil, who plays the protagonist Beth, actually does a decent job conveying her underlying fear and discomfort without overacting, which would have been easy to do. That said, after DEATH HOUSE, she only appeared in six more equally insignificant roles.
The rest of the cast functions primarily as cannon fodder and isn’t asked to do much of anything. Still, it’s fair to say that there are no outright catastrophes among the performances. Some of the actors made both their first and last film appearances here. One name worth mentioning is Marcus Vaughter, who plays one of the male characters and also appeared in Nightmare Sisters (which is a silly, but funny movie by the way).
The film was directed by Carol Frank, who also wrote the script and came from the same creative circle as Amy Holden Jones, having worked on The Slumber Party Massacre as part of the crew. As this was Frank’s first—and last—directorial effort, one can assume she had genuine ambitions. But regardless of intention, the result must be considered a failure.
One could argue that Corman once again suppressed any potential subtext or critique in favor of superficial genre elements. But even so, the film barely delivers those either. The only thing that remains is a slightly more empathetic portrayal of the female characters than in many other slashers, taking Beth’s fears somewhat seriously.
Apparently, the film was successful enough for Julie Corman, Roger Corman’s wife, to produce a sequel in 1990: Sorority House Massacre Ii. As expected, it has nothing to do with the original story and simply repeats the same setup—young women being stalked by a killer in a sorority house. Whether anyone besides Corman actually needed this is debatable.
In Germany, the film was released by CMV Laservision, both as a Mediabook and a standard Amaray edition. The picture and sound quality are actually quite good—certainly better than the film itself deserves.
Conclusion
In the end, there’s really no way around it: Death House is a by-the-numbers bargain-bin slasher that hastily assembles a collection of genre clichés into a runtime of just under 70 minutes. A longer duration would have been impossible to justify, and even at this length the film feels more tedious than suspenseful.
It’s not so bad that it actively infuriates—but that only makes it all the more forgettable. Even dedicated slasher fans can safely skip Death House. Within Corman’s vast oeuvre, it remains nothing more than a footnote.
