The House on Sorority Row (1983)

The House on Sorority Row is a better-than-average sisters-in-jeopardy thriller, which might be expected from 25-year-old producer-director-writer Mark Rosman. After all, he served an apprenticeship with master of the macabre, Brian DePalma, and if Rosman's debut is a bit ragged in its bloodlines, it does as credible a job of exploring collegiate bonding as DePalma's "Carrie" did for teen-age anxiety. [10 May 1983, p.B2]

Rosman's debut movie was a pretty fair show-reel promising, falsely it seems, more and better to come.

Although director Rosman spices up the predictable murders with some stabs at surrealism, a slasher movie is a slasher movie is a slasher movie, and this one soon wears out its welcome.

As is usual for this durable genre, victim and villain are well matched. Though House on Sorority Row does not have a single screeching-cat red herring, and though power tools are not employed, it does have a classic of low camp, a scene in which a girl who has just been nearly brained by a falling corpse repairs immediately and alone to her bedroom, where she changes into a baby-doll nightie and stands with her back to an open window. [23 Feb 1983, p.B4]