Horror Movie Review: Killer Party (1986)

You can never go wrong with a sorority house slaughtering especially if it’s tied in a big upcoming party. Even more so if the party is to hosted at the site of murder many years before! Without even looking…see if you can guess what era this horror comedy (light on the comedy) came from?

If you said the 80s…bravo! Killer Party is as 80s as they come! From the visual style to the outfits & dialogue, it’s a movie that looks incredibly dated from the word go.

Three young women, Vivia (Sherry Willis-Burch), Jennifer (Joanna Johnson), and Phoebe (Elaine Wilkes) have decided to join a sorority. The trio aren’t really that bothered if they get in as long as they do together. During the uninspired initiation, prankster Vivia plays a pretty elaborate trick on the sorority. Figuring that pretty much ensures they won’t get in, the girls are shocked to find out that they have been invited to join!

Vivia is pulled aside though & told that the only reason she got accepted is because the sorority wants her to set up pranks for them to pull during their traditional April Fools party that is being held in an old abandoned frat house.

Abandoned because 22 years earlier, someone was killed inside.

The party planning goes into full swing with the local frat boys being quite a nuisance. Basically the movies excuse to show off some boobs. Sorority sisters & fraternity brothers…everyone is invited to the biggest party of the year but something or someone doesn’t want them there & will go to murderous lengths to keep them out.

Credit to Killer Party in one respect, it does a great job of keeping you guessing in regards to who the killer might be. The film chooses to avoid a lot of the more obvious slasher tropes but accidentally trips up into another, far better, movie along the way.

Sitting in the middle of being a perfectly fine horror but not doing anything to really stand out, Killer Party is a forgettable experience. One that takes an absolute age to get going. With far too many characters, it’s easy to lose track of who’s who. It’s not like they have much variation between them anyway. The male side of the cast come off far worse out of this as they are mostly portrayed as sex obsessed morons.

Killer Party lacks imagination when it comes to offing the cast, we don’t get anything particularly noteworthy even if the gore is up to scratch.

Ultimately this is the kind of movie that you put on when you’re not looking to be challenged. A product of its time. For all the originality that existed in the 80s there were many, many movies just trying to cash in on repeating ideas by far better movies. This is one of them.