1980s Horror Comedy Secret Gem Is The Perfect New Discovery For Fans
1980s slasher horror films were a staple of late weekend nights, and shelves of VHS tapes were raided each week by teens wanting to see the latest releases. In an era where the Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchises dominated the box offices and video rental retailers, there were many stand-alone horror films that have been largely overlooked by even the most hard-core fans of the genre. One such entry is the 1986 film Killer Party, a horror-trope-filled production that packs the best of everything these films are known for into a single film.
Killer Party Is About A Killer Party
Like many of these films, Killer Party begins with a college hazing ritual set to take place in a reportedly haunted house near the campus. Three college girls pledging to join a sorority are put through the hazing tradition at the Pratt House. Their house mother warns them to stay away from the place, but she knows that they’ll likely ignore her pleas and venture there anyway.
To offset this, the housemother visits Pratt House and kneels over the lone grave on the property where a young man named Allan is buried. She asks Allan to behave himself if the girls show up there. This is the last we see of the woman, as Killer Party has her dispatched almost immediately after this visit when an unseen attacker beats her in the head with an iron bar.
No Twists Or Turns To This One
To offset this, the housemother visits Pratt House and kneels over the lone grave on the property where a young man named Allan is buried. She asks Allan to behave himself if the girls show up there. This is the last we see of the woman, as Killer Party has her dispatched almost immediately after this visit when an unseen attacker beats her in the head with an iron bar.
Cat-And-Mouse With A Demon
The co-eds all make it through the hazing without any supernatural incidents, and the sorority president decides to throw a party at the Pratt House soon after. Of course, this is where the unseen Allan, a boy who is later revealed to have died on the property after a prank gone wrong, possesses one of the partygoers. Killer Party sees the college kids killed off one by one, mostly with the sharpened prongs of a trident.
As their numbers dwindle, the possessed co-ed engages in a deadly game of cat and mouse with two of the survivors. It’s a deadly race to see if they’ll make it out of the Pratt House alive before the demonic force in Killer Party eliminates them all.
Death Scenes Are The Best Part
Killer Party didn’t invent anything new for the screen and remains a single-entry film lost in a sea of other horror films that were quickly produced and released during the 1980s. The plotline is a bit predictable, but the jump scares solid and the death scenes are worth the time. It’s not a film with red carpet level acting, but the players do a serviceable job portraying annoying college co-eds whose deaths you’ll root for on screen.
Available Through Video On Demand
REVIEW SCORE
Overall, Killer Party is a film worth watching. Though lacking in total originality, the movie does pack in some great kills and has one of the best twist endings for slasher horror. It’s scarier than what you might find in a camp along Crystal Lake, though it offers a bit less in the category of gore than what a Jason Vorhees will deliver.
Killer Party isn’t available to stream for free but can be accessed On Demand with Prime and AppleTV.
