Overrated

Brilliant and touching

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

...although it never rises above the camp level of entertainment. A trio of college girls who don't look a day under 30 are pledging a sorority, which leads to the usual hazing humiliations. The sorority decides to throw its annual April Fool's dance in a condemned former Greek house that's been closed for 20 years, ever since a pledge was accidentally killed in a guillotine prank, two words that should never go together. Eventually the bodies start piling up at the costume party (I guess it's normal for there to be costumes at such an event; I've never actually heard of an April Fool's party before), leading to a "shocking" conclusion.This has the pluses and minuses of many early to mid 80's slasher flicks. On the plus side, you have terrible yet fascinating fashions, a bit of gratuitous nudity, and some truly awful bargain basement music to enjoy. On the minus side, you have to wait for the movie to be 3/4 over before anything really happens, and most of the dialogue and characters are rote and dull. I will give the film some credit though: SPOILER: This does features a rare double fake-out beginning and has a song you will just not be able to get out of your head.Martin Hewitt of Endless Love "fame" gets top billing, although he isn't in it much. The main stars are Elaine Wilkes, Sherry Willis-Burch, and "Introducing" Joanna Johnson, who apparently went on the next year to start a nearly 30 year off-and-on run on TV's The Bold & the Beautiful. Paul Bartel also shows up for a few minutes as a professor.Recommended only if you are in the specific mood for such fare, and occasionally most people are. It takes you back to the days when college students could unwind like this, often with fatal results, when they were unburdened with six digits of student loan debt.

"Killer Party" is fairly similar in theme to another 1986 slasher, "April Fool's Day", and in fact had to change its name, as it was originally titled "The April Fools". Pranks are a major theme in this decent horror comedy that also calls to mind the slasher "Final Exam" the way that it focuses on frat and sorority nonsense for a good part of its running time. That may cause some viewers to grow disinterested. The body count doesn't begin to become rapid until the final 20 minutes or so. Some of you in the audience may also find the deemphasis on gore (we often see the aftermath of a killing, but not the actual kill) dissatisfying. The filmmakers, led by under-rated Canadian-born cult director William Fruet ("Death Weekend", "Cries in the Night", "Trapped"), do have fun playing around with tropes of the genre and create some pretty good atmosphere in the more serious moments.The thin story revolves around three college babes, Phoebe (Elaine Wilkes, "Sixteen Candles"), Vivia (Sherry Willis-Burch, "Final Exam"), and Jennifer (Joanna Johnson, 'The Bold and the Beautiful') working their way into a sorority that plans on partying inside an old, closed building which the students are advised to avoid. It seems that a frat dude died as a result of pranking some years ago, leading to some effective supernatural horror and good practical effects in the fairly entertaining big finish.The cast of familiar faces also includes Martin Hewitt ("Endless Love" '81), Ralph Seymour ("Just Before Dawn", "Ghoulies"), a hilarious Paul Bartel ("Eating Raoul") as a huffy professor (whose character is named Zito, a nod to director Joseph Zito, who'd directed "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter", also written by Barney Cohen), Terri Hawkes ("Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II"), Howard Busgang ("Terror Train"), and Jason Warren ("Screwballs"). Overall, the movie is enjoyable if nothing special, but it does bear a viewing from die hard fans of the genre. Its best part is its opening sequence; after a while you realize you're watching a "movie within a movie", but then it goes on to reveal itself as an extended rock video, with a group called White Sister performing a ditty titled "You're No Fool".If only the balance of the movie were *that* clever.Six out of 10.

Supernatural/slasher hybrids rarely work, and Killer Party is an example of one of those genre confused movies.It starts off interestingly with a movie within a music video within a movie. Confusing, huh? Yeah, it is, but it's all in good fun. Then, we meet our leads who engage in the usual college hi-jinks. This time, though, there are not so funny, but I guess they're fun, too.The gang is planning a sorority party in an old run down frat house, where a man was killed years ago. Before you know it, someone is killing off the co-eds. The murders are obviously heavily edited. Once they start they come right after another. I'd like them to have been a bit more spread out. The last 30 minutes are flooded with nothing more than dry, neutered murders.Even though the final 10 minutes give some cheap thrills, the movie ultimately fails at anything it's trying to do. It's not scary enough to be a supernatural horror, or bloody enough to be a good slasher, and certainly not funny enough to be a decent college comedy.Nice ending can't save a relatively dull, incompetent film. The direction, acting, and music is very good. Too bad it enevr adds up to a cohesive whole.Watch out for that damn theme song too. "These are the best times, of our lives. These are the best times!" God, help me.Worth a rent.

"Killer Party" is a pretty dumb and righteously forgotten mid-80's horror-comedy that only gets funny when it's meant to look serious and vice versa. That's quite painful already, and it gets gradually worse with bad acting and total lack of gore or inventive gimmicks. After not one, but TWO (not even counting the super cheesy music video) misleading opening sequences, we're introduced to three cheerful girl friends that desperately want to be part of a prominent campus sorority of which the name has already slipped my mind. They're accepted, but only because one of them – Vivia – is a master in pulling April fool's pranks. The girls are referred to as "goats" (quite appropriately) and they're assigned to freak out the boys of a frat club during a party held at a haunted frat house. What follows next is a series of lame red herrings disguised as fraternity pranks and a handful of bloodless killings, supposedly committed by a student who died in the house 20 years ago. Is it all a set-up? Will the girls ever bath naked in the hot tub again? Do we honestly even care?? With the exception of lead actress Elaine Wilkes' portrayal of Phoebe, all the characters are completely insufferable and their deaths nearly weren't painful enough in my opinion. "Killer Party" is boring up until the last fifteen minutes, then it gets over-the-top campy and totally implausible. Not even the spirited guest appearance of Paul Bartel ("Eating Raoul", "Death Race 2000") as the grumpy teacher can save this movie from being an utter mess. Check out "April Fool's Day", instead.