FORMAT: BLU-RAY
Fraternity of Horror is a previously unreleased movie made by the producers of Night of the Demon when they were just starting out. It was also directed by none other than Rocky Jones himself, Richard Crane. It can be found among the many extras on Severin’s Blu-Ray release of Night of the Demon as a bonus feature. It’s not great, but it certainly has its moments.
A fraternity readies to scare the bejabbers out of their new prospective pledges (and their dates) during a late-night scavenger hunt inside of a makeshift haunted house during hell week. Once the pledges arrive at the mansion, they eventually realize they are not alone. Then, things get REALLY weird.
The college prank set-up reminded me a little bit of Ring of Terror and some of the haunted house shenanigans are reminiscent of Monsters Crash the Pajama Party. The opening fraternity party scene is a lot of fun too. A band named The Spinners (no, not those Spinners) does a great song called “Watusi Woman” while a sorority sister shakes her moneymaker on stage. Crane gives us a couple of effective moments along the way too, like the sudden appearance of a severed head.
The plot takes a wacky turn near the end, and it almost becomes an entirely different movie by the final reel. I won’t spoil what happens. All I’ll say is that the plot twist is so random that you’ll either go with it or you won’t. (I went with it because, why not?) However, some of the tension that Crane managed to build up is lost since so many of the scenes inside the haunted house are so darkly lit that it’s hard to see much of anything.
Surprisingly enough, this wound up making for a decent double feature with Night of the Demon as the film’s monster sort of resembles Demon’s Bigfoot creature. (Although it honestly looks more like the Bigfoot from Shriek of the Mutilated.) While the filmmakers were obviously destined for bigger and better projects, Fraternity of Horror is a nice little indicator of things to come.
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