A group of friends retreat to an old house in the woods to fix the place up. It seems it used to be an old foster home that closed under suspicious circumstances. Unbeknownst to the houseguests, a killer with a maniacal laugh is lurking about the premises and is just waiting to butcher them in a variety of ways.
Director Dominick Brascia knows his way around the slasher genre after being killed off in Friday the 13th Part V. (Which cameos on a cover of Fangoria.) Most of the fun comes from seeing Brascia sending up slasher movie conventions, long before Scream made it hip. There’s also a funny montage of the cast cleaning the house as they dance and dust in unison to a cheesy ‘80s song. There are also plenty of odd moments along the way, like when a friend hides inside a bed to scare two lovers, a weird dinner scene, and the part where a creepy real estate agent headbangs to “The William Tell Overture”.
Some of the editing is a little wonky though, most notably when the cop shows up looking for a missing person. Bits like this suggests there must’ve some half-assed reshoots. Even these patchy moments kinda add to the scrappy charm. Unfortunately, the hackneyed editing takes some of the pop out of the kills. (Although I assume it was done to maintain an R rating.) There's more blood than gore here, but some of the death scenes are kind of weak. However, there is one head in the microwave gag that predates the Last House on the Left remake by twenty-three years, so that’s something at least.
Future porn star Ashlyn Gere is the Final Girl in this one. You’d never guess she’d go on to a career in porn from seeing here in this though as she wears a series of unflattering and frumpy outfits. (She also used an obvious double for her eleventh-hour shower scene.) Oh, and that’s Scott’s brother, Steven Baio in the lead. (He also co-wrote and produced.)
