Review of Pledge Night (1990) by Jason D — 21 Aug 2009

During the first couple of years of the 90's, a few films managed to slip through that embodied the corniness and over-the-top aesthetics of 80's horror cinema. Pledge Night is one of these films.

Looking like a poor man's Animal House, Pledge Night starts off with a group of young pledges hoping to make it through rigorous "Hell Week" hazing from their elder brothers in the fraternity.

This film is all over the place and can be a true test to watch for certain people. The first 45 minutes (to the dot!) of this film are comprised of hazing scene after hazing scene after hazing scene.

Character build-up is completely thrown out the window in favor of low brow humor and titties/sexual deviancy galore (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). After that, it's as if the movie realizes that it has just wasted 45 minutes and makes and effort to start killing off as many people as possible before time runs out, first, by a fellow student, and then out of nowhere, a crazed 60's hippy ghost with Freddy Krueger looks and one-liners (no, I'm not kidding).

If you were paying attention in the first 45 minutes, you;ll remember they briefly discussed a student dying from a hazing incident in that house some years back, however, there isn't much storyline or plot development to have you believe his ghost would appear to kill everyone.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this film totally caught me by surprise. It was moronic and stupid and completely over-the-top, but it was also entertaining and funny as hell because of those attributes.

Honestly, I'm shocked as hell this film got away with so much nudity and violence, especially in a time when the MPAA was starting to get censor happy with films. The biggest "star" in this film may be the doomed hippy (not the killer hippy), played by Anthrax singer Joey Belladonna, whose band also supplies the music for this film!!! Oh joy! By my standards, this film is the definition of a classic for me.

It desperately needs to be put on DVD. Great film.