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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Gory and hard to find -- but not good enough to achieve cult status, July 5, 2008
This review is from: Pledge Night (aka A Hazing in Hell) [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Granted, shoving a mixer down someone's throat and strangling a dude with your own bloody spine are some pretty cool ways to kill your typical hapless teenaged victims, but Pledge Night still comes up on the wrong side of average on my slasher film rating scale. If you're a big fan of Anthrax, though, you'll definitely want to seek it out because the band supplies most of the soundtrack and front man Joey Belladonna appears in one short scene as a poor dumb hippie bloke who dies a horrible death by hazing. Twenty years later, the frat house where he died becomes the happy hunting ground of a vengeful supernatural killer known as Acid Sid (Will Kempe). Acid Sid doesn't make the greatest of entrances (emerging from an occupied toilet), but he puts his bodily possession and disappear-at-will skills to good use once he's running loose throughout the frat house.
It's Hell Week, and six young pledges are put through the ringer in their bid to join Phi-Epsilon-Nu. Personally, I've never understood why anyone would want to join a fraternity, especially given the hazing you have to endure in the process - and Pledge Week does nothing to change my mind on the subject. The entire first half of the movie consists of this year's pledges being hazed in all sorts of disgusting ways, emotionally as well as physically. Larry Bonner's (Todd Eastland) mother actually comes to the frat house to try and talk her son out of joining, having lost her own college boyfriend to a prank gone horribly wrong. Does Larry listen? Of course not.
As creative as some of the murders are, the filmmakers basically ruin everything by giving Acid Sid a ridiculously annoying laugh and far too many stupid one-liners ("This is for Spiro Agnew"?). In addition, the ending is telegraphed from almost the very start of the movie. And the MPAA, as always, did us no favors by forcing the filmmakers to cut out some of the best gore in order to secure an R rating. Unless you're an Anthrax fan or a fellow sufferer of low-budget horror film addiction, I wouldn't go out of my way to track this one down.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Horror Movie from the 80s, May 9, 2006
This review is from: Pledge Night (aka A Hazing in Hell) [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This movie begins with a fraternity getting pledges ready for Hell Week. The first parts of the movie is just fraternity hazing, until one of the frat brothers is possessed by Acid Sid, a pledge that was killed in a hazing incident years earlier. The frat activities are hilarious to watch. "swallow the spoils of war!" This movie is very entertaining.
This is basically Animal House meets Freddy Krueger. I thought it was a fun movie to watch and I have probably watched it a dozen times. I was actually trying to find it on DVD, but I guess they haven't put it on DVD yet. I only have an old vhs copy. I thought it was a well done movie. If you like campy horror movies that were made in the 80s, this one belongs in your collection.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
I was begging for the morning after., October 25, 2009
This review is from: Pledge Night (aka A Hazing in Hell) [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Definitely not the worst movie ever made, but I still found this movie to be ridiculous. I was intrigued to buy the VHS based on the cover, which is probably the only redeeming factor of this film, either that or the soundtrack by Anthrax. All I can say is, I feel really dumb for wasting 90 minutes of my life that can never be lived again.
Sidney "Acid Sid" Snyder (Played by Anthrax's Joey Belladonna) accidentally died in a fraternity prank gone horribly wrong in the 1960s. Almost 30 years later, new pledges are going through initiation rituals. In spite of his mother's warnings, one of the pledges, Larry Bonner, still wants to join. During the weekend, Don, one of the senior pledges, goes bananas and kills one of the fraternity brothers. Turns out, he was possessed by none other than Acid Sid, who later bursts out of Don's stomach. How original...not. Sid is basically a hippie version of Freddy Krueger who just goes around cracking jokes that I could tell better myself. Sid's real purpose in the movie, revealed at the end was a total joke.
I have noticed that people have a soft spot for this film, and while I respect that, I just simply cannot begin to understand why. This was director Paul Ziller's first film, and I can understand that as well. However, it does not excuse the fact that, as Critcon Online said, Ziller copped out and displays the victims' bodies after the murders. Thankfully, this film has yet to receive a DVD release.
I would probably only recommend this to hardcore horror fans as well as HARDCORE (And I mean hardcore) fans of Anthrax. Otherwise, don't bother.
EXTRAS: Grow some hair on that chest as a trailer for No Retreat No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers appears before the movie. This time, it's family!
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