By Melissa Antoinette Garza
Some movies are so self-aware that the winks at the camera and jokes for the viewers ruin the film. Nowadays, atrocities like the Scary Movie series and Vampires Suck are perfect examples. The jokes aren’t funny and the entire production is filled with awful punch lines that are old and tired before the movies ever hit the theater.
To be fair, Pledge Night isn’t as bad as those parodies, but it certainly suffers from the same troubles as those above mentioned titles.
For the first hour, the movie is basically a group of horrible fraternity punks putting pledges through disgusting tasks. It’s boring and the characters are really bland yet the acting is pretty decent. Sadly, the script is what is really poor. I definitely don’t mind movies that have a slow build as long as the payoff is worth it, but here it just isn’t. Worse is that the great band Anthrax not only did the music (which was still great) but the band was actually in this below par film.
It does have a few highlights and humorous moments, but the plot is a confused contrived mess that mixes a wannabe Freddy Krueger demonic villain and elements of a standard slasher. At times, it reminded me of the much better Killer Party where the sorority rather than the fraternity was the focus. Unlike the admittedly jumbled Killer Party, there is zero fear factor or atmospheric moments within the production.
The basic story follows our protagonist Larry Bonner (Todd Eastland) who is a new pledge that desperately wants to become a member of a fraternity. His mother is against it as years prior her boyfriend Sid (Joey Belladonna) died during a frat prank. Larry tries to put her mind at ease to no avail.
Soon one of the brothers seems to go insane. At first it’s just another stupid hoax, but slowly Dan (Arthur Lundquist) appears to really go crazy. He begins murdering his frat brothers and laughing hysterically. Lundquist is the highlight of the film. He’s absolutely hilarious in the role and portrayed the character amazingly well. He’s the only reason the movie is watchable.
Sadly, Lundquist isn’t in the latter half of the movie as Demon Sid (Will Kempe) literally comes through Dan’s body and starts doing the killing as a poor man’s Freddy Krueger. As he died in the sixties, he begins to make really lame hippie references which makes little since as when we saw Sid prior to his death, he didn’t appear to be into the whole Woodstock-esque crowd. After all, he was joining a fraternity. Nonetheless, when he resurfaces he has a peace sign necklace and is dressed like he bought a 60s costume at a Halloween store.
The major issue with the film is that there isn’t really focus in the project. Maybe, this is due to editing as I heard they had to cut a lot out to get it down to an ‘R’ rating. If an unrated version is ever released, I’d gladly give it another chance: especially if Lundquist is in it more.
It’s apparent that this wanted to be a parody and a true horror production at the same time. This can be done well. Club Dread is a great example as it was a whodunit horror that poked fun at the genre all the while paying homage to the slasher genre. The Pac-Man sequence still cracks me up. It’s one of the best parodies I’ve ever seen.
Another issue with Pledge Night is that there are moments that should lead to something but doesn’t. (Semi-spoiler alert) For example, at one point Demon Sid tells Larry that he came back to protect him apparently from dying in the fraternity. I assume as we don’t know who Larry’s father is, Sid was basically telling the audience that. The aggravating aspect is for every wink Demon Sid gives to the viewers; he never comes out and says that he’s Larry’s father. This moment which should be a major revelation and the core to the film is two seconds long.
Also, if Sid came back to help Larry rather than for revenge on the frat, why did he kill the other pledges? They weren’t bad guys. They were going through a lot of horrible things during Hell Week, but they were really just like Sid was when he died.
I really wanted to like this film as I think there was something special here, but sadly everything was just muddled. This should have been a basic film with a simple plot, but instead it was just confusing and sadly Demon Sid was just so lame. At times, it was difficult to watch.
When I found this on YouTube, I was really thrilled I could watch it as I had remember seeing the cover of it in video stores when I was a child. Not to mention, it was a low-budget project that had Anthrax in it. How could it not be great? Sadly, the creators, editors or MPAA found away.
When all is said and done, I will say it is oddly worth watching. My husband Steve, brother Geno and I all agreed that Lundquist was fantastic. His scenes were greatly ridiculous. This had the potential of being a cult classic, but the bad dated dialogue from Demon Sid and the length of time it took to get to the mediocre third act ruined it.
Scared Stiff Rating: 4/10
