Killer Party is a 1986 Canadian supernatural slasher film directed by William Fruet, and starring Martin Hewitt, Ralph Seymour, Elaine Wilkes, Joanna Johnson, Sherry Willis-Burch, and Paul Bartel.
It follows a trio of female sorority pledges who unleash a demonic force after participating in an initiation ritual in an abandoned house on their university's campus.
Released in May 1986, it was the last film in the original library of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer titles dating back to 1924, following the studio's sale from Kirk Kerkorian to Ted Turner the same month.
During hell week, the sorority's housemother, Mrs. Henshaw, urges the women not to hold their initiation rituals at Pratt House, an abandoned fraternity nearby.
Veronica, the mean sorority's leading member, demands Vivia recreate the prank during an upcoming April Fool's Day masquerade party at Pratt House.
At a committee meeting for the university's Greek society, Professor Zito recalls the hazing ritual 22 years ago that resulted in Allan's death by a guillotine.
At the party that night, Vivia's prank is hatched during Veronica's toast, and Jennifer is dragged into the basement by a hidden cord while the partygoers watch in horror.
[7] Actress Sherry Willis-Burch revealed in an interview that her character Vivia was initially meant to be killed early in the film when she first was given the role, but was rewritten to survive until the very end.
[9] Michael Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram panned the film as "a sorry waste of John Lindley's impressive camerawork, of players whose abilities range from competence to excellence, and of a disciplined and even sporadically tasteful job of directing from William Fruet".
[10] Critic Joe Bob Briggs gave the film a slight recommendation based on its excessive number of murders, but deemed its supernatural elements redolent of The Exorcist (1973) and Poltergeist (1982).
[11] Roger Hurlburt of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel gave the film a one-star out of four-star rating, deeming it a "discount offering... Killer Party fails on every count".