The plot follows a group of sorority sisters being stalked and murdered during their graduation party after they conceal a fatal prank against their house mother.

The film was shot on location in Pikesville, Maryland in the summer months of 1980, with additional photography taking place in Los Angeles.

Their celebration is interrupted by their domineering house mother, Mrs. Slater, who denies the girls' plan to throw a graduation party.

Angered, the girls devise a prank to get back at Slater; they steal her walking cane, place it in the house's unused outdoor pool, and force her at gunpoint to retrieve it.

After returning to the house and forcibly giving Katey a sedative, Beck reveals that Slater had a son named Eric, who was deformed and mentally underdeveloped due to an illegal fertility treatment he had given her.

[4] Rosman had been a fraternity member at UCLA, which he used as a partial basis for writing the screenplay, which focused on a group of sorority sisters who find their lives threatened after covering up a fatal prank.

[8][9] Rosman initially accrued $125,000 as a starting budget, with the help of a friend who worked for VAE Productions, an independent studio that specialized in documentaries, based in Washington, D.C.[10] The majority of the casting for The House on Sorority Row took place in New York City, though Eileen Davidson and Janis Zido were cast out of the Los Angeles area.

[12] Kate McNeil, who was cast in the role of Katey, won the part while still attending graduate courses in New York City.

[14] Lois Kelso Hunt, who portrays the cantankerous housemother, was a local stage actress cast out of Washington, D.C.[15] The House on Sorority Row was the directorial debut of director Rosman as well as the first feature film of cinematographer Tim Suhrstedt.

[20] Vincent Peranio, a frequent collaborator with John Waters, agreed to serve as the film's production designer, and dressed the entire house to appear as a sorority.

[14] The film was a non-Screen Actors Guild production,[24] and Kozak and McNeil both recall receiving $50 per diem compensation for their days on set.

[14][25] While principal photography occurred exclusively in Maryland, additional transitional shots and pickups were completed in Los Angeles.

[28] In an interview with director Mark Rosman, it was revealed that Lois Kelso Hunt's performance is entirely dubbed, as her natural speaking voice was deemed not "scary" enough for the role of Mrs.

In the director's original ending, Katherine is discovered floating dead in the pool, apparently Eric's final victim.

[1] The film's music score was written by Richard Band and performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra,[19] recorded at Wembley Studios.

[33] The House on Sorority Row was given a limited theatrical release on November 19, 1982[34][35] in the United States, opening in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Las Vegas, Nevada.

[35] During its wide release opening weekend in January 1983, the film earned $617,661 showing on 153 screens, ranking a low number 15 at the box office.

[39] Lou Cedrone of The Baltimore Sun felt that there were "no surprises" or mystery in the film, adding that "the movie, bad as it is, is great fun if you are part of an audience that talks back to it".

[42] Frank Hagen, published in the Standard-Speaker, favorably compared the film to the works of De Palma and Alfred Hitchcock, adding that it is "cuts above the routine rip-and-slash fare... Rosman knows how to maintain suspense and deliver a shock or two".

[43] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times praised the film as a "skillfully made horror picture that builds suspense and terror in which obligatory gore is presented with surprising restraint", ultimately deeming it a "promising debut from writer-director Rosman".

[44] The Daily Press's Henry Edgar echoed this sentiment, writing that the film favors suspense over gore, noting it as a "quality" thriller, and praising the performances of McNeil and Davidson, describing them as "credible" and "cunning, and realistic", respectively.

It stars Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis, Jamie Chung, Audrina Patridge, Margo Harshman, and Carrie Fisher.

Director Mark Rosman does his best to stage prolonged moments of suspense, approaching the film’s kill scenes with his Hitchcock influences intact".