i must have seen a different film!!

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Pledges find out that "Hell Week" is nothing when they are trapped in a frat house with ghost killer Acid Sid, a 1960s hippie who was accidentally killed in a pledging ritual gone bad. Now what a hippie was doing pledging a fraternity is another question. This is one of those 80s horror flicks that is just there for the killing and from a porn producer trying to go legit. The Sid stuff is semi-interesting, but never fully explored in favor of pledge initiations. It is also never explained/shown how he came back to possesses a dude, only to later burst through his stomach in DEMONS-esquire fashion. Sadly, lots of the gore (highlighted in the pages of Fangoria) was cut for the US home video release. So you will have to continue to hope a film does "Death by eggbeater" justice. The film ends with a silly bit with the hero pledge finding out Sid is his father and the ghost was just back to protect him. In the 60s flashback, Sid is played by Anthrax singer Joey Belladonna (someone else plays him later under all of the burn make up). Belladonna's band also supplied some tunes, which seem to have been crammed in and don't fit the scenes they play over at all. As a film, this carries on the long horror tradition of fraternity brothers and pledges being offed. Which, of course, begs the question, "Who would win in a fight - PLEDGE NIGHT or RUSH WEEK?" My money is on HELL NIGHT, suckas!

What we have here is another entirely redundant and ineptly processed 80's fraternity-slasher that isn't worth watching at all. Okay, I say it isn't worth watching, but somehow I always end up tracking them down because they usually feature at least some good killing sequences and/or a nice trivia-element. The trivia highlight of "Pledge Night" is that it briefly stars Joey Belladonna, the heavy metal singer whose band Anthrax also provided this cheap B-movie with a totally inappropriate soundtrack. Belladonna's part is small but important, as he appears in a flashback as a fraternity member that accidentally got killed during an initiation prank involving an acid bath. 18 years later, the vengeful spirit of Sid returns (now played by another actor) to kill the members of the new Phi-Epsilon-Nu fraternity and protect his own son from getting pledged. "Pledge Night" is a truly typical 80's slasher-picture, meaning that the emphasis lies more on vulgarity and toilet humor than on suspense and a decent script. This movie even exaggerates with its humorous overtone, as it takes nearly 45 minutes before the first actual death scene occurs. Before that it's just a very long series of, admittedly inventive, crazy pranks and demented initiation rites. The new members of Phi-Epsilon-Nu are forced to race with cherries squeezed between their butt cheeks (and then eat them, of course), eat worms & other unappetizing stuff and undergo spankings with a wooden paddle. It's all fun at first, but after half an hour you do start wondering when somebody will finally get killed! I actually feared that the murderer wouldn't show up at all and that the whole movie would just be a predecessor to such rancid teen-comedies as "American Pie" or "Van Wilder: Party Liaison". Director Paul Ziller too seemed to realize his film was lacking a point, and suddenly the killing sequences follow each other at fast pace. Most of them are lame and happening off-screen, but there are a handful of deaths scenes that undemanding horror fans might appreciate. One poor girl has a blender shoved down her throat and another guy (the token black guy) gets strangled by a human spine. The poorest sucker of them all dies when a cherry bombs is planted up his ass; ouch! The effects are incredibly cheesy and especially the whole make-up job on "Acid Sid" wouldn't even scare a five-year-old girl. The 'emotionally touching' denouement is retarded and completely misfits the comical tone of the overall movie. The acting performances vary from really bad to downright terrible and it came as a real relief to watch some of them insufferable characters dying. "Pledge Night" is a genuine turkey, only recommended in case you absolutely want to see every inane slasher movie made in the 1980's.

The producers Shapiro/Glickenhaus, who were also responsible for one of my all time-trash favorites (Frank Henenlotter´s "Frankenhooker") made another "Friday"-rip off possible, which is better than most of the reviews say about it (What does not mean that "Pledge Night" is a good film!)...The story is about a sadistic student´s establishment-ritual, where the newcomers have to drink from toilets or get branded... (That´s the first half of the film..!). One night however the monstrous Acid Sid, who looks like Alice Cooper with a cauterized face, returns and starts to take bitter revenge, because the trick they played on him about twenty years ago has been a little bit too deadly!Probably the most interesting fact is that Joe Belladonna, former vocalist of the US-Speed Metal-Band Anthrax, has a small role. The rest is business as usual: some dumb youths get killed one by one, just with the difference that you mostly don´t see the murder, only the results... The most grotesque death is when a guy is strangulated by a spine.It´s okay to watch "Pledge Night" one time, if you haven´t seen it you won´t miss anything!

I don't know which was more depressing, the fact that this was made or the fact that i rented it.... Acting was sub-awful Plot was lame, re-hashed, and putridly stupid The killer looked like a KISS star on crack. If you actually want to rent this, go ahead. The movie will serve as its own punishment.