Blood Sisters (1987) User Reviews

Possessed nightgown! Strangulation by garter belt! Lesbian hooker ghosts!

[capkronos · 3/10 · 8 May 2003]

While these things may seem like fun new additions to the slasher movie subgenre, this film flat-out fails to deliver on all counts.

It begins with a psycho kid blasting a fat hooker and her trick with a rifle at a whorehouse, before cutting to modern times (13 years later) at the Kappa Gamma Tao sorority house. After wasting time at a bar and with a sex scene, sister Linda (Amy Brentano) takes seven pledges to the now abandoned brothel for an initiation scavenger hunt. The house has been booby trapped by fun-loving frat guys (who look like they're reaching their 40s), but ghosts and a psycho killer show up.

Director/scripter/cinematographer Roberta Findlay, whom I believe is one of the most prolific female filmmakers of all time, handles some of the supernatural scenes reasonably well given the budget (a standout being an interesting ghost/mirror sequence), but, with its low-grade cast of unknowns, dark/dreary atmosphere and derivative storyline, BLOOD SISTERS isn't a bit of fun to watch. And I still have no idea why the house is full of ghosts of people who used to work there since only two murders were actually committed.

Guys just wanting to see sexy babes cavorting around in little clothing may be equally disappointed by the selection of actresses on hand. A few of the actresses are attractive, but aside from Marla MacHart, there are really no stunners here, though some of them do appear topless from time to time. In addition, it's is so slow-moving that it takes nearly an entire hour until the first murder!

Another wasted opportunity.

[BA_Harrison · 3/10 · 30 September 2009]

Thirteen years after a disturbed boy blasts his fat hooker mother and her trick to pieces with a shotgun, a group of sorority pledges must spend the night in the now deserted brothel and participate in a scavenger hunt as part of their initiation ceremony. To ensure a thoroughly terrifying experience awaits for the girls, three frat boys have rigged the house with pranks, but they really needn't have bothered, for the place is not only haunted by the ghosts of dead prostitutes and their customers, but is home to a knife wielding maniac as well.

In my IMDb write-ups for similarly themed horrors The Nesting (directed by XXX film-maker Armand Weston) and The ghosts of Sodom (by Lucio Fulci), I expressed my disappointment over these films' lack of depravity, explaining that, given the salacious premise, they deserved to be filled with plenty of sex and gore, particularly when made by people for whom exploitation should be second nature; unfortunately, Roberta Findlay, also an ex-porn director and the woman behind the infamous shocker Snuff (1976), doesn't fare any better with her haunted hooker horror, just about delivering on the sex front with plenty of topless starlets and a few tame soft-core couplings, but completely screwing up matters when it comes to bringing on the splatter.

According to the interview with Findlay included on the DVD of Blood Sisters, the film was written in a hurry to meet a financial deadline, and her low, low budget wouldn't allow for fancy special effects. Hence we get lots of nudity (tits being much cheaper to film than special effects), and a whole slew of dull, bloodless death scenes designed to save on bucks, including strangulation with a garter, suffocation inside a coffin, a hanging, and a fall down a stairwell.

Combine the lack of blood and guts with an awful script that doesn't start killing the pledges off for about an hour and which ultimately makes not a lick of sense (where did all those other ghosts come from and where did everyone go at the end?), and you have one hell of an unsatisfying film.

Total waste of your time

[ebennett-3 · 3/10 · 4 November 2000]

This movie is awful, nothing was good about it at all. The girls were ugly, the effects were horrible, and the story was even worse. I can't believe they actually made this movie, what were they thinking? Probably nothing, I give this movie a DO NOT BUY or RENT recommendation.

Not worth seeing.

[RishOut · 6 January 2000]

"Blood Sisters" was just a terrible movie. The story went: a bunch (too many, actually) of sorority pledges spend the night in a haunted ex-bordello. Inside, there are a lot of ghosts (including lesbian ghosts, kids), but nobody pays them any mind, they only care about the psycho that slaughters them easily and unnoticed during the night. There was a foreign feel to the film, though I think it was American, and it felt like it was made around 1981, although the tape claimed it was ‘87. There's a ton of nudity and disturbingly pornographic closeups of kissing, and some pretty brutal killings. Listen for great dialogue like, "You don't have a father...do you know what that makes you? A pervert!" Usually, these movies are fun, and I love to watch them, but not "Blood Sisters." It was dark, dull, illogical, and not really worth watching.

Setting the Bar as Low as Possible

[dagonseve · 1/10 · 5 January 2011]

Produced on a shoe string budget, Blood Sisters (aka Slash) is another genre piece that outputs a story all-too-familiar to already established classics from days gone by. Roberta Findlay, the film's director, writer, and cinematographer, wore multiple hats to turn her vision into reality – but more specifically, to ensure her immediate future in terms of finances. Findlay also offered her services as an active cinematographer in '76's Snuff - a film in which I still feel sorry for...an in, feel sorry for anyone involved in that project.

Blood Sisters revisits the same ol' concept of off'ing sorority girls within the confines of a desolate atmosphere. The new pledges of Kappa Gamma must endure a hellacious night of fake scares and buffoonery in an old brothel that witnessed a scandalous murder 13 years prior. As par for the course, the boys over at Sigma doctor the house up with phony- looking Halloween décor and sound equipment to illicit a scare or two from the unsuspecting gaggle of innocents. The game turns sour, however, when real ghost sightings are reported and a psycho is let loose to set the stage for mayhem.

This relatively unknown title is a bit of a hybrid – representative of the supernatural and the Slasher respectively. The ghostly bits are thrown in for good measure…almost a demonstration of "look at what we can do!" If we're following a step by step guide on how to make a Slasher film From the 1980s, which I swear is in publication, then the identity of the killer is revealed in a chopped up ending. To say that every single plot point and device used in this film is a cliché would be a vast understatement. The cast and crew practically boast it from the roof-tops. In one scene a character playfully points out that the car's engine never successfully starts in a horror movie. At least the players and the crew acknowledge that their project is nothing more than a spin-off.

The use of comic relief would have been a welcome reprieve for such a drudgingly dull film. Of course, as I've been known to repeat, the last 10-15 minutes are the only worthwhile moments. The conclusion has somewhat of a sinister feel to it but it's not terribly original either. Blood Sisters has nothing to offer; regarding the level of dedication, even the most accepting fans would find it difficult to enjoy this one. The performances are lousy, the soundtrack sucks, and the dialog could've been written by a highschooler during study hall. To compound such an award winning achievement, the blood droplets found on the victims is too watered down and lacks the consistency of the real thing. As I pointed out earlier, the only reason this film exists was out of desperation, as it shows in every facet. I suggest avoiding this flick unless you're willing to set your standards extremely low. If you're searching for a similar movie but actually done well, try a viewing of 1980's Hell Night starring Linda Blair - now that's a treat.

And, like any good horror movie, the van won't start

[Tender-Flesh · 3/10 · 20 December 2009]

Fresh from helming such projects as The Tiffany Minx, director Roberta Findlay offers up the standard old dark house movie. This is probably the sort of film you might have seen when you were 13 and thought it was great. Well, that's who this film will appeal to. There isn't much going on here except for dumb girls wandering from room to room, subjected to false scares from lame frat boy tricks.

The movie opens with a double murder in a notorious brothel(set in a big old mansion that is shot to look spookier than it really is). Flash forward 13 years(to the day!) when a bunch of low-rent sorority pledges arrive at said home all made up to look like the girls who ran the place a baker's dozen years before. Most of the girls are flat out whores, but then we have a few of the standard "types" such as the athletic girl, the virgin, and the Velma. It takes well over an hour before the bodies start piling up, and if you haven't guessed the killer's identity before then, you should be added to the gallery of pre-implant boobs on parade here.

The girls are, eh, pretty, I suppose, though very annoying and have applied their makeup with paint rollers. The only one I thought was a little better than the rest was the Velma Jewess who whines about her glasses all the time. Better looking, not a better actress. What can I say? I like nerds. Anyway, I found the scenes with the ghostly prostitutes to be annoying and by and large nothing more than filler for a film that already rolls in at under 90 minutes. I was reminded often of Night of the Demons as I watched this, and I recommend that heartily over this film.

Now, this isn't a horrible movie. It's grainy, the acting is not that great, but it's not the worst out there. Consider it lower-middle class in the realms of horror. Surprisingly, there are a few pretty funny(intentional) lines of dialogue. Unfortunately, with a movie in this setting, much of the time you have little more than flashlight light to work with, plus an already grainy film stock, and that detracts considerably.

There are several death scenes, though none are particularly graphic. When girls are stabbed, you don't see any entry wounds, just some blood dribbling down chins and a few arcs of blood on walls or glass. Pretty tame slasher that might amuse the kiddies.

Blood Sisters

[HorrorFan1984 · 3/10 · 14 June 2020]

A group of sorority sisters plan their initiation at a brothel where a horrific murder took place thirteen years prior. What they didn't expect was that the killer has returned to knock off anyone who dares enter the house.

The movie starts with a young boy who enters a bordello of some sorts and uses a shotgun to kill two people who are about to have sex. Fast forward 13 years later to Edmonson College where we see a sorority of girls who have set up a pledge initiaition at the same house where the murder took place. The initiation is that the new pledges have to spend the night at the infamous brothel house for the night. As the evening goes on, a few of the pledges see ghosts wandering the halls and rooms. Pretty soon, someone begins killing the pledges leading to the killer reveal and an unsatisfying ending.

Blood Sisters is one of the those "so bad it's good in a very bad way" low budget horror films from the 80's. I thought it was poorly done with an extremely low budget (of 50K), but it tried to be an entertaining horror film with some supernatural/ghostly scenes of the deceased stalking the rooms of the old house. The acting was bad all around and felt like they were university students who were grabbed off of a campus and offered $100 each to run around and scream for the movie to be completed.

My biggest issue with Blood Sisters is that it drags on and on a bit too much even for my liking. There are too many scenes of the ghosts in the rooms of the house and flashbacks of occurrences from years ago which seem to be filler for the movie. When the killer of this movie finally shows themselves, I'm already feeling a bit bored with the whole thing. The killer reveal is done decently, but viewers can tell a mile away who the murderer is when it is finally revealed. The ending is veruy blah as well.

Blood Sisters was in a DVD collection set that I purchased years back. I was way more interested in the other two movies that came with this for sure. This one is a lame late 80's slasher that does have a bit of effort and heart deep in there.

3/10

You really let me down this time, Roberta!

[Coventry · 3/10 · 6 October 2014]

Roberta Findley doesn't exactly enjoy the status of talented and well-respected director, but personally I always strangely appreciated her work. Admittedly the work she did along with her husband Michael during the 1970's was mostly rubbish (like the imaginatively titled but nearly unendurable "Invasion of the Blood Farmers" and "Snuff"), but when she abruptly became a widow – due to a nasty accident involving a helicopter - Roberta did some enjoyable projects during the 1980's. I'm a massive fan of "Tenement: Game of Survival", for instance, and I also shamelessly enjoyed her trashy accomplishments "The Oracle" and "Prime Evil". I was relatively confident that "Blood Sisters" would pretty much be similar to the latter two titles: insignificant but fun horror time-wasters, with loads of nasty make-up effects and cheerfully gratuitous moments of sleaze. Boy was I ever mistaken! "Blood Sisters" is incredibly boring and lukewarm with no redeeming aspects whatsoever! We're talking dull & derivative plot, ugly broads, zero tension or atmosphere and an unforgivably low amount of gore and bloodshed. What the hell happened there, Roberta? The (clichéd) intro sequences are still enjoyable, though. A young boy who not-so secretly lives in a luxury brothel can't take it anymore, so he grabs a shotgun and blows away his chubby hooker mother and one of her filthy clients. Thirteen years later, the now abandoned brothel serves as the location of an all-girls fraternity initiation ritual. Seven freshmen girls have to spend the night, whilst their frat sisters and lousy boyfriends prepared several pranks to scare them. At least, that's the plan, but naturally an uninvited killer pops up as well. I didn't time exactly how long it took before the first noteworthy scene took place (apart from the intro), but it was definitely more than three quarters of an hour! Until then, there are only overlong dialogs and a few pathetic topless parades. There's a pointless sub plot involving a semi-psychic sorority sister and inexplicable ghostly apparitions. The tame killings are actually 80's unworthy and revelation of the killer's identity is dumb and predictable (but still the highlight of the film).

Slow moving film that when it finally ends you will think it should have been titled "Dumb Sisters".

[Aaron1375 · 2/10 · 6 October 2011]

I got this movie on a three pack of horror films called Bloody Schoolgirls. I have watched this one and another called One Dark Night. I am so glad One Dark Night was a part of this collection because it was enjoyable, this one was not. The only thing it had going for it was a few instances of nudity, but even that was nothing that would take your breath away. The film shows two people being killed with a shotgun in a brothel at the beginning of the film. Flash years later and we are at a final initiation ceremony that leads to a horrible looking party. Lots of chatter, but it ends up with some guys rigging the old whorehouse from the beginning of the film with some scary stuff and lots of pledges going to said house to stay the night. Well they make it to the house and are told they then have to do a scavenger hunt and we have the longest sequences ever of nothing happening. There are lots of girls and no killing until nearly an hour in! When the killing starts girls are taken out like every couple of minutes, but do not expect any elaborate killings or cool kill effects, these are going to be some pretty standard kills. The film takes way to long to set up, there are scenes that seem to have no relevance to the plot as they do not make sense. You will witness prostitutes that seem to be ghosts wandering the halls, but only thirteen years have passed since the place was closed and it was indicated that only the two shown at the beginning died, so why now is the place full of ghosts of women who most likely are still alive and well? There are also two mirror scenes where a girl witnesses a sexual act and these also have no relevance to the plot in the end. Simple padding is all it seems to be here. When the killings finally begin to happen and the remaining ones become aware of the killing they leave the house and promptly go back in because it is to cold outside. Why not walk to the street which is not exactly far away from that final shot of the cop car pulling up shows instead of going into the house with the psycho killer? Watched this film twice and it was more enjoyable the second time as I listened to the Joe Bob Briggs commentary and laughed as he was thinking the same things I was when I was watching it. One watches a film like "The Beyond" where Fulci kills a person in a creative and inventive way and you never have to wait more than ten minutes for a kill, then you watch a film like this where you wait nearly an hour before things to happen and then it comes to quick and people are being simply shot, strangled and stabbed with very little gore. Boring to the extreme, nudity only helps so much.

Seems older than a 1987 production!

[LasKeepsItReal · 5/10 · 30 December 2016]

The following review is for the horror film Blood Sisters and there will be several spoilers throughout.

Blood Sisters is about a group of college sorority students lead by Linda who persuades them to be blindfolded and taken to an old house.

The house has a dark history as many years previously it used to be a brothel where prostitutes had been murdered there and it is now considered haunted. The ladies must stay there for the night as part of an initiation and before long there are some strange and unusual things going on in the house.

Some of the girls are either intrigued by the dead spirits of the house or even behave seductively visions of the sleazy happenings of the house come to light.

Later on the ladies start to be murdered in several disturbing and even torturing ways including one lady who is put in a coffin that is nailed shut, there is one scene where a woman is attacked before she is killed and her friends just run away without even helping her and even one girl completely vanishes without no explanation as to what happened to her.

The effects are standard and there is some blood but little creativity. I did not particularly engage with many of the characters as most of them were too alike. Blood Sisters is what i would think of an average horror film for the time period when it was released in 1987 although it appeared to be a few years older than that and by this time many more unique ideas had been used in horror films although the history of the house and the twist ending which involves one of the main characters made it worth a viewing.

I would rate this film 5 out of 10!

PERVERT! PERVERT! PERVERT!

[nogodnomasters · 8/10 · 14 April 2019]

This is a poorly made, poorly acted film about a haunted cat house. The film opens with a murder in the house apparently committed by a child. It then flash forwards to 13 years later when sorority pledges must spend a night in what is an overtly haunted house. No suspense build up. Nudity is provide by Amy Brentano and Gretchen Kingsley.

I do not recommend watching this 1 star film when the menu pops up. Instead go the the extras and watch the film with the Joe Bob Briggs commentary. That is worth 8 stars. You need to get the DVD which features the additional commentary, some don't have it.

Awesome!

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 18 March 2021]

You know, I find myself loving the films of Roberta Findlay more and more. They never have a great budget. They rarely have anything even approaching bad acting. And yet every time, I stick with them because she knows how to make a cheap exploitation movie. Isn't that what it should all be about?

This movie has a Pieces style opening, as a young boy is called a pervert because he doesn't have a dad. What he does have is a prostitute for a mother who lives in a big mansion with plenty of other ladies of ill repute. Moments after we process that, our friend the little boy walks in on his mom making money-assisted love to one of her johns before they both get shotgun blasted and we fast-forward ten years and change.

I'm in. You did it again, Roberta.

Now, that very same house is supposedly haunted and the girls of an Edmonson College sorority must enter it as part of a scavenger hunt. This is when, you guessed it, people start dying.

Before that, it takes a long time to get there, but Findlay pulls off that rare trick of making us learn and believe in these characters instead of rushing them into the gaping maw of death, you know? Pretty neat for a movie she made just to pay her taxes.

Amy Brentano, who plays one of the girls named Linda, also shows up in Findlay's even better Prime Evil. Shannon McMahon*, who is Alice, is also in Screwballs and Pledge Night. McMahon would go on to direct her own film, 2016's Waking the Wild Colonial, which had Brentano in the cast.

Speaking of filmmakers, Larry is played by John Fasano, the man that made two of the most metal movies ever, Black Roses and Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare.

Of all the lessons that Findlay can teach us of how to make a great small time horror film. perhaps the best is that she certainly knows how to hire the right poster artist.

Hazing Garbage

[saint_brett · 1/10 · 2 November 2023]

Strange start to the movie, which sees a seven-year-old boy propositioning a fellow student.

Failing to reach a fair price, she shames him by name-calling.

The filthy-minded child lives in a bordello and is surrounded by economy-looking heavy sets.

With no homework to do, the child pulls out a shotgun, and it's pointed and discharged. We jump 13 years later.

Oh, not more of this Capa Gamma Greek-inspired frat house pledging business. It's so 80s.

Do they even practice this anymore today?

Wow, who likes watching rich kids party in their exclusive worlds that are funded by their parents?

A good 10-15 minutes is wasted on this to rub their white privileged ways in the viewers faces to prove how unlikeable any character is.

The only one I'm sympathetic to is the nerdy chick wearing glasses.

You have to wonder why this used TV salesman, Larry, is hanging around these teens who are twice as young as him.

A silly hazing ritual sees a bunch of sorority pledges set up to stay the night in a rundown bordello and stop right there around the 24-minute mark.

The ghost of a 400-pound escort graces the screen - she's a zero - and this is the same effect employed in Linda Blair's 'Hell Night.' It must have been new-wave technology at the time.

The girls must survive a bordello rigged with fake props and cheap jump scares in order to make the cut and prove themselves worthy of advancing in this exclusive Greek American tribe of snobs.

Why go through these childish antics when you can just join the boy scouts or girl guides?

They roam around the house in a scavenger hunt searching for required treasures, and the movie's in need of an energy drink or adrenalin shot as it's very immature and ho-hum.

Flashbacks keep occurring about the madams of the house, and they're all byproducts of Hagar the Horrible. Not a decent one among 'em.

A possessed nightie turns one girl into Kate Bush in a scene of sensuality.

This is just the idea of rich kids having fun in their white-lily world.

I never attended college or joined any pledges, so I can't associate with or gravitate to this environment. What do I care?

I'd almost recommend you watch 'Bikini Girls on Ice' but that's painful in itself.

Um, 'The Initiation' is a better recommendation, but not that reimaging trash.

The girls continue to scavenge even though they've been informed that it's all just a hoax, but then the real murders start taking place in a Boy Who Cried Wolf manner.

The second prettiest girl dies first: Cara. I'm not so sure about that frozen surfboard look on her face, though. "You better wipe that bad look off your face, Creed." Apparently the deviant boy from the start is inside the house with them and not playing to the script.

Not that it's related, but I had a dream the other night where these decayed entities said to me, "Are you going to play with us or are we going to play with you?" I'm an hour into this and have had my fill.

Once I lose interest in a movie, then my reviews start to suffer as a consequence.

This does nothing for me.

I think the chick I'm cheering for is called Bonnie. At least she's down to earth and not uptight and stuck up like the other robots. They're really not likeable characters.

The girls slowly realize the danger is real and immanent, so one soldier braves the elements and decides to hotfoot it cross-country to the highway for help.

She's stalked by what looks like Crazy Fat Ethal from that 'Criminally Insane' movie, but manages to outrun her and eventually brings the fuzz back while everyone else has been murdered by now.

Tom Petty sang about free falling - that's how the one I was cheering for dies.

It turns out the killer is Bug from 'Uncle Buck,' and he has a fetish for wearing women's lingerie and has held his childhood proposition grudge all this time.

I always get this director mixed up with Rachel Talalay and Kathryn Bigelow.

Do yourself a favor and watch one of their movies instead.

Although watching the bonus features of 'Blood Sisters,' Findlay seemed like a nice enough person and down to earth.

I'm surprised a female director used a lot of female sleaze in her movie.

That's generally reserved for slobs like: Never mind.

Boy, the horror genre is sure ball and chained by a lot of junk it has to carry on its shoulders.

nonsensical tale of college bimbos offed by a psycho

[thomandybish · 27 April 2001]

Bland effort from Roberta Findlay has a group of college girls spending the night in an old house as part of a sorority initiation. Seems that the house had been a cathouse where some grisly murders were committed years before by the out-of-wedlock son of one of the trollops. Guess who still lives in the house? Guess what happens to the stock assortment of chicks who populate this film? If ever a movie's plot was made up as the movie was being lensed, it's this one. And the ending makes no sense--come on, give us someone in this movie to feel sympathy for! Guess that's just the Findlay touch.

Weird Combination of a Slasher and a Ghost Story

[forecastfortoday · 3/10 · 19 June 2010]

College and sorority slashers have never been very popular. With movies like Girls Nite Out and The Initiation (both from 1984), sorority slashers tend to be less liked when compared to the movies that inspire them (Psycho, Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc.) with the exceptions of Black Christmas and The House on Sorority Row (and even then, The House of Sorority Row isn't even really THAT good). Not surprisingly, this movie isn't very good either. I would personally place it below The Dorm that Dripped Blood and above Splatter University.

It's 1974, a little boy tries to talk a little girl into getting naked for him, which she refuses and calls him a pervert. He then runs home, which happens to be a brothel where several (Extremely unattractive) hookers and their johns roam around in the bedrooms. The little boy comes into one room to find his mother with her john, to which he reacts by blasting them both dead with a shotgun. Thirteen years later, a woman named Linda (played by the somewhat pretty but bad acting Amy Brentano) is taking the new pledges for her sorority to the now empty brothel for a scavenger hunt. The scavenger hunt in the empty house is to test their maturity and courage, so if they finish the scavenger hunt without chickening out they can be part of the sorority. Once night falls the girls begin seeing apparitions of the dead hookers, and eventually the girls begin getting killed one by one...

The movie, while having a fairly interesting plot line, falls flat on it's face from the HORRIBLE acting, the poorly drawn out characters, and a very downbeat ending. While the ending is something unexpected and very different from typical slasher endings, it ends up being a mean spirited rip-off of the ending to Unhinged (1982). The actual characters, while badly written and badly acted, are actually pretty likable (especially our two final girls, Linda and Alice) so in the end, I wanted to scream "RUN!!!! RUUUNNNN!!!!!!" to the characters who ended up not surviving.

One of the only positives to this movie is the directing. Roberta Findlay (probably one of the very few female horror directors I know of) adds some very well done, if not breath taking, atmosphere into the movie by doing some things like shots of the autumn sky during the main title sequence, showing ghosts in the reflection of mirrors, and even some Argento style lighting during some of the murder scenes.

Overall, the movie isn't very good. Badly acted, badly written, and a terrible ending. As a slasher, the movie isn't great, and as a movie in general, it's pretty damn bad. Even Roberta Findlay admitted that she made the movie for a quick way to get money. I think the best time to watch this movie would definitely have to be a movie night with a bunch of drunk friends. Other than that, I would probably not recommend this.

Really bad, creepy dark house slasher featuring annoying sorority girls and dead prostitutes

[bfan83 · 4/10 · 1 March 2009]

Yes, we all know that Roberta Findlay is far from a great filmmaker. But one thing I can say is that she knows how to please horror fans.

BLOOD SISTERS opens up with a young boy who is taunted by a young girl he likes because his mother is a prostitute. He flips out and murders his mother and her John in cold blood by blowing them away with a shotgun. 15 years later, Linda, the leader of a popular sorority on campus drives 7 of her pledges out to the former brothel where the young boy murdered his mom, as a hazing. It is now rumored to be haunted by her ghost. Throughout the night, they are stalked and killed off by a fat prostitute, who may or may not be the ghost of the prostitute mother.

BLOOD SISTERS, albeit, really cheesy and features some of the worst acting I have seen, is actually quite suspenseful and atmospheric. Robert Findlay did a decent job creating a sense of doom and suspense as the girls wander off alone and are brutally murdered. For the pervs out there, yes there is a decent amount of nudity in the film. I was slightly disappointed with the gore. Thee wasn't a lot of it and there was only one truly disturbing death in the entire film. A couple of things I didn't like about it also was the downbeat ending, which had me screaming at the TV, and the fact it took almost 40 minutes for the first person to die!! Other than that, it's a fun, spooky, and sometimes trashy mid-80s slasher flick that any horror fan should enjoy. Media Blasters released this on DVD a couple years back. Scour ebay and pick yourself up a copy.

Far From Great, But Decently Entertaining

[ObscureCinema101 · 5/10 · 7 June 2012]

Sometimes, I come across a movie that feels like it shouldn't exist, but it's just THERE. It serves no purpose, no one notable is involved, the film doesn't DO anything notable; it's just filling up space. BLOOD SISTERS is one of those movies.

For its initiation, the leader of a sorority takes seven pledges to an abandoned and supposedly haunted brothel in the middle of nowhere. Soon, someone dressed as a whore begins killing them off one by one.

It's really hard to talk about BLOOD SISTERS just because it doesn't really do anything worth talking about. It does have one or two original thoughts in its otherwise brainless head, but it fails miserably. However, it does manage to entertain despite itself.

As far as originality goes, the only somewhat inventive idea is that the whorehouse really is haunted, and maybe we're supposed to assume the killer is possessed by the spirits (maybe). I might say the lack of answers is intended and meant to get the audience thinking any other day of the week, but here, it just feels like lazy writing.

The film takes a really long time to get to the kills, and the hour that isn't spent on deaths is spent on a scavenger hunt the pledges must take part in. When we get to them, he kills aren't too original or even gory for that matter, which aids in BLOOD SISTER's "What's the point?" feel.

It also has some really laughable moments as well, including one shot where we see what looks like an action figure wrapped in black paper fly past a character while on a clearly visible string! It's never explained what this is, but I think we're supposed to assume this is supposed to be one of the ghosts. Then there's the stupid characters that always split up, the obvious dummy falling down the stairs, the classic line "Eat my shorts, tampon breath! I really saw something!" and the very stupid killer reveal.

The film fails on nearly all levels, from fleshed out characters, to suspense, to likable characters, and even to deaths. Director Roberta Findlay even admitted that this was done solely by the studio's request to make money. The final product certainly shows it. It's not as bad as other reviews would have you think, but it's far, FAR from top-quality material.

Don't take this as a warning to stay away; just don't expect much. I went in with low expectations and I enjoyed myself. Hopefully, you will too.

Enjoyable supernatural slasher schlock

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 19 July 2010]

Seven lovely and sexy college sorority pledges have to spend the night in a haunted bordello. Naturally, the gals start getting picked off one by one by a mysterious killer. Boy, does this lovably lousy flick possess all the right wrong stuff to qualify as a real four-star stinkeroonie: fumbling (mis)direction by the notorious Roberta Findlay (who also wrote the extremely talky and uneventful cookie cutter script), a plodding pace, a grating and overblown ooga booga synthesizer score by Michael Litovsky and Walter E. Sear, hilariously horrendous dialogue (favorite line: "Eat my shorts, tampon breath! I saw something!"), clumsily staged murder set pieces, chintzy (far from) special effects, dumb false scares, and zero suspense or creepy atmosphere. Of course, we also get plenty of yummy gratuitous female nudity and several leering soft-core sex scenes. Special kudos are in order for the gloriously godawful acting, with stand-out endearingly atrocious contributions by Amy Brentano as snooty head sorority sister Linda, Elizabeth Rose as awkward bespectacled dweebette Bonnie, Cierste Thor as sensitive psychic Cara, Marla Machart as the whiny, sarcastic Marnie, and Dan Erikson as deranged cross-dressing homicidal maniac Ross. Ubiquitous 80's East Coast exploitation cinema mainstay Ruth Collins has a small part as a prostitute. Findlay's reasonably polished cinematography boasts some nice lighting and a few impressive compositions. This movie deserves a few extra points for its surprisingly grim ending. A total cruddy hoot.

Surprisingly great!!

[kyleallencole9 · 7/10 · 26 January 2019]

This 80s sorority slasher was alot of fun. The eerie location and the ghostly images were a perfect touch. Plus the spooky music was very nice as well. Pretty good at keeping the identity of the murderer a secret until the end. Definitely recommend!!

* out of 4.

[brandonsites1981 · 29 May 2002]

For a sorority initiation, a group of pledges and there pledgemaster must spend the night in a haunted bordello. A killer also happens upon the scene. Slow moving slasher film with no appealing characters, little logic, poor effects & music score, and slack direction. A total failure in all respects. Rated R; Nudity, Sexual Situations, and Violence.

1987 - What a year

[wdgreen · 8/10 · 5 July 2008]

I've read a number of scathing reviews of this flick here at IMDb. Look, it's no Wild Bunch, but it does have some heart. The story, such as it is, has some intrigue to it. And the cast, gives it their best shot. I've sat through movies where the cast was clearly phoning it in, but I felt like the whole gang was giving it all they had. And how many films of this genre actually attempt any type of character development. One of the weak points of all 80s slasher films.

Thats not to say you'll care for all the characters - most of them are self absorbed nags. But again, that was the 80s for you. I don't remember knowing a single female that wasn't utterly self absorbed.

The location and set dressing was more than adequate for this type of movie, especially considering the budget.

Point is, you'll never think about this movie once after you've seen it, but there are many worse ways to kill 90 minutes than Findlay's Blood Sisters.

More Boobs Than Gore

[Michael_Elliott · 8 April 2016]

Blood Sisters (1987)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A group of sorority sisters head to a house that has been abandoned for thirteen years. It turns out that a boy murdered his prostitute mother and one of her lovers in the house. Soon the girls are seeing strange visions and begin getting murdered.

BLOOD SISTERS is another low-budget movie from cult filmmaker Roberta Findlay, which really doesn't have too much going for it. I'm willing to bet that fans of the director will enjoy being able to see her working during the slasher era but she admits on the DVD bonus features that there really wasn't much motivation for her to create a good movie.

It's clear Findlay was working on a low-budget and this means all the gore is missing and the death scenes take place off screen. You know, I've always wondered why people bothered making these types of films if their budget wouldn't allow for special effects. Instead of gore we've given countless nude scenes, which help the sleaze factor but even this gets boring after a while. The performances are mostly laughable and there certainly aren't any scares.

BLOOD SISTERS is certainly a forgettable movie that has some mildly amusing moments.

Horror by-the-numbers

[lor_ · 21 April 2023]

My review was written in June 1987 after watching the movie on Sony video cassette.

"Blood Sisters" is a relatively new horror film (lensed last year under the generic title "Slash"), but relies on an old-hat format that genre fans tired of at least five years ago. Pic bypassed theatrical distribution for home video use instead.

Filmmaker Roberta Findlay's script mixes one part "The Nesting" and one part "Hell Night": seven pledges to Kappa Gamma Tau sorority ar escorted to a spooky old mansion by sorority sister Linda (Amy Brentano), where they have to spend the night without getting scared while searching for objects (a la scavenger hunt) as their initiation assignment. Of course frat boys have rigged up the place with practical joke tricks.

Per a helpful prolog sequence, she was a brothel 13 years ago where a prostitute and her customer were killed by shotgun blasts. Sure enough, the traumatized little boy (locked in a room by his prostie mother during childhood) has grown up and is killing the pledges one by one. Adding a supernatural element, the girls, to varying degrees, see hallucinations in the mansion (especially in mirrors) of the ghosts of the dead prostitutes and their customers.

PIc consists mainly of the girls wandering around the house searching with flashlights, picked off in gory fashion. There is plenty of nudity and softcore sex (including the requisite lesbian scene) but no scares and little of interest. As a snotty pledge, Maria Machart is the prettiest actress in the cast, but none of them have challenging roles. Special effects are minor.