Some sorority sisters hold an initiation ceremony for two new pledges, Judy and Elizabeth. The final stage of induction into the society is a game of Russian roulette. It's meant to test their bravery. Instead, it takes Elizabeth's life. Years later, the survivors are summoned for a reunion in a remote estate by someone who will stop at nothing to punish the one responsible. That's the ominous setup for Sisters of Death (1977), and being a horror fan I watched a really poor quality print graciously posted to Youtube, and this is my spoiler-free review of it.
Before I get into spoilers, I'll say that it was a good movie. It's arguably less horror than thriller, maybe. There are very few on-screen kills, very little blood and no gore. But the scenes are set up to be tense, and they work really well. The cast is excellent, even though the crew obviously struggled with framing and budgeting.
The most upsetting thing about the movie is how difficult it is to find. I'm grateful that somebody has posted a print to Youtube, but the transfer is terrible. With cinema, we have windows to the past in the form of both sound and vision, and we're squandering it by ignoring maintenance and restoration of these living artefacts. What are we doing as a society, if not preserving the culture we produce, at the very least? Anyway, support your local (or national, or whatever) film archive.
There's a valid argument to be made, in retrospect anyway, that this isn't a horror movie. However, I think the movie thought it was horror, and I think the movie's marketing (such as it was) pitched it as horror. The setup "reads" as 100% horror: A group of girls in a university secret society are summoned to a creepy estate so they can be made to account for the death of their sixth member.
Lots of potential images probably come to mind. A gruesome accidental (or was it intentional?) death during a shrouded induction ceremony. A girl walking tenuously down a darkened hall, while a killer lurks just around the corner (or does he?) Sorority girls going for an afternoon skinny dip in the mansion's pool. And pools of blood as girls are picked off, one by one.
There's literally none of that. This isn't exploitation in any way, but a psychological thriller that messes with your head.
Sisters of Death has maybe 2 on-screen kills, and one of those is an accident. Instead, the "horror" of Sistors of Death is split between anticipation and, well, nature. A spider and a snake both serve as the centrepiece horror for 2 different scenes, and even then the spider scene is only horrific for those with arachnophobia (luckily the scene serves a separate narrative function, so even as a fan of tarantulas I felt the tension of timing.)
The situation itself is horrific in the sense that the sorority girls have definitely been invited to the reunion exclusively so they can be killed. Which one will be the first to die? How will she die? How many will make it out alive, and how?
For me, it doesn't work as horror. It should, of course, because trapping several people and terrorising them is horrific, but even by 1977 that situation was a definite trope. If you hadn't seen it in films like Bloody Pit of Horror, then you've read it in Agatha Christie novel.
It does work as a psychological thriller though, especially in the final scene. In the end, of course there are eventually only 2 left, or maybe 3 or 4 (no spoilers!) and so it comes down to actually, finally determining who killed Elizabeth on the night of the induction ceremony. It's no secret who pulled the trigger, but how did the live ammunition find its way into the pistol? Who was responsible for that?
More importantly, what extremes is a guilty mind capable of in its attempt to convince itself of its own innocence?
That's when the mental "Mexican stand-off" really kicks in. You're convinced by everyone's argument, changing your allegiance after every line of dialogue. I haven't scientifically tested it, but I'd guess it was at least 99% effective. I had no idea who was guilty, or whether anyone was guilty. (Well, considering all the dead bodies I figured somebody had at least become guilty, but I was 50-50 on the accidental death that started it all.)
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the true horror of the movie's story is in the personal interactions of humans.
It starts with the first scene, as you witness stupid college kids performing a stupid induction ceremony.
It crops up again as the 2 chauffeurs tasked with bringing the women to the estate try to assure them that it's safe to get into a car with 2 complete strangers.
Then there's the uneasiness of the women being in a remote estate without an apparent host.
And on and on, until they're accusing one another of premeditated murder.
From the setup, you think you know what you're going to get with this B-grade horror film. This movie isn't what you think it is, and that can obviously be both good or bad. If you're looking for a predictable slasher film with lots of gore and outrageous kills, this is not it. If you're looking for a serious murder mystery psychological thriller, this is also not quite it. If you're looking for a movie with a seemingly unsolvable puzzle of social deduction and a good cast, then this is a great movie to watch.
I'd definitely watch it again, and I'd love to see a restored print!
Photo by Kyle Johnson on Unsplash