• Directed by Rene Eram
• Written by Brian DiMuccio and Dino Vendini
• Starring
  • Corey Feldman
  • Joel J. Edwards
  • Diane Nadeau
  • Ron Melendez
• Produced by Donald P. Borchers
• Executive produced by Robert E. Baruc and Pierre David

I’ll admit it; after the first shudder of revulsion when Corey Feldman stepped on camera, I didn’t mind him so much. His character, however, is another matter. Read on…

After a set-piece voodoo killing, we meet Andy (Feldman), a college student who has transferred on the spur of the moment to the school where Rebecca, his girlfriend, is studying pre-med. (We know Andy’s a writer. How? Because that’s what he tells the campus cop who gives him directions. What’s he gonna write? He doesn’t know yet. That poisoned me against the character right there. That’s like calling yourself a doctor before you’ve even decided what branch of medicine you’re going to study.) She’s somewhat less than ecstatic to see him, but she tries to help him find a place to stay.

The first stop is the Pi-Nu fraternity. (Wait, wait — as horrible as that is, this is not the fate worse than death emblazoned across the box.) As you would expect, these guys are all assholes, so Andy takes his leave, and meets Cassian Marsh, the black-clad head of a rival fraternity: Omega Zeta Mu. Seems these guys are the spooky-ass fraternity, and they ask Andy to be their seventh member so they can keep their charter. I gotta admit, if there had been a spooky-ass fraternity on campus in the days that I was single and in college (as opposed to the three years I was married and in college), I would have been sore tempted.

Second strike against Andy: As the Omegas grill him to see if he’s their kind of guy, one asks, “Who was the real Bond — Connery, Moore, or Dalton?” Andy answers, “George Lazenby.” From where I’m sitting, this guy now deserves all the guano he gets.

Now, there still has to be a hazing — so Andy is sent to the medical center morgue to retrieve “whatever’s in drawer 103.” After a scare from another Omega, he retrieves a beautiful female cadaver. The campus cop almost catches them outside the building, but they stay cool and get away. (There’s your first clue — is there only one cop on this campus, and does he never sleep? Must be some kinda stay-awake voodoo jazz…)

Anyway. Next day, Andy tells Rebecca that he’s joined the Omegas. She’s less than overjoyed, just as she is about everything. (Note: This subplot is NEVER used. Andy and Rebecca’s relationship just isn’t a part of the plot. She could have been as happy and hyper as a puppy when he showed up, and it would make absolutely no difference.)

The Omegas take him to a bar to celebrate his new-found frathood, and drug his drink; while he’s in a stupor, they take him down to the basement, where a score of people look on as they lay him next to the cadaver he stole the night before. Here’s the only honestly chilling moment of the movie: they wipe the cadaver’s forehead with blood and pour some across her lips (which naturally runs straight back from each corner of her mouth). She then comes back to life, the visual effect of the blood strip running back on either side of her face is very striking. She proceeds to tattoo a snake on his chest.

Next morning: Andy wakes up to find the crazy old man in his room. Did I forget to mention the crazy old man? He’s been hanging around the tree outside the Omega house, looking crazy and hostile; once he ran up to Andy and pulled open his shirt, checking for something and blathering about “before it’s too late.” Now, of course, he seems completely calm and rational, and he explains to Andy that he’s about to be turned into a zombie, just like his frat brothers, all under Marsh’s power. He gives Andy a couple of packets of salt to test what he’s saying: salt, he says, is to zombies what garlic is to vampires. (Nice bit of authentic lore there.)

Oh yeah, while they were gone to the party last night the Pi-Nu boys broke in and trashed the Omega’s house. So this morning, Marsh brings a Ken doll and does a little voodoo ceremony which causes the Pi-Nu leader to go postal — he takes a 12-gauge and does in his entire fraternity.

Andy tries the salt on the frat-brother next to him (puts the salt in his beer, ‘cuz it’s never too early in the morning for beer in this fraternity!), and yup, he reacts very adversely. Andy dives through the window and makes his getaway, but he can’t tell the police (who are cleaning up the splatter at the Pi-Nu house) who caused all the trouble, because he recognizes the officer in charge from the voodoo ceremony the night before. What’s a boy to do?

You know I hate giving spoilers, so I’ll leave the linear plot at this point. Here are some notes and gripes.

- I already mentioned the whole Rebecca plotline as going nowhere. It looks like the screenwriter realized how useless she was, because he shoehorned her into the final scenes: The Omegas capture her and take her to the basement where they want Andy to come. They don’t torture her, she’s not part of a ritual, she’s apparently just bait. But Andy was going there anyway; he didn’t even know she was there until he arrived with his own agenda.

- I really wish blood would dry realistically in just one movie.

- There’s a nice little touch when the Pi-Nu boy goes postal: one fratboy is just exiting his room with a bag of potato chips when he finds himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun. The potato chip in his mouth goes crunch right before the trigger is pulled.

- I kept waiting for Andy to steal a trick from The Lost Boys and go back with squirtguns filled with salt water.

- STOP SLOUCHING, FELDMAN!

- There’s a perfect setup here for some real paranoia. Andy discovers that all sorts of people are members of Marsh’s cult — the police officer, the campus cop, Rebecca’s professor — but there’s never a point when the realization hits him: Anyone could be a cultist, anyone could be an enemy.

- In the final scene, Marsh is made up like a voodoo priest, with cakey white crap all over his skin and fingered through his hair. Unfortunately, it only accentuates his resemblance to Matt LeBlanc from Friends — not exactly awe-inspiring.

The shocker dream-sequence at the end shows a problem with ending the plot where they do: the cultists are still around, even if Marsh isn’t! Seems to me that the cultists would try to exact revenge on Andy and Rebecca. Now is not the time to relax!

All in all, an enjoyable but unambitious little DTV flick. If the major plot problems had been worked out, it might have become a minor classic.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 17 (plus various cadavers)
• breasts: 2 live, 2 dead
• explosions: 0
• dream sequences: 3:
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 1
  • Christian Fletcher, one of the Pi-Nu boys (he’s credited as Pi-Nu Guy #2) did stunts in Star Trek: First Contact