Reaction & Review | Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama

Welcome, one and all, to "Full Moon vs. Troma" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna be continuing this marathon by going back to the world of Full Moon Features. And tonight's movie...has quite possibly one of the longest titles I've come across in a long time. I hate this title, personally, which I'll talk more about in a bit. Tonight's movie is a horror comedy that came out in 1988. That movie is "Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama".

I genuinely thought that this title wasn't going to fit in DA's title description. When I initially read that title back when I first bought this movie, I said to myself that there was NO way in hell I was going to type all of those words into that title description and make fit without having problems. I thought that exact same thing way back when I was covering "Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure", and YET...I didn't have any problems with it's title. And this movie's title is, somehow, no exception. The only lengthy title that gave me any problems whatsoever was "Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher", because I had to do a bit of rearranging with that movie's title, mostly involving the hyphens. The only thing I had to do for this movie's title, similarly to "Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher", was to remove the hyphens from R-A-R, since it was a little bit longer than usual. And yet, despite that, this title barely gave me any problems. I know I shouldn't be pissed about this, but god damn it, I REALLY thought that this movie's title was going to give me problems. Somehow though, that wasn't the case. So...hey, I guess that counts for something.

Anyway...setting the bullshit lengthy title aside, I really don't know very much about this movie. I know that the movie takes place at a bowling alley, I know that it's a horror comedy, and I also know that there's something involving a murderous imp that comes from a bowling trophy. That's LITERALLY all I know. I haven't seen any trailers or clips from the film, so I couldn't tell you my first impressions going in. But I guess I can also mention that there is a sequel to this movie that came out last year. Yeah...somehow, this movie got a sequel 34 years later. Don't know WHY you would wait that long to make a sequel. However, I am not going to worry about the sequel. I have to get through this movie first before I even consider looking at the sequel.

I really have no idea if this film is gonna be any good or not, guys. I bitched about the title, which already leaves me with a bad impression, however, I am not gonna let the title get to me. Because this movie could still be really good. And what kinda gives me hope on that is the director for this film. The movie was directed by a man named David DeCoteau. And he's directed one other movie that I've seen from him, which was "Puppet Master 3". Which is, at least in my opinion, the best Puppet Master movie in that entire franchise. So it does give me some hope that he'll pull off something good with this movie. I don't know if he WILL though. The only way I'm gonna find out if this thing is any good at all, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama".

2 minutes later

Well, guys, I can say this much, so far. The music during these opening credits is pretty catchy. I know you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but I'm kinda digging this opening music. I'm hoping that's a good sign of things to come for this movie.

15 minutes later

So, let me see if I understand this. In order to join this Sorority, Babs wants these two ladies to join our three male characters, who, I should mention, broke into their homes after peeping at them showering naked, to break into the bowling alley to steal a trophy, and bring it back so that they can join the Sorority. Are you fucking serious...? THIS is the entire plot? I mean, granted, I understand it's still very early in the movie, but that just sounds fucking stupid as hell. Now admittedly, this movie could still take this really shallow premise and make it work, but I'm not really sure if it's going to.

18 minutes later

OK, I was sorta curious about this, but now that I've gotten a second look at this janitor here, he looks to be played by George Buck Flower! What the fuck is George Buck Flower doing in this fucking movie?! I hope he has more of a role in this movie other than just being stuck in the janitor's closet, because he's, like, the only character I kinda like in this movie. Well, him and, I guess, Spider, as well. Other than that, I've not found any other likable characters in this entire movie so far, and it's beginning to depress me a little bit.

20 minutes later

All right, guys, I think now is a good time to mention this as any. The puppeteering on this imp is certainly decent...at least, until he starts his moving his mouth. The mouth movements on this imp are kinda shit. Just thought I'd mention that now, since this movie hasn't given me a whole lot to work with, so far. I'm kinda hoping the next half or so is gonna start to get interesting, but, at this point, I don't really think it's going to.

14 minutes later

Well, it took the movie well over an hour, but we finally got a kill that's actually pretty decent. And considering that it's Babs, I'm more than happy to see her fucking die, because she's been the most unlikable character for this entire movie. So hey, you know what? I'm willing to take whatever positives I can get out of this movie, because, so far, there hasn't been a whole lot.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama". And I still hate that fucking title. Let me go ahead and shut this movie off...OK. Jesus Christ, where do I even begin? Well...I guess I can start off by saying this. I initially went into this movie thinking that it was going to be absolutely horrible. Not just because of the fucking title, but because this premise was so stupid that I legitimately thought it was going to completely suck. And it does suck, mind you, but I will say that...it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Again, it's not a good movie by any stretch of the matter. But it's not as horrible as I originally thought it would be. I know that may not sound like much, but I guess what I mean to say is that, while the movie is still really bad, it could've been a hell of a lot worse.

I guess I should segue way into this by talking about the movie itself. Let's start with the writing. The writing for this movie is ridiculously weak. Now I will say that this movie does live up to it's unnecessary long title, but the plot itself is still fucking stupid. So it starts with our 3 male characters, who are also frat boys, just sitting around in their room. One of them gets the idea to go over to Babs' sorority home, because she's holding an initiation for a couple of other women to join their sorority group. And there's a very high chance that they'll be able to see these women naked, so they go over to spy on them because that's what pervs do. So they go and do that, and then shortly after the girls are sprayed with whipped cream, because it's part of this initiation, they go and clean themselves up in the bathroom. Which then leads the boys to break into the house to play more voyeurism, to where they eventually get caught. So as part of a punishment, I guess, they end up joining the other two girls into helping them going through their initiation. The plan? Well basically, like I summarized earlier, Babs instructs them to break into a bowling alley, steal a trophy, and bring it back to the sorority house as proof of their initiation. Now the reason why Babs chose a bowling alley was because her father owns the mall that holds the bowling alley there, and she can have access to the security cameras to spy on them, so that they can have a chance to scare them and rat them out to the police whenever they wanted to. It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but whatever. Point is, this story here is stupid as shit. And for a B-movie, it does kinda work. I say 'kinda', because almost everything else I'm about to explain gets kneecapped by a bunch of issues.

To begin with, most of our characters are ridiculously flat and lifeless. In terms of our 3 male characters, two of them don't even have names, which is rather baffling, considering that almost every other character in this movie, with the exception of the janitor, has names. The only reason I can think of as to why that is is because, a bit of spoiler here, they end up getting killed in this movie. Which I know may not sound like much of an issue, but guys, even other horror movies would at least attempt to give out names to minor characters before they end up dying. But in this movie, they don't get any names. Which is rather lazy, to be honest with you. It also doesn't help that, like I said, their personalities are fucking bland as shit. Which considering that they're frat boys, I guess it kinda makes sense, but still. One of them is a stereotypical nerd, one of them is fat and drinks beer, and the other one, Calvin, is also a nerd, but he's also a goody two-shoes as well, who also tries to get into a relationship with Spider, one of the only female characters that's sorta likable. And since we're on that subject, just about every female character in this movie also has no personality or depth whatsoever. Mind you, Spider is also pretty bland as well, but at least she kinda makes up for it by being a bit of a snarky dick, and she kinda ends up being one of the only two likable characters in this movie. The only other character that I ended up liking was the janitor, but that's mostly because he was played by George Buck Flower. However, I'll get more into that when I talk about the acting. But anyway, just about every other character in this movie is ridiculously bland and lifeless. And in some cases, I wouldn't mind that for a horror movie, but this movie could've benefited from having a reason to care about most of these characters.

And speaking of which, that leaves into talking about the imp. The one I mentioned earlier that gets released from a bowling trophy. And after it gets released, he's able to grant one wish to any of our characters, which then later leads to kinda horrible things for them. Basically, the imp in this movie is the Djinn from "Wishmaster", except he's missing the charm and the background story that made the Djinn interesting to begin with. The movies DOES try to give out some sort of backstory, but there's something...missing about it. Let me attempt to explain this. So, the janitor explains to Spider and Calvin that 30 years ago, there was a bowler who basically sucked bowling. He could never get good at it, and didn't get any better. But then, somehow, he started to bowl perfect games each and every time. Well, somehow, he summoned the imp that granted his wish of becoming a great bowler. And anytime that anyone started to say anything bad about him, they ended up getting killed by the imp. Which then leads to the bowler getting arrested, and later being executed via the gas chamber. And then the imp was later imprisoned in the trophy for the next 30 years. Now, you're probably wondering "What's missing from this backstory"? Well, that's obvious. That would be imp itself. Where the fuck did this imp even come from?! Where did the bowler originally find it? Was it hanging around at the bowling alley? Did the bowler find it from some foreign country? Was it just randomly hanging around at some nothing place? What's the origin story to how this imp even came alive and is able to grant wishes? I want to know the backstory to this fucking imp! But as is, we get nothing like that, other than the bowler found the imp and it granted his wish of becoming a better bowler, so...yippee. Now, I really think that this movie, if it were given a remake, could've explored more about this imp. If Full Moon ever wanted to do a remake of any of their movies, then I think this movie could've definitely benefited from getting a remake. I don't know if Full Moon has ever done any remakes, but if they wanted to, then I think this movie could possibly benefit from one. However, that is probably never going to happen. And as is, we're left with a kind of movie that had some potential of doing something awesome with this imp. But that is not the case here.

So overall, the writing here is definitely the weakest part about this movie. And it could've been a hell of a lot better, had we gotten more of a backstory about this imp. But as is, this is what we ended up getting. Now I don't normally ever get a chance to talk about this much in my reviews, but I want touch upon the casting next, before talk about the acting. Now the reason why I'm bringing this up is because this movie claims that our main characters, specifically our female characters, are college students. And that's a fine claim to make. So...why is it then that our female characters look like they're in their 30's? I'm not kidding about that, guys, our female characters do not look like they came from college. They look to be in their 30's, trying to pretend to look like college students. It doesn't fucking work, and these actresses don't look the part to play these supposed college students. That'd be like if were you to cast a morbidly obese person to play as a fitness trainer. It just doesn't fucking work. So are you telling me that Full Moon couldn't hire any actresses that may have looked like they came out of college? Or were the standards set for the casting of this movie so low that they couldn't be bothered to find anybody who looked young enough to play as college students? I don't know, but whatever the case may be, these actresses were horribly mis-casted. And Full Moon should've known better to find actresses who could've looked the part for these roles. The only one who gets away with it is the actress playing Spider, mostly because she wasn't playing as a college student, she looked more like a biker chick than anything else.

But let's just pretend for a moment that these actresses looked the age to play these characters. Is the acting any good from them? Honestly...no. The acting from, damn near, the entire cast is terrible. The only ones who even tried in this movie were George Buck Flower and Linnea Quigley as Spider. More so the former than the latter, because Spider's actress sounded wooden, mostly in the beginning. As the movie progressed, I did sorta get use to her kinda wooden acting, but just barely. George Buck Flower turned in the best showing, because he's just doing what he does best, which is kinda hamming it up a bit. And that's fine. It's not like he's been given very serious roles to begin with from the few movies I've seen him in. And his style of acting definitely works here, too. But as for everyone else, no. The acting is terrible. Most of it comes from our female cast members, which makes sense given what I just discussed a moment ago. And even the actor voicing the imp sounded kinda like shit. He sounds like a jovial grandfather trying to sound like a more retarded version of Barney the Dinosaur. Don't ask me WHY I thought that. It was just something that kinda struck at me as I was watching the movie. But anyway, the acting here is isn't really good, save for a couple of actors here and there.

Since I just brought up the imp, let's dive right into the special effects. There's very, very little blood here. Which is OK, I guess, but there's nothing much to write home about in terms of the blood effects. Makeup effects here are decent. The only other thing I can talk about is the creature effects on the imp. And it actually looks pretty good, especially coming from a low budget movie. But then again, it IS from Full Moon Features, which is already a moot point. As for the puppeteering, though, it's a little bit shit. And I'm mostly talking about the mouth movements on this imp. Now this may sound like a nitpick here, but in some cases, the mouth movements don't always match up to what the imp is saying. Now admittedly, it's not as poorly done like it was in "Munchies", where in that movie, nobody gave a fuck about matching the mouth movements to what the munchies were saying during that movie. At least here, it's somewhat handled better in this movie, but not by much. So, you just have to take it for what it's worth if you ever have a desire to watch this movie.

Camerawork here is pretty good. The lighting here is OK, but it could've been fine-tuned a bit in some dark areas where you can't entirely see anything. The sound-mix here is mixed perfectly fine. The music here is actually pretty good, both in score and it's soundtrack. Granted, I only heard about one or two songs in this entire movie, but it's still fine for what it is.

Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, can I recommend "Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama"? Um...God, that's a difficult answer to give out. Um...I suppose, maybe, if you like B-movies, and you're curious just based solely off the title, then sure, I guess. I could also possibly recommend this to watch with friends on a bad movie night. I mean, I could see this movie having some good riffing material to work with. But if you're looking for a good movie to watch...then definitely no. I cannot recommend that to those who just want to find something good to watch. Like I mentioned earlier, this movie is not very good. What with it's stupid plot, acting that is mostly poor and some mis-casting, and the puppeteering on the imp looking kinda like shit. However, like I said, if you're someone that just likes to watch B-movies, or even trashy movies for that matter, then you might find something here that's worth your time. However, I cannot guarantee that for everyone. And as for myself...I seriously don't even know if I would want to watch this thing a second time. Maybe if I did, I could see myself liking the stupid bullshit in this movie, but I'm not sure if it's even worth that second viewing. I'll have to really think about whether or not I should give it another watch or just trade it in, because I just don't really know at the moment. For now, though, I'm gonna go and watch something better. And seeing as how I mentioned "Wishmaster" earlier, I think I'm gonna go and watch the first "Wishmaster" movie right now. Because not only is that movie infinitely better, but it has George Buck Flower in that one as well. Granted, he's only in it for a short while, but still. Anyway, I'm gonna go and do that next after I'm done putting this review together.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.