Pledge Night (1988) User Reviews

A film of two halves.

[BA_Harrison · 5/10 · 24 April 2016]

Anthrax were always the most playful of thrash metal's 'big four', so it wasn't a big surprise for me to find that supernatural slasher flick Pledge Night, in which Anthrax singer Joey Belladonna has a blink-and-miss-it cameo, is far from serious. In fact, the first 40 minutes or so comprises almost entirely of juvenile hell week pranks perpetrated on new pledges by the brothers of the Phi-Epsilon fraternity; there's no horror whatsoever! All of this is really quite tedious and not in the least bit amusing, so it's a relief when the blood finally begins to flow, no matter how cheesy it all happens to be.

The fun really starts when Phi-Epsilon brother Dan (Arthur Lundquist) becomes possessed by the spirit of Sid, a fraternity pledge who died twenty years earlier when a hazing prank went horribly wrong. Controlled by the malevolent spirit, Dan kills a bloke sat on the toilet, stabs another in the back with screwdrivers, electrocutes a girl in the bath, rams a food whisk down another's throat, and blows up some poor sap's butt with a cherry bomb. These deaths are relatively gore-free, but the film eventually delivers a few cheap but entertaining splatter effects after Sid emerges from Dan's back, Freddy Krueger style, and goes in search of more victims: we get strangulation with large intestine, an exploding stomach, a 180 degrees head twist, and one victim who is killed by having his head pushed into Sid's gaping stomach wound!

On top of all this incredibly silly horror nonsense, Pledge Night also manages to deliver that other staple of the genre, gratuitous female nudity, serving up a grand total of six pairs of breasts, and a metal thrashing mad soundtrack courtesy of… you guessed it… Anthrax!

3/10 for the woeful hazing antics of the first half; 6/10 for the second, horror-packed half. That's an average of 4.5/10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.

Not as bad as I thought it would be

[chanvat · 6/10 · 12 November 2004]

This movie is definitely a case of its so bad its good. Coming into this film I expected it to be your stereotypical movie about frats with hazing etc etc and some humor mixed in. However, I was dead wrong, as this film is full of total cheese. Even the one liners from "Sid" were hilarious, such as "This is for Spiro Agnew" when he kills someone. The concept of a hippie monster has to be one of the most original out there and I commend the filmmakers for it. I noticed to make the film genuine they even filmed it at a frat house in Rutgers. For the budget this film was under I have to give the film company much respect. Overall, definite recommendation if you are a college student, but it might not be for everyone. 6/10

Avoid it.

[bigpappa1--2 · 5/10 · 20 May 2000]

A frat house, during hell week, is attacked by a pledge that died in a hazing accident more than twenty years ago. Though there is some creative effects and deaths, this isn't as much fun or enjoyable as other slasher films. This film was made by people who used to make porno's and had to be cut to avoid an X. Another complaint- too much male nudity and not enough naked girls. 4.5 out of 10.

I'm Astounded that Anyone Has Seen This Film

[arthurlundquist · 13 September 2002]

I just wanted to thank everyone who has ever gone to the trouble to see PLEDGE NIGHT. We shot it for next to no money in a couple of actual frat houses at Rutgers University in the middle of a blizzard in January of 1988 (any brothers out there remember us?). My name's Arthur Lundquist, and I played Badman Dan, the frat brother pretending to be brain damaged, who gets to kill off half the cast until the demon who drives me takes on human form and bursts through my stomach.

It was just a cheap slasher film, but the blizzard gave us some extra atmosphere, the stuff about fraternity initiations is actually pretty accurate, and I think Acid Sid is pretty cool.

We lost a lot of stuff in order to keep an R rating. We actually shot the frat boy having to swallow a worm, and you never got to see me pour honey over the poor guy's face and then dump a pile of positively enormous cockroaches on top. And when I killed the girl with the egg beater, there was a moment when I study her face, examining the condition of death, which becomes slowly more disturbing to me. Alas, the censors decreed that we could show breasts and we could show blood, but we could not show breasts and blood in the same shot. So out went that moment. Too bad, 'cause I think it had my best work in the entire film.

Oh, the girl who I electrocute in the bathtub? You are seeing her in her last day as an actress. She never got a break, and had decided to leave acting, but wouldn't do it till she had at least one speaking part in a feature film. She got this part, and it wasn't great, but at least it had dialogue. She spent the whole night in a bathtub, which got progressively colder and colder as the (January) shoot went on. We shot the scene, it proved that someone liked her work enough to cast her in a feature film, and the next day she got on a train and left New York and acting forever. I wish her well.

Me, I'm still out there. If you liked PLEDGE NIGHT, you might want to give THE REGENERATED MAN a glance. As a kid who grew up watching ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS and RETURN OF THE APE MAN on late night TV, it feels nice to think that someone might come across my work late on a cold winter's night.

Arthur Lundquist

Pledge this!

[udar55 · 2/10 · 15 January 2010]

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!

Death by...Anthrax!

[Coventry · 3/10 · 11 January 2007]

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.

Pure tripe

[Maciste_Brother · 1/10 · 2 September 2003]

I had the misfortune of watching PLEDGE NIGHT on video. It's such a terrible movie that it makes BLOODSUCKING FREAKS look like MASTERPIECE THEATRE. The entire cast was uniformly homely. They should all have worn paper bags over their anonymous heads. There are good bad movies, like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE which is entertaining despite its total ineptitude, and then there are the really bad movies, which are just terrible and not entertaining for one second in their absolute awfulness. They are the worst of the worst, and PLEDGE NIGHT easily makes it in my top ten list of the worst of the worst films. Putrid junk.

Anthrax slasher.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 7/10 · 1 August 2012]

As a silly frat boy prank Young Sid is boiled in a tub of acid.Years later he returns to wreak havoc on the new generation of brothers in his old fraternity.Young Sid is played by Joey Belladonna,the vocalist of thrash metal band Anthrax.He later appears as Acid Sid,an undead pledge who died many years ago in the same house."Pledge Night" is a wonderfully silly and vastly enjoyable fraternity slasher with some grotesque death scenes and plenty of nudity.The story doesn't make a lot of sense and there are some absurd moments of blatant stupidity.If you like trashy heavy metal related slasher flicks like "Rocktober Blood" or "Terror On Tour" give "Pledge Night" a chance.7 cherry bombs out of 10.My favourite kill scenes:a boy has a cherry bomb shoved up his ass and a hand comes up out of a toilet to kill another sorry loser.

Big sword-swinging Zombie Belladonna stand-in kranking it up!

[Vomitron_G · 3/10 · 11 October 2006]

I simply couldn't resist picking this one up, mainly because it's the only movie ever starring ex-Anthrax vocalist Joey Belladonna. And, as I expected, you can't really tell if he can act or not, cause he's only in it for like 2 minutes. One minute has him reading a text from a piece of paper, the other minute he dies a vicious death in a bath-tub filled with acid. Still, it was worth seeing him in this ludicrous movie. This one is as bad as 80's slasher movies can get, and at the same time, it's equally entertaining... mostly for the wrong reasons. The first 45 minutes are ridiculously demented: Nothing else then one sick, gross and perverted pledge-test & fraternity joke after the other. We're talking squeezing-cherries-between-butt-cheeks race, eating worms, piggy-party events, eating gross-looking fake floating turds directly from the toilet, drinking undefined substances,... And of course there's lots of female boobage and even male buttocks to be admired. And also, the aforementioned flashback death-scene of mister Belladonna.

Then finally the killings start. And I must say, the film-makers made the okay decision of not showing the first deaths on-screen (but we do get to see the results). Just when you start thinking "Lame!", they start showing more and more of the killings. And For what it's worth: the death-scenes are pretty original. Cheesy, bloody & gory with bad effects, yes, but very much fun indeed. For a moment the director even tried to make you question the identity of the killer. Is it a crazy frat-boy gone insane? Or is it a frat-boy possessed by the spirit of Mr. Belladonna? Or has Zombie Belladonna really returned from the grave? Just watch it yourselves and find out! Just don't expect any answers or explanations. But do expect an extremely lame and laughable conclusion... and then prepare for the obligatory final "it's not over yet"-scene (with another totally free extra super small titties shot).

One more comment on the soundtrack: It features some old-school Anthrax songs, repeatedly played on mostly inappropriate moments. Fun to hear them, but certainly not their best stuff. The rest of the more... ehrr, "orchestrated sound-effects" i can't really describe. It's sounds weird and bad (but that, on the other hand, made it very appropriate). It might have sounded a bit like when Claudio Simonnetti got his very first keyboard/sampler thing way back in the early 80's, then went on a bad LSD-trip and just pushed some random buttons on it. If this sounds like I'm making fun of Simonetti, then I take back that statement... don't wanna give this movie too much credit anyway. Boy, this movie was trash. Loved it!

I pledge my love for the first half of this movie!!

[pizowell · 7/10 · 24 September 2000]

Pledge Night was a horror movie night selection for me and my friends. We expected a college campus horror flick, which it is and that part sucks. The first part was a hilarious, entertaining riot. It ruled!!!! up until the point it became a lame slasher flick with an uncool killer and a terrible end. How could the director let this laugh riot turn into a crap fest. It was the most amusing college phrat flick I've ever seen and ranks up there with Animal House. It had awesome dialogue and those wacky pranks rocked, but when you see the hand come up out of the toilet part stop the movie and let that be the end. You and your friends will thank me, if not they may beat the living crap out of you and you'll deserve it if you read my warning and didn't listen. Pledge Night was a good idea that could have been a great comedy about the lengths one goes through to become a member of a fraternity, but fell way short in its attempt to copy all other slasher flicks, I applaud its originality and humor in the first half.

A Dumpster Fire.

[dopefishie · 1/10 · 22 September 2021]

A Dumpster Fire.

Painfully bad to watch. From the acting to the script to the plot to the acting to the "action sequences" to the special effects to the acting, it's basically unwatchable. On the other hand, it's still better than the Howling 7.

Fun piece of low-budget collegiate horror junk

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 16 October 2019]

Hippie Sid (Anthrax lead singer Joey Belladonna in a memorable cameo) gets fatally burned up in a bathtub full of acid when a frat prank goes awry back in the late 1960's. Twenty years later the vengeful and disfigured spirit of Sid (Will Kempe in funky burn makeup) returns from the beyond to bump off various members of the fraternity responsible for his untimely death.

Director Paul Ziller keeps the enjoyably inane story moving along at a snappy pace, maintains a cheerfully rude tone throughout, delivers a satisfying smattering of tasty gratuitous female nudity (there's quite a bit of bare male skin for the ladies, too), and stages the outrageous murders with giddy'n'gory gusto. Moreover, Joyce Snyder's raunchy script really goes overboard with its blithely crude'n'crass sense of amusing and unapologetic lowbrow humor, with the assorted pranks and initiation rites that hapless pledges are subjected to coming across as both sadistic and sophomoric in equal measure. Todd Eastland as token decent dude Bonner makes for a likeable protagonist while Arthur Lindquist delivers a deliciously broad and inspired performance as the crazed Dan. Further galvanized by a raucous'n'roaring 80's hair band rock soundtrack, this honey overall rates as a total trashy blast.

Anthrax, acid, frat boy pranks and a bodycount.

[aleksileskinen · 6/10 · 27 June 2023]

It's great Vinegar Syndrome keeps unearthing forgotten b-movies. Here (meaning Finland) most of their releases are not just obscure, but films that were never released at all. Although I must say the excitement of seeing something new makes the experience kind of fragile. You forget a bit too easily that most of these titles are straight from the bottom of the barrel.

That being said, Pledge Night is not that bad, or at least not in the same pile as their worst releases. The actors actually feel like students, they have a chemistry, the movie has a point and an understandable structure and the sets feel believable plus there's surprisingly many outdoor shots, which boost up the mood since there was a snow blizzard during filming. The original soundtrack cues and Anthrax songs fit in nicely plus Joey Belladonna plays a cool cameo.

Considering the budget, the effects are pretty cool and creative too, although you can tell how they've made most of them. I'm not sure if some of the effects shots were never re-discovered or if the budget just wouldn't budge, but they set up some of those scenes so the viewer is waiting for it to escalate, but then cut into something else, which is a bit of a drag. Surprisingly some of the frat boy stuff is actually more gross than the bloodshed, and it's been reported that writer Joyce Snyder researched the subject thoroughly, so that part of the suffering was real!

So if you go in with zero expectations and realize that what you're seeing isn't exactly spectacular, it is an enjoyable horror comedy. It feels like they really tried to get out the best of it and had a lot of fun.

Hazy

[BandSAboutMovies · 3/10 · 29 October 2019]

If you didn't get enough of hazing gone wrong in Slaughter High, good news.

Way back in the 1960s, Sidney Scheider was one of the pledges who got hazed, having to bathe in cornflakes, coffee and vinegar, but someone replaced the water with pure acid - which of course didn't eat the pipes or tub - and Sidney died a melty death. Also, Sid was played by Joey Belladonna, one of the seven singers the band has had (John Connelley who formed Nuclear Assault with former Anthrax member Dan Lilker, Jason Rosenfeld, Neil Turbin, Matt Fallon, a brief period of time where Scott Ian sang and the band called themselves The Diseased, Joey Belladonna and John Bush, before Belladonna returned to the band).

The rest of the movie is your typical college-aged slasher, albeit with an evil Joey Belladonna clone stabbing people with a sword from Medieval Times. One cast member quit right before shooting, as he took offense with the homoerotic nature of the hazing practices featured in this film. So there's that.

The crazy thing is, most of them are based on reality, as writer/producer Joyce Synder meticulously researched the truth about fraternities. She also wrote the adult film Raw Talent starring Jerry Butler, which was also the title of that noted cocksman's book.

Really amazed

[filmmth · 6 August 2003]

I played Chip and as bad - so bad it's funny - as this movie is I can't believe people are still talking about it. On the other hand it does have some of the best/worst lines ever. One complaint even thou my death scene had the blood cut out of it I believe the acting is more than bad enough to entertain. who knew people would talk about this film for so long.

Weird

[PedroPires90 · 5/10 · 7 September 2021]

Strange structure. 40 minutes of comedy, then a supernatural slasher. Some good gore but the plot is messy af.

Dan is acting strange

[nogodnomasters · 2/10 · 23 October 2019]

Six young men pledge Phi Upsilon Nu (Phi U for short). During their hell/pledge week, a demonic form of a pledge from the past (Joey Belladonna -Anthrax) goes on a killing spree.

The film was "Roger Corman light." The jokes and gags didn't work outside of a juvenile level.

Guide: Don't recall any swearing. Ample nudity (Shannon McMahon, Cecelia Wilde, Suzanne Dean, Karyn Lee, Cassandra Delaney, Ronna Larsen)

Bring a Book

[marcialyon · 4/10 · 10 February 2020]

This one isn't very interesting. It's the typical "frat prank goes wrong and victimized pledge gets revenge" story, but it moves at a glacial pace and the most interesting thing about it might be the homoerotic frat pledge rituals. It flirts with interesting ideas and set pieces at times, but never delivers and even the effects don't impress. The whole film feels as if you might be watching an edited for network TV cut. Even worse, none of the characters are interesting or entertaining in any way whatsoever.

A madcap, magisterially moronic, heavy mental murder mosh!

[Weirdling_Wolf · 7/10 · 23 October 2022]

Filthier than a syrup-soaked cockroach, more fragrant than an anchovies-smeared banana, and cheesier than a Limburger smoothie, this boorishly unsubtle frathouse freakshow gorily remains a gleefully goofy, creepily chucklesome, sleazily snuffing screwball slasher! Paul Ziller's oft derided 'Pledge Night' is a madcap, magisterially moronic, blood-hazed, heavy mental murder mosh, wherein we observe the vengefully teen-thrashing return of 60s pizza-faced party pooper, Sid, while this heroically hateful Deadhead isn't the most memorably maladjusted mayhem maker in slasher movie history, Sid's deffo the most metal, dude!! Favouring crude fratboy pranks over technically proficient stalk N' Slash, Pledge Night's bawdy, fitfully funny, gore gag heavy, spank happy B-Horror buffoonery occasionally misses the mark. All that being said, when all this lurid National Lampoonery gruesomely hits the sweet spot it makes for a pretty righteous splatter-fest, and, at the very least, Paul Ziller's divisively dunderheaded 90s Schlock rocker 'Pledge Night' has something to offend everyone!!! - 'On this fateful night the skeezer-shunting, plasma-plastered pledges of Phi Up are about to discover just how vicious Sid could be!!!' - 'Paul Ziller's sleazily scattershot blood-spiller is a terminally toxic, thrash-tastic terror flick!'

It isnt THAT bad

[brdarlin-496-873016 · 5/10 · 12 June 2020]

I'm not sure what you guys were expecting. It is rather dull, I'll give you that but I suggest you watch Blood Lake to appreciate this. Pledge Night does try to be decent and as a slasher completist, I respect that. There are so many horrible slashers that movies like this just kinda get forgotten. Not bad, not great. Some fun kills and lots of Mullets!

For the love of god, no!

[Fiorno68 · 1/10 · 28 April 2000]

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.

Unique slasher not for everyone

[kbtoys100 · 10/10 · 23 February 2021]

As most note, this is a film of two halves. First half is a Animal House-esque fraternity movie before it turns to a slasher flick.

This already will be enough to put off casual slasher fans looking for a more straightforward narrative. Next factor in less than stellar acting, a killer unwisely modeled after Freddy Krueger, and most of the gore cut out and one can understand the hate.

But for those of us diehards, Pledge Night offers a uniquely fun experience. It's narrative plays out like a nightmare, with its plot turns and supernatural killings. The empty campus in a snowstorm is effective if not fully utilized. The kills (even in their excised form) are unique and still have enough red stuff to deliver.

Pledge Night is a fun, cheesy slasher that has been sentenced to obscurity, Vinegar Syndrome gave it a nice blu ray treatment with lots of interviews, but I was let down the elusive unrated cut was left out and barely mentioned, which I may be the only person who has spent hours hunting down (so far no luck).

Freddy: The College Years

[thesar-2 · 4/10 · 19 September 2021]

1st Inaccuracy: It's Hell WEEK...not just one night.

2nd? Marketing this as a movie.

Pledge Night takes all night to get to the goods, sadly. Mostly, you'll see boring hazing. Not even the good kind: homoerotic hazing, though some borderlines that. The first solid half is just "safe" hazing rituals in a fraternity and then the mostly just hinted at killer starts spewing one-liners, but mostly asking who everyone is before offing them.

It's not ALL bad, but the acting's terrible, the premise underexplored and the killer laughable. I WILL give them credit for both making a well-shot movie (for the budget,) and for the gore effects. They were actually pretty darn good for this mostly boring horror.

Recommended for only diehard slasher fans of Freddy Krueger. I mean, if they want to see a cheap rip-off movie.

***

Final Thoughts: I keep a list of all new-to-me movies I've seen since about 2009. It's now 2021 and I don't see this listed. I swear I've seen this before, but doubt it was before 2009. If it was a mistake not including this, I won't be making that again.

An okay-slasher

[DJ Inferno · 29 December 2001]

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 pledge not to watch this movie again

[Stevieboy666 · 4/10 · 9 October 2021]

I picked this up cheap on Blu-ray, knew nothing about it, popped the disc into the player and expected just another high school slasher. And it is a high school slasher but this one is certainly different. The film starts off as a rather slow frat boy comedy, beer, pranks and boobs, played out by wooden actors sporting mullets. Then, finally, it turns into a horror movie, one of the guys is insane, but then the killer is revealed as former student Sid, who died in 20 years previously in an initiation ceremony gone horribly wrong. The writers obviously took "inspiration" for the hideous Sid from Freddy Krueger, however Freddy was fun to watch, Sid is not. There is a lot of gratuitous female topless nudity, on the gore front some of the killings are inventive but not terribly gory. For me the grossest scene had one of the pledges have a large, juicy worm put into his mouth, yuck! Anthrax supplied the sound track, probably the best thing about this silly and quite boring film. A film called Pledge (2018) is better.