Jim Wynorski is, without a doubt, the king of B-movie sequels. He directed some of my favorite follow-ups, including 976-EVIL II, BIG BAD MAMA II, and this, SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE III, also known as HARD TO DIE.
Five women working in a high-rise lingerie company building are forced to work overtime. A package mistakenly arrives at the address, and after they open it, they unwittingly release the soul of Hockstetter, a psychotic madman who died years before. Soon, the girls begin getting picked off one by one. Could the killer be Orville Ketchum, the creepy janitor and supposed hero of the sorority house massacre years before? Whoever it is, the girls decide the situation can best be solved with heavy firepower!
HARD TO DIE had one of the most intriguing ideas I've seen in a while: take DIE HARD, and replace Bruce Willis with lingerie-clad women with machine guns. Brilliant, right? Close, but no cigar. However, HARD TO DIE is still a fun movie. The first fifty minutes or so is straight-up slasher, with an unseen person picking off these girls one by one (off-screen).
However, the bad acting and hilarious dialogue kept me amused for that period of time. Then they break out the machine guns in the final twenty minutes. And it is glorious. Wynorski knows who his audience is and he knows how to entertain them. He jam-packs the movie with loads of female nudity (he even cameos as a porn director), lots of gun fire, and almost no plot.
The film is hilarious for both intended and unintended reasons. For unintended, we get loads of bad acting and poorly written dialogue. For intended we get an over-the-top display of violence towards poor Orville as he is shot multiple times, stabbed multiple times, and even falls off the top of the high rise! Then there's the extremely goofy final shot and how the girls feel the need to change into the new lingerie after their clothes get a little wet! It's brilliant! However, I do have a few complaints. For one, the film is just too short for its own good. Jim Wynorski has proved before that he can make a 70-minute runtime work (CHOPPING MALL), but here, it just feels like the studios gave him a specific 77-minute runtime while he was halfway through filming and realized he needed to speed things up. I think if the girls had gotten the guns earlier on (maybe with about forty or so minutes left on the runtime) it would have been better.
Still, HARD TO DIE is a really fun movie and is sure to please for fans of B-movie cheddar. The plot is brilliant, the humor is top-notch, and the fun spirit is fully intact.
Even though it's not the greatest, it's still quintessential viewing fans of bad movies.
Five women working in a high-rise lingerie company building are forced to work overtime. A package mistakenly arrives at the address, and after they open it, they unwittingly release the soul of Hockstetter, a psychotic madman who died years before. Soon, the girls begin getting picked off one by one. Could the killer be Orville Ketchum, the creepy janitor and supposed hero of the sorority house massacre years before? Whoever it is, the girls decide the situation can best be solved with heavy firepower!
HARD TO DIE had one of the most intriguing ideas I've seen in a while: take DIE HARD, and replace Bruce Willis with lingerie-clad women with machine guns. Brilliant, right? Close, but no cigar. However, HARD TO DIE is still a fun movie. The first fifty minutes or so is straight-up slasher, with an unseen person picking off these girls one by one (off-screen).
However, the bad acting and hilarious dialogue kept me amused for that period of time. Then they break out the machine guns in the final twenty minutes. And it is glorious. Wynorski knows who his audience is and he knows how to entertain them. He jam-packs the movie with loads of female nudity (he even cameos as a porn director), lots of gun fire, and almost no plot.
The film is hilarious for both intended and unintended reasons. For unintended, we get loads of bad acting and poorly written dialogue. For intended we get an over-the-top display of violence towards poor Orville as he is shot multiple times, stabbed multiple times, and even falls off the top of the high rise! Then there's the extremely goofy final shot and how the girls feel the need to change into the new lingerie after their clothes get a little wet! It's brilliant! However, I do have a few complaints. For one, the film is just too short for its own good. Jim Wynorski has proved before that he can make a 70-minute runtime work (CHOPPING MALL), but here, it just feels like the studios gave him a specific 77-minute runtime while he was halfway through filming and realized he needed to speed things up. I think if the girls had gotten the guns earlier on (maybe with about forty or so minutes left on the runtime) it would have been better.
Still, HARD TO DIE is a really fun movie and is sure to please for fans of B-movie cheddar. The plot is brilliant, the humor is top-notch, and the fun spirit is fully intact.
Even though it's not the greatest, it's still quintessential viewing fans of bad movies.