Hard to Die (1990)
** (out of 4)
Unofficial third film in the SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE series features most of the same cast as the second film, although they're all in new roles (obviously). The story is pretty simple as five ladies dressed in lingerie's must fight off a killer while trapped inside a skyscraper. HARD TO DIE is a pretty silly and over-the-top film that is quite campy from the first scene to the last but what else would you expect from director Jim Wynorski? Like the previous film, this one here has a few confusing moments dealing with a completely different series. The Orville Ketchum (Peter Spellos) character from the previous film is introduced here as the "suspect" from the "previous events" but when he tells the story of what happened that night, instead of using clips from SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE II they instead use clips from THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE. I'm not exactly sure why this was done as the story here perfectly concludes what happened at the end of the previous one but oh well. As for HARD TO DIE, it's a fairly entertaining movie as long as you don't take it too serious. The five actresses obviously all have big boobs and they're constantly shaking around throughout the 78-minute running time. The actresses are all good for what they're asked to do and this includes one of the most obvious "shower scenes" in the history of horror movies. Forrest J. Ackerman has a brief bit as does Wynorski who plays a porn director. Spellos is a lot of fun as the suspected killer who is constantly scaring the girls no matter what he's doing. There's a long-running gag dealing with him scaring the girls, which is pretty funny and we get an even longer running gag dealing with his constantly being shot, beaten, stabbed and yet he can never die. The gore level isn't all that high and you never really see any deaths on screen as we usually just hear a scream and then blood being splashed on the wall. The film eventually runs out of steam and especially when you consider this is pretty much just the previous movie only just set in a skyscraper. Either way, fans of trashy and silly direct-to-video movies should get a few laughs out of it.
