Label: Leomark Studios
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 86 Minutes 52 Seconds
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 (No Subtitles)
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.33:1)
Director: Joe Mazzuca
Cast: Arthur Franz, Claudia Jennings, Cheri Howell
Sisters of Death (1976) is a slasher-adjacent sorority prank gone wrong entry, opening with a sorority initiation prank involving a game of Russian Roulette that tragically ends with one of the pledges, Liz (Elizabeth Bergen), getting her brains blown out when a real bullet somehow ends up in a gun. Seven years later five of the pledges present at the tragic initiation ceremony are summonsed to a house for a reunion of sorts, they're picked-up by two hired drivers, Mark (Paul Cart, Brute Corps.) and Joe (Joe E. Tata, Beverley Hills, 90210), who transport the women to their final rendezvous, a dilapidated old estate out n the middle of nowhere surrounded by electrified fence.
The reunited sorority sister include Judy (Claudia Jennings, Truck Stop Women), Sylvia (Cheri Howell, Soylent Green), Diane (Sherry Boucher, White Lightning) as Diane, Francie (Sherry Alberoni, Terror Circus), and Penny (Roxanne Albee), a spiritual hippy-dippy blonde. Upon arrival the girls initially are excited by the prospect of boozing it up for the weekend, but soon become wary of who has summoned them, initially having thought that one organized the reunion. Soon enough it is reveled that Edmond Clybourn (Arthur Franz, Flight to Mars), the father of the victim from the opening is behind it, he's convinced that his daughter was murdered, and he has brought them there to get to the truth of the matter, giving them until the next morning for the guilty party to come forward, It's an interesting enough set-up, but the execution is a pretty creaky.
The two guys are turned on and pretty horny, so they gatecrash the reunion, not realizing that they're walking into a trap and becoming part of the madman's revenge plot. Throughout the evening and into the night the girls and the two guys find themselves in precarious, oftentimes deadly scenarios, attacked by hairy tarantulas and nearly snake-bit, one is found dead with a pair of scissors through the back, a vicious dog attack sends one careening into the electrified fence, and another is strangled to death. All in all it;'s pretty tame stuff I thought the set-up was fairly interesting but the execution is rather bland. I did enjoy seeing some familiar b-movie drive-in familiars show-up though, the '70s fashions are a fun peek back in time at least, and the women are quite attractive, and the acting is alright, but there's zero nudity, the suspense is lacking. The kills just are not creative or interesting in any way whatsoever either, it's sadly quite a snooze-fest, but not without some dated early '70s charms, but I could see how this Ten Little Indians revenge/proto-slasher riff could have been, but as is, I thought it was pretty weak sauce.
I'm not too familiar with the production of the film, as I was watching this full frame version I was curious if the theatrical version was more violent and if maybe this was a cut TV version, but it looks like it was PG when it screened, too. It appears the film was actually shot several years before it screened at the drive-ins in '76, so it was shelved for a few years before finally getting released, which might partially explain how tame it is, but also just seeing how shabby a looking production it is, well, a shitty film is sometimes just a shitty film because it was poorly made.
Audio/Video: The film is presented on a BD-R in 1080p framed in 1.37:1, though this apparently screen in 1.85:1 widescreen at the cinema initially. The source looks like an SD master, perhaps a TV master of some sort, whatever it is the quality is rather poor, looking like a crappy VHS, the images soft with faded colors throughout, blow-out whites, and milky blacks, it's quite murky with no texture or detail to it. The Dolby Digital 2.0 audio is not much better, a shrill, thin and hollow sounding affair with light noise, pops and hiss throughout. It's never hard to discern, but it's not pleasant either. Out of curiosity I compared this to a couple of other sources online, and this is about the same as what you can find on YouTube and Tubi for free, and at least streaming yoo get subtitle options, which this does not.
There are zero extras, as has been the case with all the Leomark Blu-rays I've ever watched. There's not even a menu, you just pop it in the player and it plays, when it ends it just just plays again. The BD-R arrives in a non-logo keepcase a single-sided sleeve of artwork that features a poor photoshopped excuse of a wrap that does good work advertising how shoddy the quality of the transfer is at least.
I'd be hard-pressed to recommend this unless you absolutely desperate to own a physical copy of Sisters of Death (1976) in your collection on BD-R that looks like a VHS tape.
Special Features:
- None
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