Three bored guys, Calvin, Jimmie and Keith, are drinking in their dorm room. Keith has an idea for some fun, crashing the Tri Delta initiation that night. At the sorority house the festivities began as the boys sneak up to the window. Initiates Taffy and Lisa are awaiting punishment from sadistic Babs and her sidekicks, Frankie and Rhonda. After witnessing the girls being mercilessly paddled by Babs, the guys decide they need a closer look and break in. To cap off the beating, Frankie and Rhonda spray the Initiates with whipped cream. Lisa and Taffy hit the showers and the boys follow.
Taffy and Lisa give the boys an unintentional eyeful. Unfortunately, Babs catches the guys almost instantly. She calls a meeting, the last task for initiation will be for Lisa and Taffy to steal a bowling trophy from her father’s mall with the boys in tow. Brutal Babs has a secret plan. Since Daddy owns the mall, she and her minions sneak in to make more trouble for Taffy and Lisa. When our five adventurers do their little act of B & E they find the place is already being robbed.
Tipsy Calvin buddies up to tough as press-on nails Spider. She ridicules the entire bunch, save Calvin, but finally resorts to helping them steal the trophy so they will go away. Jimmie picks the largest trophy in the case and they prepare to head out. Babs and the minions watch on the security cameras as a scuffle breaks out and the trophy drops. Smoke fills the air and out pops a little grey Imp. Uncle Impy is very grateful for being sprung. He offers the group wishes. Calvin is skeptical and Spider is blatantly hostile, they are DQ’d from wishing. Jimmie wishes for gold, Taffy wants to be prom queen and Keith wishes that Lisa would put out.
As soon as the Imp grants his last wish, he reveals his true colors. He knows Babs and the girls are watching so he turns Rhonda into a scaly faced monster and Frankie into the bride of Frankenstein. Uncle Impy electrifies the exits in time to shock a fleeing Babs. The wishes start to go bad and the group turns on the Imp. Demon girls Rhoda and Frankie and kill Jimmie with the ball shiner before bowling with his head. Calvin and Spider shoot Rhonda twice to no avail. Keith attempts to get a break from Uber clingy Lisa only to have his face deep fried. Taffy is stretched a bit too far and winds up in two. Babs wakes up and has a pleasant chat with old Uncle Impy. That is, until Rhonda crashes the party. Babs beats on her as only she could and with Calvin and Spider bowling clean up, they put an end to Rhonda. Uncle Impy just laughs, he demonizes Babs into her replacement.
Calvin and Spider do some more exploring and come upon a janitor. Although laughably heard of hearing, he knows all about the Imp. When enclosed in a small space an Imp will lose it’s power. After a few false starts they agree the best course of action would be to get him in a headlock, kick him in the butt and stuff him back in the trophy. They decide the deaf guy should wait there and ‘listen’ if they need help. Ha. Calvin and Spider head back downstairs to find Babs has killed Lisa. Spider fights with Babs for a few moments before that gets boring and Calvin hits Babs with a molotov cocktail. While Spider prepares to capture the Imp, she sends Calvin to bring the car around. SURPRISE! Rhonda isn’t dead, she’s in the backseat strangling Calvin. In the Imp’s own words “Monster in the backseat? Oldest trick in the book”. Luckily, those are some of the Imp’s last words as Spider slams a Prince Albert can over his head. With the Imp in the can, Rhonda loses her powers. Calvin still flips the car, but he’s safe. Spider rescues him and they ride off into the dawn on her moped. For some reason, they leave the can with the Imp in it on the sidewalk. Right out in the open where anyone might open it. More shocking, there is no sequel.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Bobi Lobotomy:
Starting from the very beginning, the opening theme is a wondrous piece of synth trash called ‘Here in the Darkness’. The version used for the opening and closing has no other lyrics than ‘here in the darkness’ over and over. This song is still stuck in my head. I’m not mad about it.
I like this movie. The plot is dumb. It’s The Monkey’s Paw if, the paw itself was a bald, homicidal, donkey puppet. This donkey puppet is kinda funny, not like “OMG, I can’t stop laughing”, more like “at least the Imp knows he kinda sucks.” Despite two decapitations, there is almost no blood. Frankly, the worst part of the movie is that it’s so dark. Half the time, I swore something really awesome was happening and I just couldn’t see it. I was left feeling that there were far too many people in the cast. Logically, I guess that’s not true, we need the cannon fodder. I couldn’t tell you who I would have eliminated, it just seemed crowed.
On to the good stuff, in this one we have more Linnea (Spider), more Michelle (Lisa) and a first time appearance on the blog of Brinke Stevens (Taffy). According to IMDB, this one was of only two movies in which all three ladies appear. I feel that may be an old factoid, due to the ‘1313’ movie series, maybe someone can confirm. I like to imagine the three of them negotiating over who has to get naked and how naked they have to get. We get a fully nude Brinke, boobs from Michelle and some fully clothed under boob from Linnea. Michelle is a bit too worldly to be believable as the innocent she is supposed to be here initially. This is my favorite role for Linnea. I know Return of the Living Dead fans will want my head for that remark but she and Uncle Impy make the movie.
By far, my favorite exchange is between Spider and the Janitor. It’s a very stupid scene, nothing new or clever about it but I laugh every time. Anytime Spider rags on Calvin is funny. Really, any time Spider talks is good for me. Then there’s Uncle Impy (I feel compelled to add that he is voiced by Dukey Flyswatter because that’s a pretty kickass fake name) and that’s what he’s like, an Uncle. He tells corny uncle jokes and terrorizes you. What I’m getting at is, the dialogue is awful, but it’s the good kind of awful. I’m a fan, I say three and a half Imps.
Alisa Ramone:
Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama is a campy, low-budget, 80’s horror spoof, complete with all three scream queens, Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer and Brinke Stevens! It’s basically the “genie in a bottle story,” but with an evil imp instead of a genie. SBinSB grabs your attention right away with the catching opening song (that Bobi won’t stop singing) and amuses you all the way to the end. It has a comical plot, great one-liners, lots of gratuitous nudity and several really creative death scenes. I also loved Uncle Impy; he’s hysterically bad, but in a good way. My biggest complaint was that most of the film was shot at night in a bowling alley, so the lighting is really terrible. SBitSB is an incredibly tongue-in-cheek, entertaining and well paced film that I would recommend to all B movie fans.
Three college boys (Jimmy, Calvin and Keith) go to a sorority house to secretly watch an initiation. They get caught and forced to tag along with Lisa and Taffy to steal a bowling trophy. This isn’t your ordinary trophy; it has an evil imp inside it. They drop the trophy and release Uncle Impy, which results in mayhem and death, but not before he gives Taffy, Jimmy and Keith a wish. Not surprisingly, these wishes turn out to be horrible. The sorority girls (Babs, Rhonda and Frankie) also go to the mall to make sure that the group doesn’t complete their task. Uncle Impy turns the the three of them into demons similar to their personalities; Rhonda becomes a zombie with bad skin (obsessed with skin/appearance), Babs becomes a dominatrix (obsessed with power), and Frankie becomes the bride of Frankenstein (because her name is Frankie?). Uncle Impy is a cool cat with a deep jazzy voice (Dukey Flyswatter). Sadly, he isn’t made very well, but because the lighting is so bad it was hard to see him anyways.
The deaths are spectacular, even though there were only a few. I’m even willing to forgive the lack of blood. First, we have Jimmy, who gets beheaded by ball shiner and they use his head as a bowling ball (gutter head). Next, Taffy get pulled apart limb from limb (like taffy) and finally, Rhonda shoves Keith’s face into a deep fryer. I wish the lighting was better so I could see each death a little better though. I know I keep mentioning the lighting, but it really did take away from everything.
The most interesting part of this story is that a woman (Spider) is the hero and a man (Calvin) is the blundering sidekick. If you have read any of my other reviews, you know that I’m a little obsessed with gender roles in horror. This movie had a complete gender reversal between Calvin and Spider. Spider is the strong, cunning, bad ass, punk rocker and Calvin is a timid, submissive nerdy guy. He falls for the bad girl immediately (usually that is a girl falling for the bad boy). He physically hides behind her, lays his head in her lap, gives her the gun, gets rescued several times by her and even rides off at the end of the film on the back of her moped. Spider is an exceptionally unique character. She was there to rob the place, but she wouldn’t take “uncle impy” up on his offer to give her anything her little heart desired. Spider was the one to kill all three demons (with Calvin’s help) and capture the Imp. Babs seems to be a strong female character too, but in the face of actual danger, Spider decides to “man up” and Babs cries.
I’m left with two burning questions; why didn’t Lisa get a wish (she was only the object of Keith’s wish) and why did they leave imp on sidewalk in a canister? Someone could just walk by and open it! Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama is a fun, campy film that’s totally worth watching at least once. I give it 4 imps!
Bad horror, Good times 