The House on Sorority Row

The House on Sorority Row is a 1982 American slasher film, the directorial debut of Mark Rosman, who also wrote the screenplay. The story centers on a group of sorority sisters whose graduation party turns deadly after they cover up a fatal prank against their house mother, Dorothy Slater. The film was a commercial hit and later developed a cult following; a remake, *Sorority Row*, came out in 2009.

Rosman, a UCLA and NYU graduate, drew on his own fraternity experience for the script, which he wrote in 1980 under the title *Seven Sisters*. The idea came to him after he returned to Los Angeles. He cited the 1955 French film *Les Diaboliques* as an influence, particularly the use of a swimming pool to hide a crime. Rosman wanted the female characters to be complicit in their own danger, not just victims. The initial budget of $125,000 was secured with help from a friend at VAE Productions, a D.C.-based documentary studio.

Most casting happened in New York City, though Eileen Davidson and Janis Zido were hired from Los Angeles. Davidson auditioned at Rosman’s Beverly Hills home. Kate McNeil, who plays Katherine “Katey” Rose, was cast while still a graduate student in New York. Harley Jane Kozak learned she had won the role of Diane weeks after a Manhattan warehouse audition. Lois Kelso Hunt, who plays Mrs. Slater, was a stage actress from Washington, D.C.

Principal photography took place in Pikesville, Maryland, in the summer of 1981, with establishing shots at the University of Maryland. The production had originally planned to shoot in D.C., but Rosman found a foreclosed house in Pikesville that the crew could use. Additional photography was completed in Los Angeles. Cinematographer Tim Suhrstedt, who worked with Rosman as an assistant director on Brian De Palma’s *Home Movies* (1980), shot the film.

*The House on Sorority Row* had a limited theatrical release in November 1982, then expanded on January 21, 1983. Made for $425,000, it grossed between $3 million and $10 million in the United States. Critical reception was mixed: some praised its suspense and ranked it above other slashers of the era, while others found it unoriginal. In 2017, *Complex* named it one of the greatest slasher films of all time.