Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (also known as The Imp) is a 1988 American horror comedy film directed by David DeCoteau, loosely based on the classic short story The Monkey's Paw. Notable for scream queens Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens, and Michelle Bauer appearing together, its plot follows an imp accidentally released and causing havoc among a group of teenagers inside a mall.
Filmed in 1987 and produced by Charles Band's Urban Classics, the film had a limited release in January 1988 and was later released to home video. In later years, it gained recognition as a "So Bad It's Good" cult film.
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Plot
Three nerdy frat boys, Calvin, Jimmie, and Keith, follow and spy on the Tri-Delta sorority group, where they are having an initiation. Sorority members Babs, Rhonda, and Frankie prepare for the ritual while newcomers Taffy and Lisa await. Watched by the frat boys outside their house, the two initiates get spanked from a paddle and are sprayed with whip cream during the initiation. While the girls clean themselves, the boys enter the house and are caught by the girls. Due to this, the boys are sent with the pledges on a mission to steal a trophy from a nearby bowling alley. Unbeknownst, Babs' father runs the mall where the bowling alley is at and watches the group through the security cameras.
When the group enters the bowling alley, they encounter and meet Spider, a biker trying to rob the alley with a crowbar. With her help, they break into the trophy room and upon accidentally dropping the bowling trophy, unleash an imp named Uncle Impie who offers three wishes from freeing him. Jimmie gets a wish of gold stacks, Taffy gets a wish of being the Prom Queen, and Keith gets a wish of having sex with Lisa. After this, Uncle Impie soon possess the sorority trio from the camera; Frankie is turned into the Bride of Frankenstein and Rhonda is turned into a demon minion while Babs flees. After Babs is rendered unconscious from touching the mall's electric doors, the group finds out that the wishes were turned rather false, with Jimmie's gold made out of wood and Taffy's dress disappearing.
Jimmie is killed by the minions and his head is used for a bowling ball, and Lisa furiously tries to have sex with Keith. Spider and Calvin hide from Rhonda in a closet, where they find a pistol and shoot Rhonda with it before fleeing. After escaping from Lisa, Keith is killed by Rhonda by shoving his face into a stove, and Taffy is pulled apart by the minions. Babs awakes and fights Rhonda, who shoves her into the alley and is seemingly killed by a bowling ball by Spider. With Rhonda dead, Babs is possessed and turned into a demon minion.
Calvin and Spider find the janitor, who reveals that the Imp was summoned to help a bowler, and the Imp was trapped for 30 years due to the creature killing people. Meanwhile, after Babs kills Lisa with a paddle, she is burned to death with a Molotov cocktail tossed by Calvin. After Spider and Calvin find the janitor dead, they are chased by Jackie with an axe. Spider gains the upper hand and decapitates her, and the severed head knocks the doors open. While Calvin starts up a car and is attacked by Rhonda from the backseat, Spider successfully traps Uncle Impie in a box. Calvin's struggles to control the car, and ends up crashing upside down; Calvin apparently survives this and Rhonda is killed from the crash. In the morning, Spider drives Calvin to her house in her motorcycle while Uncle Impie is seen trapped in the box at the curb, asking someone to let him out.
Cast
- Linnea Quigley as Spider
- Andras Jones as Calvin
- Robin Rochelle as Babs
- Carla Baron as Frankie
- Kathi O'Brecht as Rhonda
- John Stuart Wildman as Keith
- Hal Havins as Jimmie
- Brinke Stevens as Taffy
- Michelle Bauer as Lisa
- Dukey Flyswatter as Uncle Impie (credited as The Imp)
- George "Buck" Flower as the Janitor
Production
Production for the film began and ended in September 1987, within 12 days in the state of California; filming locations included the Plaza Camino Royale and Bowlplex Super Lane, which has now been torn down and turned into a public swimming pool. Due to the low budget, the movie had to be filmed in the bowling alley during the night when it was closed, until 9am when it opened.
The director David DeCoteau was referenced in the story as David McCabe, and his film Creepozoids was seen on Calvin's television in the beginning.
Early trailers for this film featured a high-pitched voice for the Imp, while the final film used a lower-pitched voice. The bowling trophy from which Uncle Impie is released is made out of balsa wood.
After production ended, DeCoteau reused the same cast and crew in Nightmare Sisters.
Release
The film was given a limited release theatrically in the United States by the Charles Band-funded Urban Classics in January 1988.
For its home video release in the United Kingdom, the film was titled The Imp. The movie also aired on USA Up All Night in the early 1990s.
The film was released on DVD in the United States by Cult Video, a subsidiary of Full Moon Entertainment, in 1999.
Reception
JoBlo.com and Cinema Crazed both wrote favorable reviews for the movie, the latter writing "It's trash, there's no arguing that, but in the end it's entertaining trash". Daily Grindhouse had a similar opinion, stating "If you watch it with a sense that what you're basically doing the visual equivalent of eating an entire box of BooBerry cereal, you can take these matters with a grain of salt, and enjoy it for its ridiculousness, and for the funny Imp puppet." AllMovie panned the film and gave it one star.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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