A college freshman rushes a fraternity and witnesses another pledge's death during a hazing ritual. He and the other fraternity brothers try to cover up the accident and hide the body.
Here Come the Delts, The Curious Case of the Campus Corpse, The Campus Corpse
USA
USA
A frat hazing incident ends in the death of a new student and a fellow pledge works with the frat to cover up the death. Their plan? To keep the body on ice for a week, have one of them attend the dead kid's classes to keep up appearances, and then bring the frozen body to a nearby ski resort and make it look like he was in a skiing accident. The Curious Case of the Campus Corpse has a curious tone or, more accurately, a lack of tone. It's an odd mix of college comedy and thriller without really leaning into either which leaves the movie feeling pretty flat. It's definitely not a horror movie either despite marketing that would suggest otherwise. It most closely resembles an after school special about the dangers of peer pressure although covering up a death is a pretty extreme example to use.
Dumber than a bag of hammers, but still sort of hypnotically watchable. On an implausibility scale of 1-10, Hazing (or The Curious Case of the Campus Corpse as Youtube has it) is a 20. Young Clark Kent in Donner's Superman, Jeff East does an serviceable job with what he is given and Charles Martin Smith once again proves himself as one of the most annoying and punchable faces to ever grace the screen.
Speaking of screens, I was convinced this was made for TV, but nope, this was theatrical baby!
The title grabbed me. I love sorority and fraternity movies, and I am fascinated with the subject of hazing. I watched this under its alternate and kind of RUDE title, "The Curious Case of the Campus Corpse".
Craig is a nice little blonde boy who goes to college with a running scholarship. He decides to rush the fraternity known as the Delts, even though his older brother advises against it. The Delts show Craig and another rushee Barney, just how beneficial Delt membership can be. But then, Craig and Barney are forced to prove just how bad they want it.
This film is dripping with "cozy, heartwarming, family made-for-TV" vibes. Which is obviously weird messaging. I struggled to grasp the…
A year before ANIMAL HOUSE was released,two college-themed films were released that both dealt with college sorority hazings,with (the 50s set) FRATERNITY ROW barely getting a release before being dumped onto late night television and this low budget campus drama that got a decent theatrical release before it wound up on both syndicated television runs and VHS video(where it was retitled THE CAMPUS CORPSE). This Douglas Curtis(THE SLEEPING CAR) directed film has Jeff East(PUMPKINHEAD,DEADLY BLESSING) as new college student Craig who is pursuing a career in being a track runner while getting initiated into the most popular all male fraternity house,with both Craig and fellow pledge Barney(Charles Martin Smith[AMERICAN GRAFFITI,STARMAN]) undergoing a hazing initiation into the fraternity by jogging on…
aka - The Curious Case of the Campus Corpse. This genre hopping curio from the late 70s is an overlooked piece of filmmaking. Billed as a comedy on IMDb, I view it more as a lightly-constructed mystery - but stick with it (if you can find it) as despite it's occasional lull as it has an awesome ending.
saw someone on tik tok saying that if you like jockstraps, you’ll like this… it was a major disappointment
Bland horror/comedy doesn't build up characters or suspense well, nor does it earn its twist ending.
I kept pushing through on this one since it was supposed to have this mind blowing ending. It didn’t. I 100% saw that coming. Would have been more surprising if it didn’t go down that way. More annoyed than anything else that I stayed up past 1 am on a work night to finish this.
I would have rewritten this movie that the main character teams up with the “fat” chick and that she’s the love interest - would have made for a much more enjoyable and entertaining time. And would have been spared the super cringe montage when the lead’s gf comes to visit him.
Also really bothered me that the two female characters in this movie reused their…
not even two “straight” men frolicking through the forest wearing nothing but jockstraps could save this nonsensical plot with weird pacing issues
A complete tonal oddity, The Hazing seemingly begins as a college-based comedy before the titular event sends things down a more sinister, ABC Movie of the Week avenue. Alternatively known as The Curious Case of the Campus Corpse which misleadingly sells this as a horror movie which it most certainly isn’t, The Hazing grows monotonous at times until its unexpectedly wacky finale which will most definitely make you say “fuck frat boy culture”.
When I first started working at Movie Madness (tm), there was a section called “The Campus Corpse,” after the alternate title of this movie. I believe it was a sub-section for slasher movies set at colleges, like “Hell House” and “Sorority House Massacre.” That is not at all what this movie is, however, which may be part of why they sold me the movie and got rid of the section. In this movie, a fraternity initiation prank goes horribly wrong when one of two pledges (played by Charlie Martin Smith from “American Graffiti” and “The Untouchables”) breaks his leg on a remote mountainside in Colorado and freezes to death while his friend (Jeff East, who was the young Clark Kent…
Watchable but thoroughly predictable low-budget thriller. I had this thing figured out almost from the start, so it offers very little in the way of surprises. Still, it's fairly well-acted by the cast, and the characters, while not exactly two-dimensional, are quirky enough to be interesting. I probably won't ever watch this film again, but I can't say I didn't enjoy it to a degree.
