To the untrained eye the eighties slasher boom will always be traced back to the template of John Carpenter's Halloween. In reality however, there were three key genre pieces that became the outlines for ambitious titles to follow. The success of Carpenter's seminal flick was indeed responsible for the peak in the cycle, but Friday the 13th must take its share of credit for launching the mass of killer in the woods titles, which included Don't go in the Woods, Just Before Dawn, The Prey and more recently Camp Blood. Another offering that can also be attributed with generating a long line of mostly inferior imitations was Amy Holden Jones' Slumber Party Massacre. Despite being initially received unenthusiastically by critics and audiences alike, Jones' splatter flick eventually managed to achieve cult status and went on to inspire the likes of Sorority House Massacre, The Last Slumber Party, Blood Sisters, Cheerleader Massacre and Anthony J Christopher's Fatal Pulse from 1988. Sororities were never a safe place during the eighties and Fatal Pulse is no exemption to the rule. After co-eds begin turning up murdered around the campus, Jeff Kramer (Ken Roberts) is immediately put in the frame when it is revealed that he was the last person to see one of the victims before she was slaughtered. Aided by his lumbering buddy Mark (Blair Karsch), Jeff sets out on a mission to prove his innocence and catch the psychopath before he kills again. As the bodies pile up, Jeff begins to realise that his girlfriend Lisa (Michelle McCormick) could be next on the assassin's list. Fatal Pulse is truly a bizarre movie experience, which combines moments of mediocrity, stupidity, inadvertent comedy and uncomfortable brutality to conjure up a somewhat authentic juxtaposition. The performances were laughably hideous; especially from Ken Roberts, who boasted the expressive fluency of a turnip. Seriously, I have seen wooden bridges with more emotional definition. Michelle McCormick made for an incredibly unapproachable final girl and the whole cast delivered their lines with the conviction of a toilet cleaner on the day before retirement. They were hardly aided by a woefully uninspired script, which added just about every stereotype from the annals of bad-movie obscurity. Brad the obnoxious 'tough guy' was characterised as some kind of odd fifties 'Grease' throwback, whilst the token comic relief inclusion, Mark, was greeted by a peculiar 'boing' effect in the soundtrack upon his every arrival. Strangely enough, this even occurred during a suspense scene towards the film's conclusion. Boing! Director Anthony Christopher mimics the giallo titans of yesteryear, by conveying every murder scene from the view of the black gloved assassin. Mario Bava was a master of creating artistic suspense in his set pieces, whereas Christopher fails to generate even a millisecond. Despite the disappointedly fast-paced nature of the murders, their merciless brutality does provide a somewhat reverse spiral on the quality of the feature. Even heavily financed slashers such as Friday the 13th failed to add convincing viciousness to their slaughters. Despite being laughably lacklustre in almost every department, Fatal Pulse is surprisingly sadistic to its victims. The electrocution sequence was particularly mean spirited, but any credibility gained is certainly hindered by the fact that *every* victim manages to flash her heaving breasts before being executed. An advertisement for feminism in the slasher industry Fatal Pulse certainly is not. The score also becomes an irritation with consistent screeching synthesizer accompaniment, whilst the less said about the 'jazz band on acid' intro music, the better. As Fatal Pulse is a bad eighties movie, it characteristically offers its share of bad eighties movie moments, which have become lovably nostalgic for many retro cheese fans. Part of the story involves an un-engaging romance between the two emotionless leads, and there are plenty of inadvertent laughs to be had when the couple go cycling to the strains of an eighties pop monstrosity. Also watch out for a bizarre and somewhat inexplicable scene involving comic relief character Mark (boing) and a Captain Marvell outfit. I won't ruin it for you by explaining it here, but it almost beggars belief. The killer does have a fairly intriguing motive and to be fair the last 15 minutes manage to add some decent tension to the final chase sequence. But it's tough to recommend Fatal Pulse for any kind of recognition as it is just too poorly conceived.