Wanna kill these girls? Get in line.
Image Courtesy of IMPawards.com
Director: Stewart Hendler
Notable Cast: Briana Evigan, Margo Harshman, Rumer Willis, Jamie Chung, Leah Pipes, Audrina Patridge, Carrie Fisher, Caroline D’Amore
The remake of Sorority Row opens with a lengthy tracking shot that would make Quentin Tarantino envious. In an early twist that should come to the surprise of no one the film’s ambition ends there. But somehow that tracking shot commands that the film be given more consideration for its artistic merit than it deserves. After all, this is a college horror flick we’re talking about here, not Psycho. Attention to style, story, and character development are merely coincidental. Not to worry, Sorority Row spends very little time on the latter two elements.
Sorority Row follows the tale of six Sorority sisters who’ve done a bad thing. Faking the death of one of their sisters to teach a cheating ex a lesson, it turns real and they decide that the only way they can escape punishment is to hide the body. But punishment will eventually catch up with them.
The six sisters are introduced at a house party and, though they live together and are apparently friends, not even they can be bothered to know each other beyond their stock personalities. There’s Bitchy McLeader (Leah Pipes), Token Asian Friend (Jamie Chung), Slutty Whorington (Margo Harshman), Nervous Shyerson (Rumer Willis) and Madame Righteous Agenda (Briana Evigan). Even if they weren’t playing caricatures, they would be easy to pick out as the movie has them do shots together at which time they helpfully point out who will be playing whom through veiled insults.
We never get to know the sixth sister as her untimely death and the subsequent cover-up of said death are the central focus of the movie. The prank the girls play on a mean boy goes terribly awry when Sixth Sister plays dead too convincingly and the boy stupidly stabs her in the chest to “let the air out of her lungs”.
The logic behind this is mystifying enough but what follows has to be the greatest progression of god-awful only-in-horror-movies-would-it-work decision making that ultimately leads to Sixth Sister being dumped in a well and the promise that the other sisters will never speak of the incident again.
With graduation on hand, the girls get a reminder of what they’ve done and the horrifying truth that they’re all going to die. The solution? Everyone goes about their business and sleeps with a hottie, except for Slutty Whorington who sleeps with many, and Nervous Shyerson who sleeps with none. This small element of Sorority Row is worth noting simply because as insulting as the one-dimensional characters already were, the sheer fact that they seemingly only think about sex and themselves (in that order) does an outstanding job of making all women look like selfish, conceited tramps.
If we look at it artistically, as the opening shot invites us to do, Sorority Row almost comes across as satire with the real horror being the way these girls treat each other. Somehow I doubt that was the filmmakers’ intention even if the girls’ hatred for each other, men, and probably even themselves is easily the scariest part in the entire movie.
