Sorority Row (2009)
Directed by Stewart Hendler
Written by Josh Stolberg, Pete Goldfinger
Starring Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis, Jamie Chung, Audrina Partridge
Release Date September 11th, 2009
Published September 12th, 2009
If you have seen the 90's horror flick I Know What You Did Last Summer then you have no reason to see Sorority Row. Aside from the more risque R-rating for Sorority Row the plots are basically the same: A group of attractive young people commit an accidental murder and attempt to cover it up and are subsequently stalked and murdered themselves. Choose the prettiest ones to survive and boom, same movie.
The girls of Theta Pi are the meanest mean girls on campus. Their parties are as legendary as their bitchiness and it is during a party that the bitchfest goes haywire. The boyfriend of one Theta gal has cheated. His punishment? His girlfriend and her sisters plan to fake her death right down to dumping her body down a mine shaft to cover it up. The joke goes too far when at the mine they talk of cutting up the body and the boyfriend goes first.
He stabs her in the chest with a tie iron and this time she's really dead. Rather than risk their futures as trophy brides and the best friend's of trophy brides; they decide to go ahead with the fake plan from before, the old' mine shaft drop. One sister is against it but when the remaining sisters frame her for the murder, she has no choice but to go along.
Cut to 8 months later, graduation night. The sister blamed has left the house but returns for the final night. As soon as she is reunited with her former friends bad things begin to happen. A texted photo of the tossed away tire iron, the appearance of the dead girl's jacket, oh and a series of murders in the sorority house, lead to the conclusion that either their late friend has risen from the grave (or shaft if you prefer) or somebody knows what they did last sorority mixer.
Not one surprise or twist lands in Sorority Row. If you can't see every telegraphed scare coming, you just aren't trying. Reading ahead in an actual copy of the script would be less obvious than the lame set ups of Sorority Row. Each character is dispatched in less and less interesting ways until we accrue just the right number of survivors appropriate for a sequel.
The is a less than stellar assemblage of beauties. Yes, all are attractive and in various states of undress from beginning to end but you can get that on any late night cable movie. The only thing notable about the cast is that Rumer Willis is the daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Ashton's step-daughter. And, Audrina Partridge of the MTV un-reality series is the gal on the wrong end of the tire iron prank.
Otherwise, there isn't much to remember or give a damn about in Sorority Row. If you are in the mood for lame horror, rent I Know What You Did Last Summer. It's basically the same plot and that one, at the very least, is lifted by the talents of Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michele Gellar.
You can always catch Sorority Row at 3 Am on late night cable in a few months, a milieu appropriate for the film's tired attempts at sleaze horror.
