Surprisingly, going commando isn’t a fair trade for vomit breath anymore. Even with her lady lumps hanging half-way out of her shirt, scintillating sorority sister Chugs can’t play off her previous bulimic excursion while attempting to seduce one of the many random guys who passed through “Sorority Row.” But at least Chugs came to terms with her problem, after she labeled her disgusted lover homosexual and left to find another.
Some movie characters just deserve to die. In the case of “Sorority Row,” this includes all of them.
Directed by Stewart Hendler, this remake of the 1983 slasher “The House on Sorority Row” desperately tries to portray the scandalous lives of Theta Pi sisters yet comes closer to portraying a 14-year-old’s wet dream version of what he envisions goes on in the titillatingly elusive sorority houses. It seems that age group is exactly who this film is catered to, which is unfortunate considering the film’s R rating.
These impossibly sexy sorority sisters attempt to stage a prank to teach some chauvinistic bro a lesson (think “John Tucker Must Die” only this time people actually do kick the can). As one might expect, things take a uber-highlighted turn for the worst and soon the sisters are faced with escaping a mysterious, black-hooded Angel of Death’s mutilation spree, all the while maintaining a perfect coif.
There’s a difference between using sex appeal to entice the audience, and inundating viewers with enough cleavage to distract them from the greatly lacking, mind-blowing dialogue — it makes you want to blow your brains out.
If you’ve ever seen a slasher movie in your entire life, viewing this movie will seem hauntingly redundant. Perhaps the only update is, instead of a threatening phone call, the victims receive daunting photo and video cell phone messages.
So who was my favorite character? Tough decision. Perhaps it was the silky Claire, played by Jamie Chung, who screwed her cheating boyfriend in a hot tub in the middle of a Greek party. Or maybe it’s Garret, played by Matt O’Leary, the ex-boyfriend who “accidentally” stabs a sister through the heart with a tire iron; then cowers in his tears and pity beside the SUV as the victim’s best friends drag her bloodied, scantily-clad body to be dumped in a wine shaft as a cover-up. (Yes, writers Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger did miraculously manage to incorporate alcohol and sex into every scene). I suppose my favorite characters were the dead ones. Even if their pierced corpses turned my stomach, at least they couldn’t circle one another’s fat with permanent markers or ruin each other’s lives for fun anymore.
However, I do have to give this film props for the soundtrack which includes Ladytron, remixes of Black Kids and Paul Oakenfold songs. But if the best thing from a motion picture is the CD it produces, then that’s a surefire pointer that something somewhere went horribly wrong.
The leader of the sisters, Jessica, played by Leah Pipes, summarizes her view of the importance of trust and sisterhood into one sentence: “Now let’s go wash off the blood in the lake and get back to the party.”