Sorority Row

So Audrina Patridge of The Hills (I’ve never watched the show; I just know she’s featured heavily in People magazine a lot) has a cameo as the sorority victim who gets it in the chest when a prank involving her cheating boyfriend, Garrett (Matt O’Leary), tricking him into believing a roofie he slipped into her drink had caused her to die, ends in tragedy. The sorority sisters of Megan’s try to conceal the accidental death (he used a tire iron as to puncture her chest so her body would float, a suggestion by one of the sisters he thought would work; Garrett doesn’t know she’s still alive, and that he’s being punked).
**½

The girls involved: Cassidy (Briana Evigan; the final girl), Chugs (Margo Harshman), Ellie (Rumer Willis), Claire (Jamie Chung), and Jessica (Leah Pipes, the ringleader who swears the girls to secrecy, using manipulative creative methods to induce silence from her sisters). Cassidy believes, loudly and vocally, that they should fess up and inform the authorities of the crime, but Jessica is too self-absorbed to allow her life to be defamed and scarred by this tragedy. Chugs’ brother is Garrett, but she’s so positively frightened his welfare isn’t as important as her own. Chugs loves to gobble the liquor, and she’s the smart-ass witty chic of the group (I personally like her, thinking she’s got some funny lines; I admit I like the characters who use sarcasm (I can’t help it, I just find her irresistible)). Claire is just a superficial, easily-persuaded, materialistic noob who just so happens to be hot. Ellie is a nerd who was welcomed into the sorority because she could help the other girls pass tests and hold on to their good grades. Cassidy reluctantly agrees to hold her secret, but the guilt haunts her. It haunts the other girls, too, but Cassidy is the one (like Jennifer Love Hewitt in I Know What You Did Last Summer) that can’t shake the incident from her mind, conscience, and heart. The tenants of sisterhood, the love for their fellow sisters, is thrown up and used as a tool by Jessica to convince the girls to agree at hiding the horrible truth.

What the film does is set Cassidy apart as guiltless because she was trying to call the cops, attempting to find an area to get reception on her cell phone, as the others are established as horrendous, totally consumed with saving their own hides, bitches willing to frame her for the murder of Megan, even using her jacket as a type of death shroud, dropping the body in a mine shaft! It allows the viewer to celebrate each bitch’s death while acknowledging that Cassidy is free from the same scorn. When the sisters condemn Cassidy, together in unison with Jessica regarding the false framing, solidarity and all that jazz, the way this scene is performed and directed, it gives us a reason to want to see them suffer…Sorority Row earns its slasher stripes with this. The plot is in place; commence the violence. Trust, respect, honor, secrecy, and solidarity: yeah, Jessica says this and Cassidy must endure such sickening hyperbole. “Let’s go wash the blood off in the lake and get back to the party, “Jessica says.

Look, the formula is nothing new. Hot girls and guys die. It really is how creative they die and if there is some sex and nudity involved. It’s not rocket science, folks. If the slasher film has some good acting and a little creativity in the storytelling, perhaps some style and an interesting backdrop, a score that raises the heart beat and builds suspense, with a twist that turns the whole plot on its head, then it might lead to a solid reputation afterward.

When Scream led to a revival of the slasher genre—albeit a rather bloodless, sexless, pop-soundtrack infested slasher genre that seemed like a more easily-digested mainstream product that would reach a wider audience—it took some time before the spirit of the 80s, what made it so gratuitous, exploitative, and controversial, returned to the slasher genre. While Sorority Row still lacks a bit of the trashy appeal (while the script has the girls speak candid dialogue of a rather mean-spirited, often, frank nature, addressing body-issues and trading insults that can sting, little is actually shown) of the old school slasher (Hatchet, to me, was closer in that regard…), its black heart is in the right place. There’s a nasty spirit of things that belongs in this disreputable genre. I mean, any movie that has a scene where Jessica informs a junior (who was ribbing Claire for not taking the advantage of “bikini wax”) she must remove her towel in the girl’s shower room and walk across a hall to her room because of broken rules with a response of “Well, if you wanted to see perfect tits all you had to do was ask..” is alright by me.

Often in the slasher genre, the killer has an identifiable weapon that has significance to him/her. Jason has the machete, Freddy has the razor-fingered glove, Leatherface has the chainsaw, and Michael has the butcher knife. My favorite weapon of choice: the javelin in Fatal Games…now that is a weapon! In Sorority Row, the killer, in a hooded robe (check that, hooded graduation gown), uses a tricked-out tire iron (significant to its use to kill Megan; dropped in the mineshaft with her limp carcass). When you have the biggest, most raucous, and rowdiest party on the block, located at the Theta Pi house, it can be easy to slip into the crowd and move about, gaining opportunities to take out specific targets on the killer’s agenda. The sound effects gives the hooded killer a swish as his black figure wooshes past the screen which I found amusing…it kind of reminds me of how the blade makes that swish when a killer swings is towards victims. I also liked the added addition of the dropped cell phone that recorded Megan’s grisly demise and how it could be used as blackmail against the girls. Jessica is so concerned with only her own well being and sense of status (she’s dating a well-to-do son of a senator; both son and senator expect her to “toe the line” and live up to some sort of preposterous idea of the perfect mate for her potentially new political family), and a little bump in the road (like a friend's murder thanks to a prank you conducted) isn't about to deter her from the goal of popping out young ones from the sperm of a very rich hubby.

Who knew Ms. Crenshaw was such a badass.

I remember when I first watched Sorority Row, I couldn’t help just laugh at the reveal of the killer. It is so absurd. It makes little sense. Because other characters like Kyle, the senator’s son (who is a character that has little to do in the film at all until basically the end when the film needs to toss someone at the girls until the real killer emerges; his violent behavior just reinforces how the film falls apart at the end because it seems those involved in the plot’s evolution lost their marbles), and Garrett (who would be too obvious, considering he was set up by the girls at the beginning; when Jessica “removes him from the equation” his being the killer diminishes considerably) are a bit too obvious red herrings, but the motivations behind the true killer is so shitty, I thought it was hilarious. Maybe it was intentional. Just think of some sort of random-ass excuse to have the killer butcher the girls. It doesn’t matter that the killer has no connection to Megan’s murder in the least, and his psychopathic subtleness seems forced and stupid. The killer can sure take some shots to the skull, though. I mean, damn, Cassidy belts the killer with a lamp numerous times, among other decorative objects in the sorority house. The killer keeps coming until Rumer Willis (who had been weeping and screaming, freaking out and on the verge of a nervous breakdown) just summons pops and uses a shotgun that was in the possession of Carrie Fisher, denmother. 

Rumer Willis' sudden shift in personality from crybaby weakling to stone-faced savior is just yet another “Oh, fuck it,” moment that seems invented by those involved in the creative process of this movie that throws out credibility in favor of conveniently saving certain girls left in the fiery inferno of what was once a sorority house, burning to the ground. There’s always the response, “Why do you try to use your brain when watching one of these movies?!?! Just have fun and not give these movies too much thought…” I did for the most part. I really did. Carrie Fisher packing a shotgun and taking apart her kitchen trying to hit the killer (not to mention when she slugs Jessica) was fun to me. One of the girls’ face electrocuted, those burn bubbles stewing, I thought was fun. The “pimped out” bladed tire iron weapon, cool. A whimpering, whining Rumer Willis making it to the end and getting to down the killer with a shotgun…not fun.

Enough venting. The killer is the killer. Regardless if it is pulled out of the rectum, is covered in shit, and stinks up the joint. At least the killer goes out in the blaze of glory, the floor collapsing as he falls into a consuming oblivion. 

Really, Leah Pipes must have been having quite a time, her biting licks on all comers (even the rotted corpse of Megan can’t escape a bit of the ole ridicule) provided some hesitant amusement on my part. It must be admitted that while I found her a repellent human monster, her venomous digs on everyone that irritates and annoys her (which is everyone) often left me rather in slight chuckles. It is an interesting experience to find cutting comments on people both humorous and ouch at the same time. I don’t have to like her but at least she mostly says what’s on her mind, off the top. If she were brutally honest with everyone, though, the way she is with her girls, there’s no way she’d be even remotely the eye of the ballroom in sorority society. I take that back, most of the girls are that way, so yeah, Jessica would still be the lead, out in front, directing a toast or pep rally. Damn the Defiant, if you were to try and stop her; Jessica’s so determined to be the wife of a senator one day, almost nothing would have stopped her…that is unless you have a tire iron with sharp blades that stab real good.

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I almost didn't mention House on Sorority Row on purpose. While Mark Rosman's name is mentioned as an inspiration to this film, there are mere slight similarities. An accidental death and cover-up, the sorority sisters falling to a killer, and the ringleader of the cover-up is consumed with keeping this hush-hush because owning up to what happened would be a detriment to her future. It does happen at a sorority, but in Sorority Row we get plenty of partying, drunken idiocy, kids trashing the place, and lots of beautiful people releasing their inhibitions as only college life allows.

Where is Linnea Quigley's Trash and her undead zombie army when you need them?

Suck on these, bitches!!!