Sorority Row *

Picture from: yourmoviestuff.com

The first shots of Sorority Row pan through a crowded party of half-naked, drunken coeds in the midst of their initiation into the Theta Pi sorority. It is one of those parties populated by such impossibly good-looking people we strain to find the address somewhere—anywhere. I’ve never seen a party like this in real life. I can safely assume they don’t exist.

We follow a handful of sisters from the sorority into a bedroom where they begin to watch a video feed of a prank that is sure to go wrong. As Megan (Audrina Patridge) begins to foam at the mouth after her boyfriend Garrett (Matt O’Leary) slips her a Roofy, Megan’s sorority sisters, led by Queen Bee Jessica (Leah Pipes) feign concern and rush to her side. Megan’s dead, or so Garrett thinks, so when the girls decide to dump the body in a secluded body of water, Garrett stabs Megan in the chest. Why? So the air will escape from her lungs and she will sink to the bottom. Why did the sisters play this prank in the first place? Garrett cheated on Megan, of course. So they decide to really dump her body and forget the bloody fiasco. All of them except Cassidy (Briana Evigan) jump on board, whom the others threaten to pin the murder on if she calls the cops.

From there, the film turns into a third-rate teen slasher/horror mash of implausible plot details, boring sequences of text messages and showers, and a less than satisfying conclusion. After graduation, those involved in dumping Megan’s body down the well begin to be killed off by a tire-iron wielding killer looking for vengeance. Peripheral characters beware: if you even heard about what really happened to Megan, you’re dead. In one sequence, sorority sister Chugs (Margo Harshman) pays a visit to her psychiatrist looking to score some prescription meds. The killer decides to take out the psychiatrist, who happens to be a sexual deviant. Clever. In another sequence, well, let’s just say you probably shouldn’t use the senior shower if you’re not a senior.

So who’s the killer? Some of the girls think it’s an insane Garrett. Others believe that Megan somehow came back to life, climbed out of a fifty foot well, and learned the intricate art of the tire iron. Or is it Megan’s creepy sister that turns up in the second act? When we find out who the killer really is, we don’t accept his/her explanation, and we don’t care to.

Sorority Row is typical fare for the modern teen slasher film. It is a poorly executed knock-off meant to recapture the heyday of the mid-nineties revival of the genre led by the much better Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Unlike those films, the characters in Sorority Row are directly responsible for the original killing, making the audience more apt to cheer for their deaths than their rescue. Perhaps that’s the point, but we don’t care that they die. We don’t care who kills them. We just don’t. If you miss this one, you won’t be missing much.