John Allman

If you’ve ever wandered the aisles at the video store or surfed the DVR pay-per-view options and seen a bunch of movies that you’ve never heard of, chances are John has watched them. Why? He loves movies. All kinds of movies. Good, bad, so-bad-they’re good, even the truly unwatchable ones. He mostly loves horror and science-fiction and drive-in exploitation movies that most upstanding model citizens wouldn’t dare watch. Then he writes up his thoughts so you can decide - watch, don’t watch or avoid at all costs. Sometimes he even gets to talk to the cool folks who make some of your favorite films.

 Blood, Violence and Babes
 John Allman

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Sorority Row

Posted Mar 20, 2010 by John Allman

Updated Mar 20, 2010 at 08:09 AM

Sorority Row
Genre: Horror/Remake
Directed by: Stewart Hendler
Run time: 101 minutes
Rating: R
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: Sometimes, low expectations can yield amazing results.

Take this remake of 1983’s “House on Sorority Row,” an early slasher cult favorite, which has been glossed up and jump-cut edited to satisfy today’s ADD-youth.

It debuted last year with little fanfare, bombed at the box office and barely registered a blip on the horror radar.

Yet, a funny thing happened when I finally got to sit down and watch “Sorority Row”: I freaking LOVED it.

Everyone loves to talk about movies like “Hatchet” and “The Hills Run Red” as being stellar throwbacks to the decade when slasher movies ruled the multiplex. But here’s the thing, “Hatchet” was memorable for its insanely sick kills, not its ho-hum, wannabe iconic killer and “Hills Run Red” just kind of ran out of gas with a story that became increasingly convoluted.

“Sorority Row” isn’t concerned with all that.

It’s slick, fast-moving, surprisingly funny and gory as hell. And it gets everything that made those beloved slice-and-dice films from the 80s so good. There are red herrings, jump scares, a plucky cameo from a former star, buckets of blood and bare boobs.

In a world where “I Know What You Did Last Summer” made bank, spawned two sequels and featured a killer dressed like the Gorton’s fisherman, there’s something wrong when people can’t simply appreciate a good, old-fashioned stalk and kill B-movie.

The set-up comes early: The top sisters at the top sorority conspire to retaliate against a boyfriend who cheated. They stage a fake death and then force him to conspire to hide the body. Chaos ensues when the boyfriend actually starts to dismember the girl’s body and she jolts back to life, only to die for real.

The sorority girls seek solidarity by pledging never to speak of what happened.

Jump forward a year to graduation and each of the girls present when their sister died gets a text message suggesting that someone knows what they did.

That’s when “Sorority Row” quickly starts picking off its nubile young beauties with a succession of creative kills, all involving impalement with a modified tire iron, the same weapon used by the boyfriend.

Each of the sorority sisters is a total cliché, but the characters are given freshness by the actresses playing them. There’s Jessica (Leah Pipes), the social-climbing vixen hoping to marry a Senator’s son. Chugs (Margo Harshman), the cheap and easy girl, who isn’t above getting kinky with her psychiatrist to score some prescription pills. Claire (Jaime Chung), the token ethnic girl. And Ellie (Rumor Willis), the mousy and smart but socially awkward one. The only actress who doesn’t register much is Cassidy (Brianna Evigan), the good girl who wanted to go to the police right from the start.

Of them all, Pipes is a scream as the catty, caustic, quick with a quip and two-faced-as-hell stereotypical sorority girl. She steals every scene that she’s in, and I personally loved her.

The only place where “Sorority Row” could have gone one better is in its final act. You know there’s going to be a twist, and truth be told, they give away the killer early on, but do a decent job of underplaying the reveal with a couple of nice red herrings that keep popping up and make you think it might be someone else. But the ending is still sufficiently satisfying and they even set it up nicely for a sequel, which is the ultimate homage to the genre’s heyday.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – More than you can count, from Margo Harshman as Chugs, the house tramp, to Leah Pipes, the sexy blonde ice queen.
Nudity – Yes.
Gore – Yes.
Drug use – Yes.
Bad Guys/Killers – Here’s a hint, it’s not who they want you to think it is.
Buy/Rent – Buy it.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – Picture-in-Picture commentary track with director and cast; featurettes “Sorority Secrets: Stories from the Set” and “Killer 101”; the clever “Kill Switch,” which edits down the film to its money shot kills; deleted scenes and outtakes.
Release Date – Feb. 23, 2010