Sorority Row (2009)/The House on Sorority Row (1983)

What separates a “good” Slasher film from a “terrible” one is the level of talent involved with the project – a genuinely talented filmmaker can take a fairly routine script and elevate it to a higher level.  Imagine if Psycho would have been directed by a studio hack instead of Alfred Hitchcock? It would not be regarded as the classic it is today and would, more than likely, been lost to time.  The House on Sorority Row and its remake, Sorority Row, are not in the same class as Psycho, but both are a cut (pun intended) above your standard Slasher movie. 

The most striking thing about both films is that they are fairly well directed and have some truly haunting visuals.  The House on Sorority Row is merely passable for its first seventy minutes, but is redeemed by its truly tense finale.  It ups the stakes by not only having the heroine (Katherine) fight off the killer, but doing so in a drugged out a state – she is injected with a tranquilizer by Dr. Beck, who wants to use her as bait to trap the killer. The movie effectively blurs the lines of reality; Katherine constantly has to fight off hallucinations brought on by the drug, while doing her best not to get caught by the killer.  Its fairly reminiscent of the dream sequence in the Brian DePalma movie, Sisters – this is not too surprising as the director, Mark Rosman, was an assistant to DePalma for a brief period of time. The House on Sorority Row also borrows heavily from the Bob Clark classic, Black Christmas, especially with the reveal that the killer has been living in the sorority house attic the entire time. The remake never matches the original's intensity, but there some genuinely eerie visuals - I especially like the shot of the girls walking through their sorority house to find it has been completely trashed and, thus, resembling a complete hell on earth. It's an appropriate setting for the heroine, Cassidy, to nearly lose her soul.  It's evident that the director, Stewart Hendler, knows his stuff. 

Sorority Row is a loose remake of the 1983 film – the plot point it lifts from the original movie is a sorority prank that goes horribly wrong.  In the original movie the prank involves the strict house mother, Mrs. Slater, who objects to the girls throwing a graduation party at the sorority house. The prank goes horribly awry, when Vicki, the party girl of the group, accidentally shoots Mrs. Slater with a gun. The girls, after deliberating for a few minutes, decide to cover up the murder and, for the time being, dump Mrs. Slater’s corpse into the swimming pool until they can figure out what to do with it. The girls go on with their graduation party, despite being completely on edge, and are picked off one by one by an unseen killer.  

In the  remake the prank is far more elaborate (and nonsensical) -  Megan wants to get revenge on her cheating boyfriend, Garrett, so she, along with her sorority sisters, come up with one of the most contrived revenge plans in film history:  Megan’s friend, and Garrett’s sister, “Chugs” gives Garrett a couple of pills to slip into Megan’s drink to make her more co-operative, and while the two of them are making love in her bedroom, Megan starts to have seizure and begins to foam from the mouth. Garrett thinks the drugs have killed her and rushes to get her sorority sisters. This is, of course, a ruse to teach Garrett a lesson.  Jessica, the alpha sister, convinces Garrett that they must cover up the "accident", and so they drive to an abandoned well to hide the “body.” Meanwhile, Megan tries to hold back her laughter. The rest of the girls are a bit disturbed by Garrett’s hysterical behavior and want to call the prank off, but Jessica talks them out of it. When they arrive at the abandoned well, Jessica suggests they look for sharp objects to chop up Megan’s body with, and, not surprisingly, everything goes to hell when Garrett impales Megan with a tire iron.  The girls decide to dump Megan’s body in the well with Cassidy being the only hold out in the group.  

This part of the movie is extremely flawed and strains credibility, for a couple of reasons:

1) How far was this prank supposed to go?  You would think that Megan faking a seizure and foaming at the mouth would have been adequate enough. Garrett is absolutely freaked out by this and is a blubbering mess. It is also revealed that Garrett’s cheating was a result of Megan cheating on him first. So neither party is entirely sympathetic.
2) Why do the other girls so along with Jessica?  The other girls (Cassidy, “Chugs,” Ellie, and Claire) are all unnerved by Garrett’s hysterical behavior, yet still go along with the prank because they don’t want to let Jessica down. This makes sense for the characters of Claire and Ellie, but Cassidy is a fairly strong willed, and compassionate, person, hence it is completely out of character for her to go along with the cruel prank. She most certainly would have blown the whistle once she realized how dangerous it was getting.  It makes even less sense for “Chugs,” considering that she is Garrett’s older sister and, despite him being a complete tool, does genuinely care for him. She should have stopped the prank once she saw the toll it was taken on her brother’s mental state.  Why does Megan lay still the entire time?
3) Why do the girls leave Garrett alone? Given Garrett’s state of mind, it would have made sense to have someone stay by his side the entire time, yet the girl’s leave him all alone, while they pretend to search for a “sharp object.”  This is maybe the most bone headed movie in movie history.  I understand that there is no movie without Megan’s accidental death, but it’s hard to suspend my disbelief for this scene. It is the weakest link in the entire movie and I nearly turned the movie off at that very moment. Thankfully, it does improve as it progresses.

Sorority Row, while based off the 1983 movie, greatly owes its structure to the 1997 Slasher, I Know What You Did Last Summer.  Both movies feature an accidental death and a cover up, and then flash forward to a year later (well, technically nine months in Sorority Row, but close enough). In The House on Sorority Row, the events happen over the course of one day. The heroines in both movies (Cassidy in Sorority Row/Julie in Last Summer) are adamant about calling the police after the accident has occurred, but are overruled by their friends. They are still racked with guilt over what happened the previous year and are reluctant to delve into their past (Cassidy reluctantly agrees to go to her sorority house’s graduation party, while Julie is reluctant to go back to her hometown after finishing her first year of college). The heroines in both movies have kept their distance from their one time close friends (Cassidy has moved out of the house and donates her time to charity work, while Julie has locked herself in her college dorm room). There's a lot of misdirection in both movies, especially in the reveal of the killer (though, the reveal in Sorority Row is more indebted to I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, only done in far more competent manner). In Sorority Row, the characters receive sinister texts from the killer, while in Last Summer, they receive letters. 

Sorority Row greatly benefits from its leading actress, Briana Evigan. She gives a very compassionate, and sincere, performance as Cassidy and helps elevate the movie from being unbearable to totally watchable.  Though, she is greatly assisted by Leah Pipes as the extremely bitchy, Jessica. There is a nice dynamic between the two characters – Cassidy is a borderline saint, while Jessica is a complete narcissist.  However, it is to the movie’s credit that even Jessica, despite her callous behavior, is a sympathetic character.  Her reason for wanting to cover up Megan’s death is that her boyfriend, Kyle, is the son of a Senator seeking the Vice-Presidential nomination, thus any scandal linked to him might ruin his bid.  The acting in the original is a bit spotty at times, but Kate McNeil gives a rather effective performance as Katherine - she extremely convincing in the movie's climax, where Katherine is on the verge of losing her mind. 

It also helps that Sorority Row has a sense a humor about itself. There are a lot of funny dialogue exchanges through out the movie, but my favorite one has to be:

Jessica: Please God, don’t let me get killed. Please God, don’t let me get killed.
Cassidy: Stop giving him ideas. 

Plus, any movie that casts Carrie Fisher as a shotgun wielding house mother can’t be all bad. The main flaw of the original is takes itself a bit too seriously and all the characters are rather dour. It gets a lot of stylistic points, but a sense of humor would have elevated it to classic status. 

Credits:

Sorority Row (2009)
Cast: Briana Evigan (Cassidy), Leah Pipes (Jessica), Rumer Willis (Ellie), Jamie Chung (Claire), Audrina Partridge (Megan), Margo Harshman (Charlene “Chugs”), Julian Morris (Andy), Caroline D’Amore (Maggie), Carrie Fisher (Mrs. Crenshaw), Matt O’ Leary (Garrett), Matt Lanter (Kyle), Maxx Hennard (Mickey), Nicole Moore (Joanna), Ken Bolden (Dr. Rosenberg), Rick Applegate (Senator Tyson).

Director: Stewart Hendler
Screenplay: Josh Stolberg, Pete Goldfinger
Running Time: 100 min

The House on Sorority Row (1983)
Cast:  Kate McNeil (Katherine), Eileen Davidson (Vicki), Janis Zido (Liz), Robin Meloy (Jeannie), Harley Jane Kozak (Diane), Jodi Draigie(Morgan), Ellen Dorsher (Stevie), Lois Kelso Hunt (Mrs. Slater), Christopher Nelson (Dr. Beck), Michael Kuhn (Peter), Michael Sergio (Rick), Charles Serio (Eric).
Director: Mark Rosman
Screenplay: Bobby Fine, Mark Rosman
Running Time: 91 min.