Review: Sorority Row - the nail in the coffin

This film was a guaranteed stinker. To kick off proceedings, let’s run down the list of actors involved.

Numero Uno: Rumer Willis, daughter of action legend Bruce.

Next up: Briana Evigan (her off of Step Up 2: The Streets)

The final nail: Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia)

So, not a particularly stellar cast, rounded out by other forgettable actors from the back lots of Hollywood. Then there’s the very generic premise. Basically, the leading pack of girls in a generic American sorority sisterhood play a trick on someone’s generically gothy younger brother and persuade him that he is involved in the death of one of their very much alive and faking it friends. They drive with him en masse to a generic abandoned quarry and snicker behind their hands as they discuss how to best dispose of the ‘body’ in a generic kind of way. Meanwhile, the gothy brother slowly falls into despair, and just as they are about to reveal their prank, the distraught kid plunges a tyre iron into the chest of the supposedly dead friend, actually killing her. Their worst fears realised, the group descend into their most basic stereotypes, with the bitchy leader insisting that they dump the body as planned and preserve their chance at future happiness. Each goes along, with varying degrees of protest, and then the action skips ahead to the graduation ceremony eight months later. The girls have one more party organised at their sorority headquarters, but of course an avenging serial murderer wearing a concealing graduation gown turns up, and he or she knows what went down on that secret evening. Blah blah blah blah death. Can you tell that this is a remake? I’ve not seen The House on Sorority Row upon which this is based, but I doubt that I will in the foreseeable future.

What really sucks about this film is the relentless sexism oozing from every pore. I know it’s stupid to criticise a slasher movie for being so misogynistic, but the fact that all of the leads are female and not one of them has a redeeming or progressive character to play is pretty depressing. One particularly abrasive example is ‘Chugs’. That’s right, one of the girls is called ‘Chugs’. She is called a slut by others, refers to herself as a slut as she prepares to sleep with a doctor for some prescription meds to pep up the party, and her answer phone message ends with her asking the caller to ‘leave a message after theBLLEEUAAGHHHBURP’. She is just an extreme example of what most of the other girls aspire to be: alpha males. Or more specifically Jockish characters who hate women more than their appalling boyfriends. The world they inhabit feels very specifically American, with girls goaded into flashing their tits in order to become ‘one of the boys’ and branded as lesbians at the slightest hint of reluctance. This obviously is a tiny reflection of a relatively small part of the culture, but it’s damaging to the perception of their country on a global scale. If you’re as irritated by this kind of thing as me and want to read something interesting on the same topic, check out Ariel Levy’s ‘Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the rise of Raunch Culture’. It’s good. A lot better than Sorority Row. In fact, save your money, go and rent Scream or something else that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Alternatively, go see Sorority Row and be prepared to laugh at the complete ridiculousness of the whole thing. It’s likely that its producers are kicking themselves for not making it in 3D, as that new medium has been able to improve other generic dross like My Bloody Valentine. But not a lot.