‘Sorority Row’ is Cliché Incarnate
-----It’s hard to get excited for modern horror movies. Maybe it’s the boring limbs flying across the screen, or the pointless nudity, or maybe they’re just so darn cliché. Yes, ‘Sorority Row’ has a little, *ahem* plenty, of all of those features. And it’s just so very dull after the first fifteen minutes. Are we supposed to care about these people? They’re losers, and so is their killer. Almost as annoying as the movie itself are those that pay to see it, thereby supporting the monthly slash-porn I have to sit through for the sake of the Green Hat Review.
-----‘Sorority Row’ tells the tale of seven brainless sorority sisters. They are popular in their world, but for any moviegoer with a mind, they are quite stupid. Anyway, while playing a prank on a sister’s brother, things go bad. They trick him into thinking he killed one of their sisters, and then by accident he actually does. Nine months later, they all start getting killed off for their participation in the covered up murder.
-----It’s kind of hard to tell the sisters apart other than their single defining attribute and their different looks. One is slightly nicer than the others, but a victim of peer pressure. One is a straight up jerk. One is a super nerd. One is promiscuous. And one is…Asian. Not to sound racist in the last sister’s description, but the fact of the matter is; they all play forgettable archetypes so much so that it’s hard to care about any of them or their dilemmas. You won’t even really despise any of them either, because they’re just so bland in these cliché roles. There’s nothing to be said about any of the acting being anything other than bad, so I’ll save everyone’s time and just list off a few of the actors responsible for this mess. Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis, Jamie Chung…you’re all as bad in ‘Sorority Row’ as you are good looking. In there defense, there’s no script to speak of, so even if they managed to be adequate, they still looked bad spouting the nonsense written for them. And finally, there’s another name that pops up when one looks at the cast information…that of Carrie Fisher! That’s who that crazy old lady was? She maintains one of the film’s only semi-entertaining characters, now that I recall her few minutes on screen. Despite not being as bad as everyone else, I still don’t understand why Fisher wasted her time with this one. I mean, Princess Leia participated in this garbage film? Why did you feel the need to take even the smallest role in this event, Fisher? Don’t sink so low!
-----Now that I’ve properly slammed the cast, it’s time to talk about the film itself. The opening dilemma manages to build up some suspense and even gets you jumping once or twice. Unfortunately, what follows is eerily similar to ‘Scary Movie.’ It’s as if they took the formulaic stupidity that ‘Scary movie’ made fun of, and took it seriously. Why would anyone want to make that movie? It’s been made millions of times! Why cruel fate? Why do you thrust such filth onto the screens intended for art and entertainment? Or better yet, why does anyone support these films with their money? The ending reveal, or rather reveals, are lame and predictable! Lame and predictable! Even the most casual moviegoer should be able to announce one of the guilty parties by the film’s thirty minute mark. And of course, it wouldn’t be a complete horror cliché without that ending that supposedly throws the audience for a loop. They’re actually not safe, they’re still going to get killed…by someone else! I feel shocked! And the sisters are so annoying that you just might hope they get killed; but then the killers are so cliché that you may decide to kill yourself instead, if it means not having to sit through the rest of this trash.
-----There is a bit of nifty cinematography in the very first sequence, as the camera travels around their sorority party. As for the rest of the movie, film grain blurs everything, scenes are shot in the dark, and the music is generic and forgettable. It’s just a bad production, based solely on pornography and blood. And even worse yet, it’s not even entertaining, as you’ll quickly grow tired of the usual proceedings.
-----Well, that’s all she wrote for ‘Sorority Row.’ If you paid to see it, what help can I really offer? You’ll find no condolences here, for I cannot condone supporting these bad films that come around every month like a recurring nightmare. It’s a bummer to see 99.999% of all modern horror movies being this bad, and the ratings don’t lie. So far the sum of all stars given to horror movies for 2009 on Green Hat Reviews is four. That’s an average of one star a movie, which is reasonably higher than it would be without ‘Drag Me to Hell’; which, I can safely say, looks like a horror masterpiece at 2.5 stars, given what I’ve now seen from its genre. As if all that wasn’t enough, ‘Sorority Row’ can’t even boast self-awareness like ‘The Final Destination.’ ‘Sorority Row’ manages to hold your attention for a short while in the beginning, mainly due to the unnecessary nudity that makes a habit of catching you by surprise, partly due to the shocking stupidity of the events taking place onscreen. And I continue to ponder, were we supposed to care about any of it?
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