Monday, May 17, 2010

Review: Sorority Row (2009)

Director: Stewart Hendler
Starring: Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis

It's good to know that horror movies are still stupid in this day and age. I mean, this is a movie that basically expects us to believe a plot that goes like this: Sorority sisters want to get back at guy for cheating on one of them. Sorority sisters give the guy some roofies to let him date rape her and he does it without questioning even though she is his girlfriend and he shouldn't have to do that. The girl fakes her death to scare the guy into...being sorry for what he did, I guess; it never really comes up again anyway. When they're faking it and trying to "decide what to do with her," one of the girls brings up the fact that the air in her lungs won't let her sink to the bottom of the lake. This leads to the boyfriend stabbing her through the chest with a tire iron to...let the air out, I guess, thus killing her for real.

They dump her body into a mine shaft with only a smidgen of consideration. It's good to know that killing comes as easily as cheating on one another to these kids.

So, let's recap: date rape drugs lead to tire irons through the chest. We're off to a smashing start here. I will say that I kind of enjoyed this movie anyway, even for all its stupidity, as it is a very tense film during the middle segments and the scantily clad sorority girls are fun. The kills are creative and gory as hell and it moves along without boring at all. And the killer's weapon is really cool - a bladed tire iron thing. It just looks badass. Somehow it remains pretty entertaining even when it is dumb as a rock.

Like there's one scene where the girl goes to see her psychologist and he's handcuffed to a bed. You figure that one out. And then she starts taking off her clothes in the bathroom before they're both murdered...thankfully; I didn't really want to know what that was about.

Or how about the scene where the killer advances on the Asian girl's boyfriend? He sure lets the guy scream and call for help at the window for a while. And the guy had a perfect chance to throw that chair he threw at the window at the killer, but...he didn't...for some reason. Well, that's some true Darwinian natural selection for you! Did I mention the guy spends the whole movie peeking up girls' skirts and trying to make them flash him to get tickets to get into the party? Yeah, real winner of a human being right there.

I really was enjoying this up until the end, when the film pulls the ultimate cliche and has the main girl's seemingly nice boyfriend turn on her and become like every other psychotic jerk in these movies. Apparently HE was the killer all along! But...that makes no sense at all! Why do directors and writers constantly think this twist is scary? It's not. It's not scary because he's just a skinny suburban white guy with perfect teeth and gelled up hair. There's nothing threatening about him, and what is his motivation? That he wanted to kill everyone so that she could have a better life and escape from the clutches of the sorority? A bit extreme there, guy, and the character isn't written well enough so that I'd believe it for a second. What a load.

Nobody in this movie has any semblance of human logic. And that includes the writers. Seriously, how am I supposed to believe this stupid plot? Well, I guess whatever you have to do to get the blood flowing and the kills kicking up, but still. It shouldn't have to stretch things so much in order to get a decent slasher flick on screen.

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