I Know What You Did Last Sorority Party
The horror genre is really quite predictable, every few years someone will come out with another teen slasher movie so that the next generation will have their version of a familiar story to love. Sometimes it will be original whilst more often than not it will be a remake which brings me to "Sorority Row" which is a remake of "House on Sorority Row". Now I've never seen "House on Sorority Row" so can't say how this remake compares but what I will say is that it is basically "I Know What You Did Last Summer" just for a new generation. And as such I am sure new teens just experiencing horror will love it whilst those of use who have watched numerous horror movies will find it just another teen slasher movie.
The girls of Theta Pi decide to play a prank on Garret (Matt O'Leary), the cheating boyfriend of Megan (Audrina Patridge) by trying to make out she died whilst he was having sex with her. But the prank goes too far and Megan ends up being killed and with the girls and Garret all having their part to play in her accidental death decide to dump her body down an abandoned mine shaft, swearing to keep it secret. 8 months later and at graduation strange things happen as the girls start getting strange text message and soon they begin to wonder whether Megan has returned and is after revenge.
Whilst "Sorority Row" is a remake it is a modern teen slasher which works to a formula, a formula which is very similar to "I Know What You Did Last Summer". We have the accidental murder, the agreement to keep it a secret and then several months later that murder coming back to violently haunt them. That ends up meaning 3 things, we get to watch gruesome deaths, we wonder who is doing the killing and we wonder who is going to survive. And I suppose all 3 work, the deaths are violent, you won't guess who the killer is and you probably won't guess for certain who will live.
The trouble is that whilst "Sorority Row" starts with the element of the prank going wrong after that it becomes routine. The first gruesome death surprises you but from then on they don't and it is just a case of waiting for the next victim to meet their pimped tyre iron demise. Oh throw in some typical teen scenes, there is a girls shower room scene which allows for the obligatory topless moment and of course being a sorority house we have partying but none of it is new or thrilling.
In fact the one thing which really could have made "Sorority Row" stand out, the casting of Carrie Fisher as house mother Mrs. Crenshaw ends up a wasted opportunity. Fisher gets her moment to shine but if only they had made her part more critical it would have been so much better. As such what we end up with is a group of attractive young actresses playing this small clique all with different characteristics but all pretty forgettable. It is again the simple fact this is a generic bunch from the tough bitch to the mentally fragile one as well as the one who wants out from the clique that makes them so forgettable.
What this all boils down to is that whilst a remake "Sorority Row" is really nothing more than a teen slasher movie for another generation. It doesn't offer up anything new and basically boils down to who is killing, who will survive and how gruesome can the deaths be.
