Sorority Row (Summit Entertainment)
Not Bad Enough To Be Camp
Any movie that wastes the talents of Carrie Fisher has one strike against it going in, and Sorority Row wastes her talent big time. Seeing her play a foul-mouthed, gun toting sorority house mother makes us too aware of how long it has been since her days as Princess Leia. Even with those doughnut braids on the sides of her head she still maintained her dignity, but not here.
There are six senior girls who rule at the sorority house where Mrs. Crenshaw (Fisher) is the house mother. They are Cassidy (Briana Evian), Chugs (Margo Harshman), Ellie (Rumer Willis), Claire (Jamie Chung), Jessica (Leah Pipes) and Megan (Audrina Partridge). They decide to play a prank on Chugs brother Garrett (Matt OLeary) by pretending to have the girl he is with die.
Megan is the girl who makes him think she has died and the others all go along with it. But things go badly wrong when Garrett bludgeons Megan to death near the site of an abandoned mine. The six girls decide to cover up the killing and go on with their lives, but at the end of the school year it seems someone knows what happened and that person wants revenge.
The rest of the movie is spent watching who gets killed next and how. This is where the stupidity of the movie comes into play. Never have so many acted so ignorantly. If this is typical of the intelligence level of our college seniors, well folks we are in a heap of trouble.
Also if this is a sample of the new crop of Hollywood actresses then Hollywood is in a world of hurt. Not a single one of these young women do anything to create a believable character. Of course some of that may have to do with a thoughtless script but someone should have been able to do something special.
Best of the bunch is Pipes who plays the coldest of the bunch. She does manage to flip off some tasty zingers. If anyone could have made this a camp classic it is she as the best lines are all hers. But she couldnt do it alone and the rest of the dialogue is wasted on her co-stars.
There is suspense in the film and there is humor. These are the plusses. The big minus is the lack of acting talent, the waste of Carrie Fisher and the totally illogical script. You just shake your head each time the group pulls another stupid move.
The film is rated R for profanity, violence and nudity.
Sorority Row is not gory enough to appeal to the Saw crowd and not campy enough to make it a fun film. It just lies there in the middle land of mediocrity where it will soon be forgotten.
I scored Sorority Row a collegiate 4 out of 10.
