Sorority Row (15)
Rating ***
IT'S September. The blockbuster season is officially over.
And as the leaves twist and redden on the branch, film buffs toast the return of "intelligent cinema" - and gear themselves up for the rarefied pleasures of the coming Oscar season.
Which brings us to this week's biggest release - some horror knock-off about five busty babes fleeing a cackling knifeman.
Sorority Row. Yes, it's a cheap, tawdry schlock-fest that often resorts to gore and pointless nudity . . . but it's not perfect.
Yet if you watched any teen slasher pic during the 1990s, you'll know exactly what to expect - from the teens-with-a-dark-secret set-up to the flavour-of-the-month-totty casting.
Briana Evigan (from Step Up 2) and Rumer Willis (from the loins of Bruce and Demi) star as students Cassidy and Ellie, who fall in with a gang of girls. (Sorority - for those of you who were a Year 10 pupil rather than a freshman and went to playschool instead of kindergarten - is a social club for female undergraduates.)
A prank set up by Queen Bee-atch Jessica (Leah Pipes) goes horribly wrong. Fellow student Megan (Audrina Patridge) pretends to die while she's in bed with a two-timing ex.
But he then panics and ends up killing her for real - so the girls dump the body down an abandoned mine shaft.
A year passes, and their secret seems safe. But on the eve of graduation, they each get a video text message taken on the night of Megan's murder.
Then a cloaked killer arrives and starts picking off the girls one by one. And it's usually in the communal showers, the hot tub or some other place that doesn't require very much clothing.
Mystery surrounds the murderer's identity. Has Megan come back from the dead? Is it her double-crossed ex exacting revenge? Or has a third party discovered the girls' dirty secret?
Frankly, it doesn't matter. Because the real shock here is how a film with such an uninspiring set-up has turned out to be so much fun.
Slasher
The muddled finale aside, Sorority Row's a slick effort. There's some very nice set pieces at the sorority house parties that combine stylish Goodfellas-style tracking shots with the more simple pleasure of watching hot girls in their pants on a trampoline.
Mad love, too, for the script - which is much better than anything "from the guys who brought you Good Luck Chuck and Piranha 3D" has any right to be. Barely a scene goes by without one of the lasses firing off a decent zinger. "Oh puh-leeze," tuts Jessica, after Ellie screams and collapses when she sees Megan's sister (Caroline D'Amore) at a champagne reception. "Seriously, who even faints any more?"
And at least the film is upfront about being a remake (of 1983 slasher The House On Sorority Row) instead of trying to fob off the prank-gone-wrong plotline as something original - as happened with I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Plus there's the not-inconsiderable joys of a cameo from the chunky-thighed Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia Cake) who lumbers around with a shotgun.
On the downside? That ending really needed more work, fellas. And we get it that teenie slasher movies always follow a template - but a couple more original twists and turns would have been welcome.
Then there's the Rumer Willis problem. She's a talented, beautiful young actress, no doubt. But by heck, is she her father's daughter. Whenever you get a glimpse of those thin, marksman's eyes and that chiseled jaw-line - holy moly, you half-expect her to pull out a Beretta and chase Alan Rickman around the roof of the Nakatomi Plaza.
Small complaints, though, that won't diminish your enjoyment of this shamelessly tacky film one jot. It's a five-star one-star movie, combining style and flair with almost no substance whatsoever.
As such, it deserves a solid three stars and a hearty thumbs up as this week's most entertaining mainstream release.
And as for Rumer? The signs are there that she can carve out a living in movies beyond filling the "celebrity offspring" slot.
Because not only does she bring some serious action skills to the final reel, she also looks damn good in a pair of frilly pyjamas.
I'd like to see her old man manage that.
OUT WEDNESDAY
This article has 1 comment
Flag of the world.
It' s beautiful,
for me, to
speak about
the dream of
a tired book,
with a noise
in my heart
that stands in
the melody like
a starry behaviour.
Francesco Sinibaldi
By Francesco Sinibaldi. Posted September 12 2009 at 7:45 PM.