About Me

My photo
Hi, my name is Jonathan Denard McNeair and I grew up in Lexington, North Carolina, also known as Pig City...Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha...The town is mostly known for its barbeque where they often throw barbeque festivals every October. In my chosen career, I am a self-published author of fiction.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Movie Review: Sorortiy Row





Oh god, oh man, Oh god, Oh man. I just got down to the bottom of the barrel. There was some slashers in the 80's that were underrated classics. The rest...not so much. But House On Sorority Row was one of those slashers that had effort put into it. It may not be up to par like Halloween Or Friday The 13th, though it hits the right notes. So why is it getting remade? I guess the studios involved took advantage of it being an obscure slasher. What this ends up being is a farce, ripping off films like Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Urban Legend all in one take. It's even more ridiculous and dumb than the Black Christmas Remake. And although I have my hangups about that remake, at least the cinematography and the directing was good. Lots of shaky cam, dark scenes, and CGI with this one. What makes it worse is that the female characters are incredibly superficial and catty with one another. Trust me, you guys, there is a lot of shadiness going on here. Just like the last two movies, this is a honk of shit. I will give the film this though, at least it doesn't take itself too seriously. At least it knows it's a piece of crap. But it's yet another forgettable waste of time. Just another shitty slasher film.
The Story: Bitchy sorority girls pulls a prank on one of the girls' boyfriend. Prank goes wrong which actually gets one of the girls killed. The girls soon hide the body. One year later, someone wants revenge. Blah, Blah, Blah.


Woo boy, if you thought the girls from Black Christmas were bad, these girls will give them a run for their money. I mean in the original, the girls were somewhere close to tolerable to decent, even the Alpha Bitch in that movie had likeable moments. But oh no, all the girls in this movie does is bitch, bitch, bitch. And when they play a quite elaborate prank on guy in the opening scene, right off the bat you see how dumb and unlikable they really are. Even when things start to go array, all the girls talk about is who's boyfriend cheated on who, who's backstabbing who, It shows how far from reality these characters are. One last note, how the hell are they even friends in the first place? I don't know and I don't care.



We have Cassidy, who is the moral compass of the group, because this movie sure as hell need one. Witty, smart, strong-wiled, and sarcastic, it shows that Cassidy may be a good girl but takes no crap, especially from Sorority Tyrant Jessica.


Brianna Evigan displays a strong performance despites this movie's faults and carries it in stride.


Jessica is the ultimate Alpha Bitch, ramping and raging every step she takes. She is unlikeable from the start, and even if you see a shred of decency in her, she gets worse as the story progresses, not really facing responsibilities for her actions and think she can talk her way out of things. She is mean and spiteful towards here sorority sisters even though they feel traumatized about what happened (Hell, some of them. I'm not giving these characters TOO much credit).


Although the character is quite hateful, I can see that Leah Pipes had fun with the role and did a good performance.


Ellie is basically the typical hysterical woman in horror film. She is the shy, timid, virginal girl but that doesn't mean she can have her catty moments too.


And by the end of the film, she finally takes charge and saves the day even though through the duration of the movie she came off as utterly useless, so it was quite a surprise. Rumer Willis actually did an okay job, I wouldn't say it's her strongest performance but she was fine.


Claire doesn't really have that much development to fall back on, but at least she's one of the decent sorority sisters yet not so bright either. Her "story arc" involves with her having a douchebag boyfriend. That's it. That's all I could think of.


Chugs is probably one of the funniest characters. Funny as in laughably written. This girl is far from a bimbo as she does have some wit, but at the same time, she still is a terribly written drunken mess.


Then there is Ms. Crenshaw played by Princess Leia Herself, Carrie Fisher. She pretty much stole the show for me and knew what kind of movie she was in. She should deserved much more screen time than this movie give her credit for.


Lastly we have Audrina Patridge as the ditzy Megan. There really wasn't a reason for her part in the movie other than glorified cameo. Just like Paris Hilton from House Of Wax, she was only cast sordidly for her reality show status.


Special Mention goes to Megan's somewhat vapid younger sister Maggie, who somehow sleep with another girl's boyfriend yet still manages to survive the movie. But who cares about rules in this movie?
On To The Boys:


You have Cassidy's nice, caring boyfriend Andy played by the handsome and sexy Julian Morris.


Jessica's WASPY, preppy boyfriend Kyle played by the equally handsome and sexy Matt Lanter.


Then we have...Garret, the ex-boyfriend of the past-deceased Megan, who's just plain creepy. He's played by Matt O'Leary.
The writing is what you expect from a dumb movie like this, so I don't have to go any further. And what supposed to be filled with suspense and tension is replaced with non-stop partying from the dumb, idiotic college students. These girls sure love to party I'll tell you that. But the directing is twice as bad. When you watch this movie in which I hope you don't, you'll get a lot of motion sickness. Seriously, the did the cameraman have a vibrator up his back? But Let me get down to the movie's twist (yes, there is a twist as always) and the killer's motives:



So Andy and Kyle are the killers. Their reasoning? They couldn't stand how bitchy and vapid the girls are. And that's when I knew how beyond dumb this movie is. So Kyle is killed off and Andy is killed off in the most over-the-top fashion with laughable CGI.


And off the three remaining girls go, walking triumphantly like Charlie's Angels rejects. Again, what a piece of crap. I guess I have to wash out my eyes now.
The Verdict? Guys, do the honors and focus on the joys of a classic 80's slasher. It certainly has a lot of quality than this film does because the movie is a sad example of how modern horror has become. Milking out any crap that is worth milking out. Although some of you see this as so bad, it's good, let me remind you that has no creativity, no clever writing, and god-awful directing. Just full on disastrous.
My Last Word: Please, please avoid this.

























 

No comments: