Sorority Row

Another in the spate of remakes of 1980s slasher movies (based on 1983's The House on Sorority Row, although the credits ignore that fact), director Stewart Hendler's Sorority Row trots out a familiar and predictable plot revolving around a bunch of yahoos who accidentally kill someone, only to find themselves stalked by a maniacal killer seeking vengeance. In this case, sorority babes pull a prank that leads to the death of one of their sisters. After they stow the body in a convenient mine shaft, a hooded figure appears at their post-graduation party, threatening both to reveal their secret and to knock them all off with a tire iron. The rest of the film consists of nubile girls (and some male friends) being impaled by the killer as they try to figure out who the murderer might be. The dead girl come back to life? Her old boyfriend? Her younger sister? Or somebody else entirely? Suffice it to say the movie opts for nothing quite so simple as any of those, springing a series of revelations at the end so absurd that they're more conducive to derisive laughter than goose-bumps. In a sea of terrible acting, Carrie Fisher stands out—but not in a good way—as the stout, grim-faced housemother. A gruesome and tiresome retread, this is definitely not recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include a “Killer 101” making-of featurette (14 min.), a “Kill Switch” option of viewing the deaths in the film (11 min.), “Sorority Secrets: Stories from the Set” (11 min.), deleted scenes (7 min.), outtakes (6 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release is a picture-in-picture video commentary with director Stewart Hendler, and costars Rumer Willis, Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, and Margo Harshman. Bottom line: a decent extras package for an unnecessary remake.] (F. Swietek)