"Sorority Row" Blu-Ray Review - Written by Anthony T

Sorority Row
Year: 2009
Director: Stewart Hendler
Studio: Summit Entertainment
Stars: Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Carrie Fisher
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 101 Mins





Film Synopsis:

“Sorority Row” is based on the 1983 film, “The House on Sorority Row”. This film is one of those films, where it could have easily turned into a very bad experience.

The film is about six girls who are having the time of their live, as they throw a party at their sorority house known as “Theta Pi”. They decide to play a prank on one of the sorority girl’s brothers, by having Megan fake her own death. After that happened, they all drive to an isolated road, where they plan to dump the body. But the prank turns deadly, when the brother thinking that Megan is really dead, actually kills her with a tire-iron. Soon, the sisters decide to dump her body in an abandoned well and move on with their lives.

Eight months later, the remaining five sisters are having one last week of fun together, before moving on after graduating. Everything is fine, until they receive a mysterious picture on their cell phones containing a picture of Megan’s dead body. Soon the killer starts stalking and killing the girls. Has Megan come back from the dead or is the killer someone that wants the girls dead for some other reason.

Film Review:

“Sorority Row” is one of those films that surprised me. The reason for this, the film started off bad, because the first ten minutes looked like this film was headed towards boring B-movie territory with everything feeling rushed. That would have also made me miserable, since I had to sit through the “Twilight: New Moon” trailer, right before the film. But thankfully that was not the case as this enjoyed this film after that.

Director, Stewart Hendler saves this film by going for a “Scream” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer” style. By directing the film in a way that it makes the film very enjoyable and most of the performances not as annoying as it could have been. The style also slows everything down, as I weren’t annoyed with any of the characters and it also lets the story develop. Hendler makes this film fun, because the scares were timed well. There was also couple of scenes that made me jump out of my seat. That’s part of the reason why I enjoyed it. Hendler also did a good job handling the death sequences. They were very creative, as it did two things: creates scares and makes the film fun to watch. He also does a good job making acting good, even though the acting kind of sucked in the first ten minutes. Once it gets to the main part of the film, Handler does a good job making the performance toned down for the rest of the film compared to the first ten minutes where most of the girls were just annoying. It also made each of the main character interesting or hated.

The film also had a good screenplay. I liked how Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger go for more of a ninety feel to the story instead of trying to be campy and go for a copied eighty style of horror. If it went that route, then this would have been a boring film to watch. What the screenwriters did right was to stop rushing everything, after the opening act. The opening act felt like it was going to be a film where everything was going to be rushed. But to their credit they didn’t do that, instead they did a good job exploring each of the characters, in the aftermath of Megan’s death. That helped covered up the mess of the first ten minutes. Stolberg and Goldfinger does a good job going into each of the girls, as they became interesting all of sudden which surprised me, as it became a totally different film, after the opening scene. It became more suspenseful film, instead of a campy 80’s horror film. I liked how they made the action suspenseful and the way they kept the identity of killer very secretive, as it not who you think it is. That’s what I think makes this a good horror film.


Blu-Ray Extras:

First on the disc is the picture on picture commentary which features director Stewart Hendler, along with Actresses Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Wills and Margo Harshman. This was the most part, a good commentary track. They do a good job with going over the production aspects of the while sharing stories of things that happened on the set. The only real knocks that I have with this commentary track was that there was a lot of giggling going on with some of the stories that the actresses were telling and the fact at times that all five of them would talk all at once which really feels like your watching the film with friend, instead of getting of behind the scenes information which these track there for.

Next on the disc is a featurette called “Kill Switch” which just fast-forwards everything but the kill scenes. To me, that’s just a waste of a featurette as it just shows all the kill scenes from the film.

After that is “Sorority Secrets: Stories from the Set” It’s your standard ten minute featurette, where all the main actresses were interviewed. They pretty much talk about various stories that they had on the set. It was good, but I wished it went more into the production aspects.

Also on the disc is a fourteen minute featurette called “Killer 101” It might sound like an interesting featurette, but for the most part wasn’t. The beginning of the featurette was interesting as the director and writers of the film went into the history of the slasher horror genre. The featurette loses track when the starting going into the history of the slasher villain, as they pretty much spoil the whole film, by going into that character.

The disc wraps up with five minutes worth of outtakes and seven minutes of deleted scenes with director’s introductions to each of them.

Final Thoughts:

“Sorority Row” is a film that I had some expectation going in to the film, but thankfully it didn’t turn to be a completely bad, instead it’s suspenseful horror film that will keep you guessing and on edge. Too bad that it didn’t come decent extras, as there should have more on this disc, as the main problem with this blu-ray was the fact that didn’t have much insight on the production from the director and writers and they didn’t even mentioned or have a featurette based on the film that its based on, “The House of Sorority Row”. It makes it a disappointing release to a suspenseful horror film.

Review Rating: Four Stars
Blu-Ray Extras Rating: Two Stars