HEADLINES:
R/€ 
R/£ Slasher film remake fizzles
November 21, 2009 Edition 1
Jonathan Perry
Sorority Row
Director: Stewart Hendler
Starring: Briana Evigan, Leah Piper, Audrina Patridge, Rumer Willis
Reviewer: Jonathan Perry
FGGGG
Nothing says sisterhood like slipping your college gal pal a date-rape drug to render her semi-conscious, and then throwing her body down a mine shaft after a prank goes awry.
And nothing should bring a group of five graduating sorority sisters closer than a conspiracy to cover up that friend's accidental murder, even as the body count by a revenge-seeking assassin piles as high as the suds in the sorority hot tub.
If Sorority Row had a cast of characters - or a story line - that was as half as smart, strong, or secretive as the sisters' Theta Pi pledge, we wouldn't get all the blackmail, bitching and backhanded compliments these women dole out to one another.
We do get a nagging pang of conscience from the regret-torn Cassidy (Briana Evigan). Her nemesis is a Stepford Wife-in-Waiting named Jessica (Leah Piper). "Let's wash the blood off and get back to the party,'' Jessica says after the deed is done, priorities in place.
As Ellie, Rumer Willis shakes and screams a lot. Either she's afraid the hooded killer is coming to get her next, or maybe her mom is threatening to make her watch Striptease again.
Sorority Row follows the imaginatively bankrupt trend of remaking slasher films from the 1970s and '80s. This time, it's a regurgitation of Mark Rosman's The House on Sorority Row.
Director Stewart Hendler pays homage to Rosman by having the girls go to a school of the same name. His other touches are less subtle. The "scary'' moments are of the sneak-up-on-you-from-behind variety, but there's little suspense. - Boston Globe
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