BY ADAM QUANDT | Arts & Entertainment Editor | The Statesman
Sorority Row
Director: Stewart Hendler
Genre: Horror
Length: 101 minutes
Release Date: Sept. 11, 2009
Netflix Rating: 2 out of 5
My Rating: 4 out of 5
October is upon us which means its officially horror movie season. Starting with the following review through the end of October, “Netflix and Chill” will consist of reviews of horror movies found on Netflix.
With a title like “Sorority Row” and a rating of two out of five stars on Netflix I wasn’t expecting much out of this movie. To be honest, when the movie opened with the typical Hollywood “half-naked girls dancing with over intoxicated frat guys” college party scene I was nervous about where this movie would go.
The story is set up when a group of sorority sisters play a “harmless prank” on a college guy who happens to be one of the girls’ brother, Garrett. One of the sisters, Megan, plays dead after being given fake roofies by Garrett.
The prank takes a nasty turn when the sisters and Garrett go to dump Megan’s “dead” body at an abandoned mine shaft. Before letting Garrett in on the prank, the girls spread out to look for sharp rocks to cut Megan’s body up.
Garrett takes things into his own hands when he stabs a tire iron through Megan’s chest, turning Megan’s fake death into something very real.
The sisters and Garret are then forced to make a decision: call the cops and risk being charged with Megan’s death or hide her body and continue on with life.
The decision is made to drop the body down a mineshaft and attempt to continue a life sworn to secrecy. However the decision is not unanimous. Theta Pi sister Cassidy agrees to keep the secret but removes herself from the sorority completely until the graduation celebration.
Flash-forward eight months to graduation day for the sisters. While gathered in the kitchen of Theta Pi together the sisters all receive a text from an anonymous number containing a picture of the tire iron used to kill Megan.
This sets up the story for the majority of the movie. In short, an unknown person knows about the sisters’ secret and has taken it upon himself/herself to take revenge against the girls.
At this point the sorority girls (and anyone who may know about the murder) start dropping like flies in a series of rather gruesome murders via one very amped-up tire iron.
Throughout the movie, the story does a very good job at constantly changing your mind on who you may think the killer is. I was constantly second guessing my suspect, which is where the movie gets its extra stars in my rating.
It’s up to the surviving sorority sisters to find the killer before he/she finds them, unless the killer is one of them… Check out “Sorority Row” on Netflix to find out.