Sorority Row (***)

Sorority Row. 100 mins. R. Directed by Stewart Hendler. Written by Josh Stolberg & Pete Goldfinger. Starring Leah Pipes, Briana Evigan, Margo Harshman, Rumer Willis, and Carrie Fisher.

Sorority Row is enjoyable trash. It's a surprisingly effective guilty pleasure horror movie that delivers what it needs to, no more, no less. A loose remake of The House on Sorority Row, this new film concerns a group of supposedly tight-knit sorority sisters who devise a prank that goes horribly wrong and results in murder. To avoid ruining the rest of their oh-so-promising lives, the sisters cover it up and swear each other to secrecy. 8 months later, on the eve of graduation, their past catches up with them as there's a killer on the loose who is targeting each of them. Is it the girl they accidentally killed? Her sister? A boyfriend? The possibilities are endless and purposefully kept vague. The joys to be had here are not in finding out who's the killer (lame), but in the bitchy-silly dialogue and the well-staged scare scenes that achieve a decent amount of tension. The acting is horrible, but director Stewart Hendler certainly does his job, particularly with an impressive opening one-take party sequence that recalls the beginning of Boogie Nights. There is nothing new in Sorority Row - it's basically just another version of I Know What You Did Last Summer - but it's a fun flick and recommended for Friday night viewings.

- John