WARNING: This Review Contains Spoilers
Two houses, both alike in criminality. Based on the screenplay Seven Sisters by Mark Rosman, two films have been made; The House on Sorority Row in 1983 (directed by Rosman himself) and its remake Sorority Row in 2009. The characters in each film were quick to learn that playing pranks can come with a high price to pay.
Pranking Gone Wrong
It is well known that pranks are a standard part of sorority and fraternity life in America but usually at the start of term. Are they ever used as revenge? For the girls in both films, this is exactly the reason. In The House on Sorority Row the target of said revenge is their house-mother, Mrs Slater, for bursting Vicky’s waterbed. They steal her cane and place it in the swimming pool for her to retrieve, but it takes a nasty turn. Little did the other girls know, Vicky bought a gun and accidentally shoots Mrs Slater as she struggles to disarm her. In the end, they wrap her in towels and allow the body to sink to the bottom of the pool.
It may be a generation thing, but by 2009 pranking had become much darker. In order to take revenge on Chugs’ brother Garrett for cheating on Megan – they led him to believe he had accidentally killed her after slipping her ‘roofies’ (which turned out to be Vitamin B12, but shh! It’s a secret). Again, like Vicky with her gun, not all of the girls were in on the plan but are pulled in when they pretend to take her to the hospital. The girls trick Garrett by suggesting that Megan has died on the way and plot together how to get rid of the ‘body’. Here’s where it stops being funny. Garrett takes a tire-iron to Megan’s chest several times, actually killing her. Now they really do need to hide the body. Wrapping her in Cassandra’s coat, the girls drop Megan’s corpse into an abandoned mine shaft.
For me, where they hide Mrs Slater’s body makes it a little bit more plausible for her to be the one that instigates the trouble that follows. It’s easier to get out of a pool than it is a mine shaft, right?
Bring Out The Bodies
It is possibly a symptom of the differing motives (I’ll come to that), but the body count in Sorority Row is actually higher than that of its predecessor. This could also be because there are less girls in the central group so outsiders have had to die to make up the numbers, but I do think they could have kept it the same with no detriment to the overall film. However, this does mean that Sorority Row lives up to the one and only rule of remake that I discussed in my Scream article: It must outdo the original, so for this I applaud it.
Theta Pi Must Die
I have to admit I expected the deaths in Sorority Row to be much more gruesome than those in The House on Sorority Row. I think it has been a symptom of some 21st century slasher films for this to end up being the case, but thankfully it did not fall in with the rest. In one instance, there is a death that is very similar to one in the original film.
In The House on Sorority Row, Jeanie hides in the toilets after she has been attacked and then followed by who she believes to be Mrs Slater. Unfortunately, this is exactly where she meets her demise, with a cane straight through her throat. In Sorority Row Joanna is murdered in a similar way. Unbeknownst to her, she has ended up on our killer’s list accidentally (eavesdropping never did do anyone any good) and has a modified tire-iron stabbed through her chin. Thankfully for her, her head does not end up in the toilet like poor Jeanie’s.
Motive Madness
Central to any good slasher film is the murderer’s motive. It is important to point out for this part of the review that The House on Sorority Row opens with Mrs Slater going through a traumatic pregnancy. As a result of this, she is told that her baby has died. SPOILER ALERT! This is not the case. It is not exactly clear how long Eric (Mrs Slater decided to name her ‘deceased’ baby) has been around the house or when exactly he arrived but it becomes very clear that he is killing the girls as revenge for the accidental murder of his mother.
Now for a more unconventional motive, the need to shut people up. In order to protect his girlfriend from the knowledge of Megan’s murder going any further than those attending Rosman University (named for the writer of the Seven Sisters screenplay and director of the original film), Andy decides he will kill everyone involved in the incident and those they have blabbed to (and I’ll tell you, for girls that don’t want to go to prison – they’re a little chatty).
Only The Sensible Survive
In both films, when the original incident occurs, there is one girl in each group that actually wants to do the right thing.
For The House on Sorority Row, this girl is Kate. She is the only one that believes they should call an ambulance when they pull Mrs Slater out of the water. Her Sorority Row counterpart is Cassandra. She takes it upon herself to try and call the police. It is for this reason that the others decide to wrap Megan’s body in her coat in order to directly implicate her. In Kate’s case, she is the final girl – one to take the killer on face-to-face in the film’s finale – whereas Cassandra survives with Ellie and Maggie.
Cliff-hanger Closing
A cliff-hanger ending does not always mean there is going to be a sequel. Neither The House on Sorority Row or Sorority Row have a sequel but both their endings are rather open-ended. For example, as mentioned previously Kate is the only one left alive to face Eric at the end of the film. She believes she has succeed when she pushes him down the stairs of the attic. However, as Kate relaxes by the edge of the entrance, we pan down to Eric’s still body at the bottom of ladder and his eyes open before the closing credits roll.
For Sorority Row it is a little different. Earlier in the film, when Jessica runs Garrett over with her truck believing he is going to kill Cassandra, we discover he was actually trying to slice his own wrists as a symptom of his guilt. Flash forward to the closing scene, 15 months after the girls have taken down Andy and moved on with their lives, we return to Theta Pi sorority house and, as the camera pulls outwards, we focus on scarred wrist and a hand clutching a piece of glass. I am sure with an ending like this they may have had a sequel in mind but it never happened.
In Conclusion
Truthfully, there is not a lot wrong with the remake of The House on Sorority Row – it just comes across a little cheesy in comparison to the original.
