The Haunting of Sorority Row (2007)

***Sorority sisters dying one-by-one on a campus in the Great Northwest***

This has similarities to 1982’s “The House on Sorority Row,” which was remade as the wannabe edgy “Sorority Row” in 2009. Unlike those films, it’s not a slasher, which can be observed by the original American title (as opposed to the UK title, “Deadly Pledge”). Still, it’s very similar to those; there just isn’t a masked killer with a machete stalking the students.

While it’s a made-for-cable flick with the limitations thereof, it’s actually superior to both of those films. Don’t get me wrong, the first two acts are exactly what you would expect in a movie of this sort and sort of humdrum. The meh female cast doesn’t help, although Leighton Meester is effective enough as the winsome protagonist and Agam Darshi has a certain exotic appeal as Rachel. I also like how the in-house biyatch, played by blonde Lisa Marie Caruk, isn’t made out to be one-dimensional, which is surprisingly revealed fairly soon in the proceedings.

So, what makes this superior to those other two? It’s all about the third act and the unexpected creativeness thereof. Suddenly my attention perked up, and I was almost wowed by the originality of the interesting revelations. Two peripheral male characters rise to the fore at this time, played by Carlo Marks and Adrian Petriw, with the latter’s character, Oliver, particularly standing out.

Spain’s "The House That Screamed" from the late ’60s set the template for this sort of movie, followed by "Lust for a Vampire," “Black Christmas,” "Picnic at Hanging Rock," "Suspiria," “Satan’s School for Girls” (2000), "The Woods" and "The Moth Diaries,” as well as the other two noted above. The milieu is the same with the variable being the nature of the antagonist. Heck, even “Dead Poets Society” could be cited, just switch the girls’ school to all-male and tone down the horror factor to more mundane happenings (yet still horrific in a way).  

It runs 1h 30m and was shot in 2007 in Vancouver, mainly  at the Robson Square Campus of the University of British Columbia.

GRADE: B