Frat House

Brilliant movie, if anyone ever gets the chance to see this you're lucky! The thing is that it isn't a documentary, it's all scripted, I was fooled the whole time. That's why HBO won't show it, it's because they were tricked and so was sundance!

The creators of this project are surely some of the smarter film makers out there, even though his newer movies don't compare to the intensity this one does. Frat House is a must see.

No way is the 1st half of this doc staged like many suggested. I got brought here after watching the Joker this morning and went on the hunt for the directors earlier work. Id seen the GG Allin one before and thought it was good. They are definately a violent and depraved bunch of people lol, hopefully USA universities have put a stop to these practices which show extreme bullying of what we call in the UK freshmen. The Joker turns the Batman franchise on its head. After The Dark Night being a clearly Pro Republican party movie, The Joker clearly had more left wing sympathies, its clear to all to see what brought Todd here from this doc. His Iconoclastic tendecies are much needed in modern cinema. Its certainly an enlightening experience to see how the priviledged behave in the University settings and the lack of governance from the University. If I was sent to University there, I would be quick to transfer.

This movie suffered serious criticism for paying the fraternities and fraternity brothers to act out pieces of the movie. The main school involved does not even pledge in the Spring, as this movie made viewers believe. A good movie to see as long as you realize it is developed to perpetuate the stereotypes the film makers have about fraternities. I did enjoy seeing the movie, it was well produced, and had a good "documentary" feel. HBO will not allow this movie to be presented on TV, and for good reason, it just is not true. There are several instances in the movie where brothers in the fraternity actually act as though they are pledges and act out scenes which supposedly happen in a fraternity.

this is nothing compared to the real thing-

This is a relatively entertaining documentary. But it is a very weak representation of hazing. It depicts fraternity chapters at a few different colleges on the East Coast. They are all relatively small schools/chapters. One pledge class has about 10 pledges. Although I have heard people refer to this doc as frightening or horrifying (etc etc), this doc only provides a tiny clue of what its like in large fraternal chapters which haze. Multiply the things you saw in this doc by about 100 and you will begin to touch the surface. Hazing is actually much more ritualized and intense. It is not as ridiculous as the events shown here. This is disorganized and small scale.

I have a few comments about this film; First, I myself am in a fraternity and what is depicted by this film is not the norm, at least where I go to school. However, the hazing that the pledges (and at one point the filmmakers) have to go through is pretty chilling. I should have been able to have seen this on HBO, but instead I had to go to a film festival just to see it. I'm very disappointed that just because of potential legal problems HBO shelved this movie, one of the better documentaries that I've seen in recent years.