The Haunting of Sorority Row

I feel that the current rating of 4.x is not really indicative of how good this film is. Sure, it is not a masterpiece or anything and the CG is cringe-worthy in places, but overall it is an entertaining addition to the College Horror Sub-Genre. Especially for a Telefilm.

It is competently done and well presented, but it's not gonna win any Oscars (I don't think it did : ) Not terribly original but well put together; so, I give it a 7 to balance out the somewhat low 4.x that it now has. It probably falls around a 6 or so. If you are not expecting too much more than the genre normally delivers, than you should have a reasonable amount of fun watching it.

This is another of those teen-age sorority flicks where the girls are so stupid you wonder how they ever got to college in the first place. It starts out looking as though it might be a good thriller, but the events involving the revenge of a dead spirit are so mindlessly foolish that you wonder how the script managed to find someone willing to produce it.

The acting is better than the story deserves but that's no compensation for a Halloween type of thriller that lacks common sense in the telling. Production is well mounted with slick camera work and an appropriately tingling background score, but the story seems padded to fit a two-hour TV schedule and it becomes a by-the-numbers sort of thing where you just have to wait patiently for something to happen. They do happen on cue and that's the whole trouble with the silly story. Nothing seems real and none of the explanations ring true.

My advice: skip it.

Attending a new sorority, a new pledge discovers her terrifying visions and hallucinations are brought about by the return of a hazing ritual that killed a former initiate who is now haunting and killing them one- by-one.

This one turned out to be quite a decent Lifetime thriller. One of its better attributes is its engrossing mystery, which is far creepier than it has any right to be and is given plenty to work with. This one has some great parts during the beginning focusing on their visions of the coffin and the secretive nature of the previous ceremony, and when brought about with the nature of sorority and it's got a pretty decent time through the first half. This is really aided along by several really freaky moments where the ghost goes into action with it's death scenes, including a pretty harrowing sequence that's rarely seen in this kind of entries on the channel as well as a pretty chilling revelation of the ruse through the back-story and some wicked haunting scenes which give this a nice horror feel. There's still a few flaws here, mainly in the opening introductions to sorority life with the different rituals and traditions as well as the hazing portions coming off as really tame and traditional due to their being featuring in many different films, and when it focuses on the strained high-school romance is when the film's pacing lags considerably during these sections. In addition, the rather overblown CGI in the finale is out-of-place with the more naturalistic efforts of the rest of the film. These are the film's true flaws.

Rated Unrated/PG-13: Violence and Language.

The movie did start off promising enough but quickly fell apart with it practically telegraphing, in a number of very obvious clues, to the audience who the killer is. I ended up figuring it out about half way through the story who the killer was. Do to this I was a bit bored and kept checking on the time that's left over of the film. It is an above average movie due to the actors and the story premise. But I wouldn't watch it again even if someone asked.

Wow I think 4 is way harsh for this film. Yes, it is a made for TV film so it is going to have certain flaws that a big budgeted movie wouldn't have, but I have to say that this film really surprised me. I was not expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. The storyline was original; I have never seen a story like this in another film and in my opinion, the plot deserves a 9 out of 10. However, I need to deduct a point for some of the actors, deduct a point for production, half a point for pace and half a point for the quickie climax at the end. So my overall mark is seven, but if they had changed the ending slightly, made the duration of the film more intense, had more money to cast better actors and incorporate better effects, then this would have been a nine, maybe ten.