Sorority sisters kick the bucket in a horror flick that's frighteningly mediocre

     College graduation should be an unforgettable day. The problem for the girls of Theta Pi is that they might not survive it. The latest in the endless run of horror remakes being cranked out by the Hollywood assembly line these days, "Sorority Row" (2009) offers up a fun, but ultimately unsatisfying addition to the "slasher" genre.
    "Sorority Row" features largely unknown actresses who try their best to make an impression on audiences while running, screaming and delivering witty one-liners. Despite the actresses' best attempts, the sisters' personalities fall into easily identifiable stereotypes, including queen bee Jessica (Leah Pipes), nice girl Cassidy (Briana Evigan) and nerdy and insecure Ellie (Rumer Willis). And director Stewart Hendler seems content to leave the character development at that. The sorority sisters never become more than flat characters reduced to their most basic attributes.
    The movie begins with the girls attempting to pull an overly elaborate prank on an ex-boyfriend who has wronged one of them. When the prank takes a turn for the worst and one of the sisters is killed, all involved decide that it's best to hide the body and never speak of the incident again. Flash forward eight months later: It's graduation and the girls' sorority, Theta Pi, is throwing one last party-to-end-all-parties. Trouble starts when people begin disappearing and the girls receive threatening text messages on their phones.
    What follows is standard horror fare, complete with false scares, subplots that go nowhere and a number of red herrings, each one more implausible than the last. The girls are slowly killed off one by one, with a few extra casualties thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, the plot faces a dilemma: If the girls are killed off too fast, they won't be able to argue with each other, which would deprive the film of most of its comic relief. On the other hand, if they stay alive, the film begins to drag.
    The by-the-numbers approach to each of the murders keeps the movie from being very scary, and the final identity of the killer seems arbitrary given the four or five other suspects who have more believable motives for the killings. There's not much of a point to this movie, since it's not scary enough for cheap thrills and the plot is too full of holes for decent entertainment.
    The movie suffers from too many horror clichés and, oddly enough, over plotting. What should be a simple, straightforward horror flick gets bogged down with trying to fool the audience with too many possible killers.
    Even the style is distracting. Murder scenes are carried out with slick choreography, but general conversations are constructed with haphazard handheld camerawork and choppy editing.
    That is not to say that "Sorority Row" has no redeeming factors. Despite the lack of character development, most of the girls are well cast and seem to have fun with the script, which gives them plenty of insults to hurl at each other in a style reminiscent of "Mean Girls" (2004). Carrie Fisher also has an amusing role as the no-nonsense house-mother who goes after the killer with a shotgun.
    Horror fans will also enjoy the variety of the kills in the movie, which range from traditional stabbings to a more gruesome death involving a bottle. They are well done, for the most part, and thankfully don't get too caught up in an overabundance of gore like other recent horror movies.
    In the end, "Sorority Row" is a standard thriller with a pretense that promises more fun than the movie delivers. While its lively cast and inventive murders provide a decent amount of fun, the movie really doesn't have anything to distinguish it from any other horror film that might be showing at the local theater.