With it's excessively asinine plot, crazy killer armed with a particularly impractical weapon (a modified tire iron), exaggerated death scenes, a larger-than-normal quota of bitchy, big breasted bimbos (including the obligatory sexy nerd) and their equally obnoxious boyfriends, and a fair smattering of gratuitous nudity, I'm pretty certain that Sorority Row was intended by its makers to parody the countless, moronic, teen slasher remakes that have blighted horror in recent years. However, it appears that their motive may have been lost on many viewers, who seem to have mistaken the deliberate playing up of genre stereotypes and intentional over-use of dumb clichés for a case of plain, old-fashioned bad movie-making—something which there has been plenty of over the last decade or so.

It's a shame, because when armed with the knowledge that much of the film's apparent awfulness is by design, one can have quite a bit of fun with Sorority Row.

The film opens with one of those frat parties that only ever seem to happen in the movies (or maybe I just went to the wrong parties): it's thumping with the latest cool tunes, heaving with physically perfect specimens of both sexes indulging in all manner of hedonistic activities, and overflowing with an endless supply of alcohol. Whilst the gorgeous revellers bump, grind and get wasted, six sexy sorority sisters carry out a mean prank that will have disastrous results: they con a poor schmuck into believing that he has accidentally killed his ex-girlfriend Megan by plying her with drugs. Carrying the joke a little too far, they also convince him that it would be a good idea to hide his crime by pushing her body into a lake located near a disused mine. Unfortunately, before they can reveal that it is all a sick joke, events spiral out of control, and Megan winds up dying for real when the guy plunges a tire iron into her chest (to let the air out of her lungs so that she will sink). Now the group are forced to dispose of a genuine corpse—opting to dump their dead friend down the mine-shaft.

A year later, as the girls celebrate their graduation, a hooded murderer is busy at work on the campus. Is it Megan, back from the dead for revenge, or does someone else have a motive for the rapidly rising body count?

What follows is undeniably silly, but as I have said, when viewed with the right frame of mind, it's also rather enjoyable; one can have fun spotting the deliberate attempts by the makers to ridicule the more idiotic conventions of the genre (the over privileged students, the stern but protective den mother, the innocent girl who unwillingly goes along with her friends' plans) whilst also revelling in the brutal violence, ogling the many attractive women, cheering on a shotgun toting Carrie Fisher, and marvelling at just how much Rumer Willis sounds like her mother.

It's not a brilliant piece of film-making (if it was, the parodic content would have been obvious to all), but it's not nearly as dreadful as many might have you believe. I rate Sorority Row a reasonable 6/10. Give it a chance.

When Garrett cheats on girlfriend Megan, her sorority sisters decide to pay him back by pretending that she is dead, to the extent that they take the "body" off to a remote site to dispose of it. When Megan accidentally moves, the spooked Garrett reacts by driving a tire iron into her chest, leaving the sisters with the problem of what to do with the body. Cassidy wants to report it to the authorities, but alpha uber-bitch Jessica browbeats the others into dumping Megan's body (and the tire iron) down a mineshaft. At the graduation party eight months later, the girls are texted a photo of a hand grasping a tire iron. As they begin to die one by one, the question is whether Megan has come back from the dead, or is there another explanation? Sorority Row is a perfectly serviceable slasher movie, fuelled by a) who gets it next (and how), and b) who is doing it. If this is the sort of movie you enjoy, then you'll enjoy this one.

There was an aspect I particularly liked, and that was the look of the movie - it is beautifully photographed - points awarded for cinematography, because it is filmed with much greater care than is usually the case for this sort of movie.

Two elements which pleased me less, though. One is the answer to who is doing it. This struck me as the least probable possibility, with a motive which is less than credible.

The other - and please read no further if you don't like spoilers, because this is a biggie - is the last five minutes. The climax is proceeding very nicely, and all looks lost, when help comes from an unexpected quarter. This turns out to be Ellie, played by Rumer Willis. Now Ellie has spent pretty much the entire movie as a snivelling, whimpering, hysterical mess yet, in this final few minutes, she becomes a Rambo-lite lean, mean killing machine (because she'd do anything for her sisters, you understand), in one of the biggest and least believable character switches in the memory of this particular moviegoer.