SORORITY ROW

Jessica, Cassidy, Megan, Ellie, Chugs, and Claire are six friends who are part of an exclusive university sorority, Theta Pi, whose creed is based on ideals of secrecy and solidarity. During a party, the girls decide to get revenge on Chugs' brother, Garrett, guilty of infidelity towards his ex, so they push Megan into his arms, then stage a drug overdose for the girl, who is consequently passed off as dead. The joke goes too far, and the group takes Megan to an abandoned construction site to dispose of the body. In a moment of desperation, Garrett drives a wrench into Megan's chest, actually killing her. At this point, the five girls and the boy make a pact: they will hide the body and never talk about what happened that night. Eight months later, someone begins sending threatening text messages to the girls, who soon fall one after the other victim to the blows of a mysterious killer. One wonders the usefulness of a product like 'Pledge' today. Practically none, I would say, if placed in the jaws of an average horror movie consumer, since Stewart Hendler's film ('The Devil's Breath') is nothing more than a sum of clichés and situations recycled from a plethora of other teen-horror/slasher films of the last thirty years. Of course, if you give this film to a kid who has discovered his love for horror after seeing one for the first time with 'Paranormal Activity' or 'Wolfman' (just to name a couple of recent titles), or if your guinea pig was frozen in 1966 and wakes up only now, then 'Pledge' might seem like a great film, even innovative! Certainly, because Hendler's work is not aesthetically despicable, but unfortunately one cannot ignore the sharp blade that hangs over the head of this product, a blade on which are reflected the images of so many, too many, other films to which 'Pledge' owes practically everything. Let's start by saying that we are faced with a remake, so we settle on the custom of American horror cinema of the last ten years. The inspiring film this time is not one of the more well-known and is 'Don't Go to Sleep' (1983), a successful slasher directed by Mark Rosman. But this is one of those 'remakes for lack of a better term,' as only the basic idea (but that too is modified) is taken from the original work to then continue on an autonomous path. The curious thing is that 'Pledge,' instead of following 'Don't Go to Sleep,' refers to the overused narrative formula that from 'Prom Night - Don't Go in That House' to 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' has been repeated more and more times until nausea (other examples? 'Jolly Killer,' 'Valentine - Appointment with Death,' 'Deadly Trick...'). Not that Rosman's film was immune to emulating 'Prom Night' with Jamie Lee Curtis who started it all, but at least there was a more lively and almost anarchic development than what is reproduced with standardization in the film in question. The set of images and words that accompany 'Pledge' has already been seen and said elsewhere. The film begins with an accidental murder and an oath that recall in an almost embarrassing way Jim Gillespie's 'I Know What You Did Last Summer,' including the diatribes between those who want to report the fact and those who aim for the rope of 'this way we will be ruined for life.' There is even the time jump of a few months before the killer makes himself known with threatening messages! And then there is the killer hidden by a black tunic that reminds a lot of 'Scream' and the fact that it is the classic cloak that 'anyone could wear' because it is the ceremonial clothing of those who graduate and the film takes place in a university campus, so 'anyone could be the killer!' The nice idea - taken again from the original film - is the all-female cast, a varied tangle of female characters described with a contemptuous misogyny that makes the film, in addition to clearly targeting a male audience, even funny. The female protagonists are all either 'sluts' or 'bitches' and most of the time they have both qualities. And the paradoxical thing is that the protagonist, Cassidy, played by the beautiful Briana Evigan ('Step Up 2'; 'S. Darko'), is candid and loyal but in the key scenes she is always sweaty, half-naked and squeezed into underwear or pants, showing herself thus very close to the physical characterization of her friends. It must be said that the film has a great rhythm, immediately gets to the heart of the story and proceeds through scenes of tension and murders, some also quite imaginative, as indeed is imaginative - but stupid! - the killer's weapon, a wrench of those used in mechanical workshops, but carefully modified with blades and punches at every end. Aesthetically 'Pledge' holds up very well. The stylishness of some directorial choices gives the work a touch of personality, such as the long initial slow-motion tracking shot, then repeated with similar technique in the epilogue, and a certain care for the sets and photography. In the cast of young actresses, especially the already mentioned Briana Evigan, the 'ugly' of the group Rummer Willis ('The Girl Next Door,' the TV series '90210') and Leah Pipes (the TV series 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles') stand out. In a small role, even Carrie Fisher, Princess Leia of 'Star Wars.' In short, we are faced with the classic film that no one would have ever needed, a fleeting slasher that will never leave a memory in the endless list of titles that crowd the genre. The film, however, entertains and is well crafted; with the awareness of not having many arrows in its quiver, it shoots those two of which it can boast: beautiful girls, often scantily dressed, and suspense scenes including medium-high doses of violence. If you are content, go ahead. Curiosity. In 'Don't Go to Sleep' the weapon that distinguished the murders was a walking stick with a dog-head handle. In 'Pledge' the weapon of then is honored in a sequence in which the actress Biana Evigan goes to the rescue of a friend in the middle of the foam and wields that very stick.