WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS!!!
I recently watched this movie on a streaming app after countless hours of trying to find a decent scary movie to watch. The premise sounded promising: innocent teen girls get caught up in deadly prank which leads to one of the girls getting murdered. They all get threatened months after the fact from an unknown killer, claiming that their friend might not be dead. As I said, this premise alone had me hooked until I started to realize that this movie sounded eerily familiar. Then I remembered 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' had the same exact plot with a group of teens accidentally killing a man and then getting threatened and hunted down sometime later.
I must admit that the characters were the low point for me. They just seem shallow and beyond stupid, even for a slasher movie. For example, the sorority group of girls, made up of Jessica, Claire, Ellie, Chugs, Megan and main protagonist Cassidy, decide it would be funny to prank Chug's brother, Garrett, for cheating by having Megan pretend to convulse and die from taking some "roofies". They all decided that the best thing to do is to take her body in the middle of nowhere and dump it. Ellie states that "if there is air in the lungs or the chest cavity, the body will float to the surface. This is where the movie starts to get crazy. Garrett, seeing there is no way out of this, takes a tire iron and stabs it into Megan, trying to get rid of any air that is left. In doing so, he actually kills her which causes everyone to lose their shit. Jessica makes a firm stance that they cannot tell anyone or they are all screwed. Everyone agrees, except for Cassidy, which causes Jessica to get rid of the body and throw the blame on Cassidy if she decides to snitch.
Months pass and everything seems back to normal with everyone graduating and Cassidy getting ready to leave her sorority in favor of going away with her boyfriend, Andy, as the sorority sisters celebrate graduation with a little party of their own. Cassidy is pretty much on no friend terms with them but shows to the sorority to help set up. All the sorority sisters, minus Ellie, prepare for the party in the kitchen when they receive a threatening picture of the weapon that was used to kill Megan. Everyone panics but Chugs coughs it up as a sick prank played by Garrett and Jessica insists they all delete the messages, without telling Ellie about them. Jessica and Cassidy have a small argument when Cassidy says she is not going to the party and does not want to be apart of it but Jessica reminds her that she is very well in the same boat as them. We also get to meet Megan's younger sister, Maggie, who tells the girls that she wants to join the sorority next year. That is all we get of her for now.
There is a small scene where Cassidy pretty much tells her boyfriend that she got sucked into going to the party and that if he goes with her then they can leave for his parents after. This is one of the few times we see some character development and I have to say it is pretty nice. There is also a scene of the sorority's house mother, Mrs. Crenshaw (played by the amazing Carrie Fisher), telling them all to be safe and look out for each other as well as handing out bracelets to everyone in honor of graduating but Jessica, being the royal bitch she is, has no interest in it and Claire follows her lead.
While the party planning is underway at the sorority house, Chugs heads to her therapist where she finds him handcuffed to his bed. He tells her that it was from his last session and bribes her with free prescriptions in exchange for sex. She agrees. While she goes to freshen up, a mysterious cloaked figure approaches the handcuffed doc and chucks a bladed tire iron at his head, killing him immediately. Chugs is the next to go when she cannot find her therapist so she grabs a bottle of alcohol and begins to drink it while laying on a couch. This had to be the most graphic and my favorite kill in the entire movie. The killer stands above her and forces the bottle of alcohol multiple times down her throat until there is a small amount of the bottle visible to the viewers. Now it does not end there. The last few scenes have her shooting up blood into the bottle that is still lodged in her mouth. It was overall an amazing kill.
The movie gets slow for a little with Cassidy showing off more character development and Jessica showing off more cold-heartedness. Jessica truly shows off her wickedness when Claire brings up the text messages, to which Jessica responds by telling her to grow a pair. Someone overhears their conversation in the shower and in return she gets a bladed tire wrench into the chin and through the mouth. Ellie is having a worse time than Claire when she discovers Cassidy's jacket, which they used to cover Megan's body, in the basement. She tells the others but as normal Claire gets paranoid and Jessica tells everyone to chill the hell down. Cassidy tells Ellie about the text messages possibly from Garrett. They all try to get in touch with Chugs, not realizing she is dead, but they do not get a response. Jessica tells them to just forget about Garrett and Chugs and to go enjoy the party.
The party begins which brings about all the drunken teenagers. Cassidy's boyfriend, Andy, also arrives keeping his end of the deal. She tells him that they will leave soon. Claire and her boyfriend are having an even worse time since he only has sex on the mind while she cannot stop thinking about the text messages. He does not understand so she tells him to screw off and leaves him to dance with other girls. Now Mickey has to be even worse than Jessica because right after he dances with multiple girls, he tries to hit on Ellie and puts his hand on her leg to which she tells him that she will kill him if she touches her again. He responds by walking away and hitting on other girls. It is all good though because he ends up getting killed by the hooded figure when he gets trapped in a room and attempts to get away by going into this secret hatch but gets stabbed through the throat. Ellie spots the killer and tries to get the others for help but she has trouble speaking and ends up getting Jessica even more annoyed in which she forces a very unwilling Ellie to show them the body. Claire stays with her while Jessica and Cassidy go in search of the body. They come to the discovery that Mickey has been murdered and relay the information to Claire and Ellie. They also get a message from the killer with video evidence from Megan's phone of Megan's murder and threaten to send it to the police if they do not go back to the murder scene. Seeing no other option they all head towards the car with Cassidy telling her boyfriend to leave for his parents and she will meet him there. Jessica drives as I would in a videogame, almost hitting Maggie. Jessica gets out of the car, with Maggie and her trading blows. Jessica tells her that she is not allowed at the party but Maggie does not hold back and calls Jess a lying bitch while also calling her hair shit. Overall this was a really humorous scene and one that I really enjoyed since I absolutely hated Jessica.
Jessica gets back in the car, speechless, and they all venture on to the dumpsite. When they get there they arm themselves with a flare gun and turn on the car lights to the discovery of Garrett in from of the car. I will admit that this jump scare freaked me out since I had earbuds in and my volume was at the max. They see Garrett holding a glass shard so they point the flare gun at him telling him to back up. Jessica has a more direct approach to doing things and hops in the car and runs him over to death. They all come to the discovery that Garrett cut himself with the glass shard out of guilt and received the same messages they did. In order to find out whether or not Megan is really dead, Cassidy goes down the well to find a body. She does not find a body but a message that reads 'THETA PI MUST DIE." Figuring Megan is somehow still alive, they all head back to the party, that seems to be over since it is dead quiet.
As they try to figure out what to do next Cassidy and Jessica receive a text from Chugs telling the three girls that she is going to miss the party since she is dead. Jessica wonders why Claire was not included in the text and then gets an answer as Claire tries to seek refuge inside as the killer attacks her. She gets yanked inside all of the bubbles and is later discovered by Cassidy to have got a flare to the mouth, which left her skin to bubble in a sick but amazing kill. The three girls run back inside, locking the door behind them, and Ellie and Cassidy hide while Jessica searches for Kyle. All she discovers is Maggie in his bed claiming Kyle cheated on Jess with her. This results in a catfight that gets broken up when Cassidy warns her that the killer is inside the house and getting closer. Jessica arms herself with an ax and gets ready to swing but misses and it turns out it was just Mrs. Crenshaw who hits Jessica with the back end of her shotgun. Mrs. Crenshaw admits they know what they did to which Jess admits that they did not mean to kill Megan. Mrs. Crenshaw says she meant she knows they have been trashing her house. Maggie ends up being super pissed but shocked when they tell her Megan is actually alive and trying to kill them all. Jessica tells everyone that she told Kyle everything and that is enough for Mrs. Crenshaw, who tells all of them to hide in Jessica's room and call the police while she deals with the killer.
The girls go into Jessica's room when they hear the shotgun go off. Feeling worried for her sister, Maggie takes off with no one stopping her. Mrs. Crenshaw did not hit the killer but pretty much destroys everything else in her path. She slowly moves around the corner and spots the killer but her gun jams which unfortunately means her end. The killer throws his bladed weapon at her but misses and hits the fridge. He pushes a table against her which impales her against the blades and she bleeds out but not before she tells the killer to stay away from the girls.
The last twenty minutes is when this movie gets really crazy. It starts with Maggie calling for Megan and the killer appears behind her. She spots the killer and continues to call for Megan but the killer lights a Molotov and just misses her as she runs away. While Ellie finds her inner Laurie Strode and hides in the closet, Jessica and Cassidy search around for everyone. Kyle appears behind them in the same outfit as the killer and goes full Darth Vader, to which Jessica and Cassidy respond by knocking him across the head with the wooden end of an ax and a fire extinguisher. They run away and try to hide while Kyle is back on his feet to search for them. Kyle gets the upper hand and almost chokes out Cassidy until Andy arrives and swings the ax into Kyle's head, putting him down for good.
Everything seems pretty good, right? Wrong! Because it turns out Andy has been the killer this whole time. That's right! After Cassidy finds the tire iron on him, she goes from relief to shock. Jessica, on the other hand, tries to sort of reason with him saying how everything will be alright and that he can trust them not to say a word. Andy replies by stabbing her right through the mouth with the tire iron. Kyle continues to explain to Cassidy that he did all this to prevent anyone from going to the cops and putting the blame on her. He also tries to convince her to help him finish the job, which she almost agrees to until he brings up the fact that they have to kill Ellie. Cassidy distracts him long enough to go find Ellie but they both end up getting cornered by him. A fight erupts with Cassidy eventually knocking him out.
While the fight was going on, the house was burning up more and more from the Molotov that was thrown earlier. Maggie calls for Ellie and Cassidy since she was trapped from the fire. Cassidy runs to save her but not before Andy appears and tries countless times to kill Maggie. The final fight erupts between Andy and Cassidy, and they both get some good shots in but Andy ends up getting the upper hand. While her hope seems grim, Ellie shows up with Mrs. Crenshaw's shotgun and puts Andy down for good. All three girls make it out of the burning house as the emergency services arrive to put it out. The camera slowly zooms out to give us the complete view of the blaze and the screen fades to black.
The movie jumps ahead 15 months later, showing a bunch of people at a college party getting drunk and having a blast. It zooms in on Theta Pi's house to show us that Maggie joined the sorority house. It zooms out to show nothing but a menacing person's hand holding a trowel, possibly ready to kill again or maybe he's just ready to get his gardening on. Who knows? The screen goes to the credits and the movie is finally over.
Rating: This movie had a lot going for it while also had a lot that held it back. Some of the characters, as well as the killer reveal, were not that great to me. The only characters that I even enjoyed were Cassidy and maybe Kyle. Otherwise, the rest of them were just two-dimensional for the most part. The killer reveal also felt kind of lame since it is a common trope to have the boyfriend as the killer. What did the movie have going for it? Well, the kills of course. Chugs kill was especially gruesome and I even had to look away a bit from how crazy and nasty it looked. Some of the scenes also had me laughing such as when Jessica and Maggie traded insults. I just loved how someone besides Cassidy put Jessica in her place. For these reasons, I am giving this movie a solid 7.5/10. It was going to be lower mainly because of how similar it was to other slashers but the kills and some funny scenes made up for the boring and unlikable characters.
By: John Landry
