Written by: Felicia Chow

Dreams start at a young age. I'm not talking about dreams that one has when asleep, but rather ones where as a child you would share with family and friends the dream of what you want to be when you grow up. For some people dreams change over time and for others they actually get to live out their dreams as grown ups.

For Stewart Hendler, the director of Sorority Row starring Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes and Rumer Willis, getting to be a director started at a young age. Stewart says of himself, “I was the prototypical nerdy kid with a camcorder from the age of eight and upward and basically did everything I could to be around film, so weddings, football games in high school, [etc.]. I made a short film [One, 2001] that went to Sundance and won an award [...] and that kick started my professional career.”

As for encouragement from his family on his dream he says, “once they figured out I was serious about it they did [encourage me].” Talking more about his family (his mom in particular) and leading into his directing horror movies, "My mom is crazy supportive. She’s never seen a horror movie before and is now a hard convert. She’s said, 'it’s great! There’s just enough blood and nudity. Good job!'”

Stewart then discussed how he became the director of Sorority Row. He wasn’t sure if it was interesting but shares that, “I did a first movie [Whisper, 2007] which was a horror/supernatural thriller, and you get sent a ton of horror scripts after that.  I read the title and wasn’t familiar with the original ‘80s movie, and I was pretty dismissive.  I didn’t read it for awhile and finally picked it up, because I had a free night.  I got five pages in it and thought, 'oh my god. This is like the horror version of Mean Girls.'  The script needed a little bit of work but had that sarcastic kind of tongue-in-cheek vibe to it.  I went to the studio and said, 'you know you could make this just boobs and blood, and a B-level movie nobody cares about or you could really make it a send up of the crazy sorority system making it witty, sarcastic and fun.' And they said 'cool.'”

After touching on the beginnings of Stewart’s directing career and how Sorority Row came to fruition, the topic of influences came to the forefront. When asked if he is a fan of and has any favourite horror/slasher movies and whether these movies had any influence on the making of Sorority Row, he responded with some of his favourites being “the ‘80s kind of key campy slasher films like Friday the Thirteenth and Camp Sleep Away. Scream in the ‘90s, as well as I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend.”

He goes on to say, “in the last 10 years I like some of the supernatural horror that has come out like The Ring and The Grudge, but haven’t been a huge fan of the Saw movies and Hostel. I’m not all about the torture movies.” With regards to whether the aforementioned favourites had any influence on making Sorority Row, the response was a definite yes as he explains, “Sorority Row was fun because it definitely unabashedly uses all the clichés of the ‘80s horror movies.  That was the goal of let’s go back to that kind of fun way of making movies and make this movie self-aware that it’s playing with all those clichés."

Being able to work with a great cast is a dream come true for directors. In Sorority Row the cast is comprised of young actresses and an established Hollywood icon Carrie Fisher. Stewart shares what it was like working with these actresses by saying that, “I was really lucky with all the girls. They were total troopers, they were there to work. There was no personality conflicts and everybody got along great.” Stewart has nothing but praise for Fisher, saying, “she has endless stories about Hollywood and the crew listened transfixed when she tells her story so she’s awesome to work with.”

The movie does hold its own and has interesting scenes, especially its kill scenes. Each scene is creative but there are a couple cliché moments such as when one character goes off by herself. Putting those aside, Stewart did share his favourite kill scene as being “definitely Chugs with the bottle just because it was something that I’ve never seen before and it still gets me, and I’ve seen the movie 400 hundred times, and I still flinch when I see it.”

The trend, especially with movies, in the last decade or so has been sequels, sequels and more sequels. Horror movies are not immune to this trend and when asked his thoughts on and whether there would be a sequel to Sorority Row, Stewart replied that “the decision isn’t mine, but if the studio wanted to make one I would absolutely be interested if the script was right. The writers and I really loved working with each other. So if I got the opportunity that would be awesome.”

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FhC330

 

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