Keenan Tracey | Through the Shattered Lens

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime original film, Deadly Sorority!

Why Was I Watching It?

You have to give the people at Lifetime some credit. I often give them a hard time for the way that they retitle movies to give them more of a “Lifetime-y” feel but Deadly Sorority is a perfect title. According to the imdb, this movie was originally called Undergrad Nightmare. Deadly Sorority is such an improvement that I don’t even know where to begin. It was enough to convince me to watch.

(Of course, I would have watched anyway because the movie was on Lifetime but, for the purpose of this review format, let’s pretend like the title was the sole reason.)

What Was It About?

Sam (Greer Grammer) and Kris (Emilija Branac) have been BFFs since high school but, once they arrive at Barclay University, things start to change. Kris gets accepted into an exclusive sorority and soon, her new “sisters” are telling Sam to stay away. When Kris is murdered, Sam suddenly finds herself as the number one suspect. Everyone says that Sam was obsessed with Kris and jealous over her new friends.

In order to prove her innocence, Sam is going to have to catch the real murderer. Was it Kris’s frat boy boyfriend? Was it the lecherous professor or his wife? Was it the creepy guy who lives upstairs from her? Was it one of Kris’s sorority sisters? Was it … well, actually, that’s all the suspects. It’s a small school.

What Worked?

I absolutely loved Barclay University, which was located up in the mountains, had nice, big dorm rooms (during my first year of college, I lived in a dorm that didn’t even have air conditioning), and — as far as I could tell — only three or four professors. There weren’t many students either. Sam and Kris’s history class only had about 12 students in it. As someone who hated the anonymous feeling of being one of many students in a gigantic lecture hall, I appreciated that.

The sorority was effectively creepy. However…

What Did Not Work?

…the sorority itself really didn’t figure much into the plot. There were a few effective scenes of all of the sisters staring at Sam dismissively but otherwise, the sorority was just a big, pink-clad red herring. Deadly Sorority is a great title but Undergrad Nightmare was actually a more accurate title. Usually, I don’t mind a misleading title but, when you promise a deadly sorority, you need to deliver.

The identity of the murderer also felt a bit random to me.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

I related to Sam, who had a wonderfully snarky attitude and said whatever was on her mind. Unlike Sam, I was actually invited to join a sorority but I turned them down because I was busy being a nonconformist. I kind of regret that choice because, according to what I’ve seen on Lifetime, joining a sorority would have led to several years of adventure and melodrama. At the very least, I would have had a few hundred more closets to borrow from.

Oh well!

Lessons Learned

I should have applied to Barclay University.

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime original film, Sugarbabies!

Why Was I Watching It?

The main reason, of course, is that it was on Lifetime. But beyond that, I was watching the film because I was genuinely curious to see how Sugarbabies could possibly be any different from Sugar Daddies and Babysitter’s Black Book.

What Was It About?

It’s pretty much exactly what you would expect. Katie (Alyson Stoner) wants to go to an expensive university and study art history but her bald father is kind of a jerk and her family is supposed to be so poor, despite the fact that they live in a huge house. Once Katie enrolls in school, she discovers how expensive an education can be.

Fortunately, her friend (Tira Skovbye) has a suggestion. All Katie has to do is join a website called Sugarbabies. (It’s always the internet’s fault.) Wealthy businessmen pay her for her companionship. Soon, Katie is spending all of her time with the wealthy James (Giles Paton) while ignoring Sean (Keenan Tracy), another student who has a crush on her. (Sean doesn’t help himself, however, when he gets drunk and throws up on her shoes. Seriously — ewwwww!) However, when Katie starts to get too serious about their “realtionship,” James stops paying Katie and Katie is forced to look for a new sugar daddy.

Meanwhile, Katie’s other friend, Rochelle (Sarah Dugdale) has a similar arrangement with a much older (but surprisingly nice) businessman (Ken Camroux-Taylor). Will Rochelle be able to secure her financial future before her sugar daddy dies of the heart attack that everyone will see coming from a mile away?

And, while all of this is going on, how is Katie going to explain to her parents where all of her new money is coming from?

And will all of the characters in the film ever realize how silly they all sound every time they use the term “sugar baby” in a sentence?

What Worked?

This was a fairly good example of a “Let’s see what everyone’s wearing and where they live!” type of Lifetime movie. The clothes, the offices, and the apartments were all to die for.

(Plus, seeing what everyone was wearing provided a nice distraction from the rather predictable storyline.)

Among the supporting cast, Ken Camroux-Taylor gave a good and sympathetic performance as a lonely businessman. He wasn’t in many scenes but he took full advantage of every minute of screen time that he got.

What Did Not Work?

Ultimately, Sugarbabies just could not escape the twin shadows of Sugar Daddies and Baby Sitter’s Black Book. Sugarbabies was alright but it was just never as much fun as Sugar Daddies, nor did it have the subtle hints of existential crisis that distinguished Baby Sitter’s Black Book.

Add to that, Katie was not exactly the most sympathetic of protagonists. She came across as being rather bland and judgmental. If you’re going to embrace the Lifetime version of what it is to be bad, at least have fun while you’re doing so. What you should not do is be like Katie and spend the entire movie wandering around with the same glum expression on your face, angry that you’re actually going to be able to get an education.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Rochelle had red hair and liked to wear black lingerie. OH MY GOD, JUST LIKE ME!

One thing that definitely did NOT make me go, “Oh my God! Just like me!” was the film’s depiction of what it was like to an art history major. We only saw Katie attend one art class and it was taught in a lecture hall that was always half-empty. Whenever the film wanted to remind us that Katie was supposed to be a design genius, it would have her either say that she needed to go work on her term paper or else have her look at a nondescript piece of furniture, get excited, and say, “Oh, I love pieces from that period!”

(That’s the equivalent of having a character look at a painting and say, “Look what the artist does with color here.” It may sound good to people who don’t know any better but for those of us who actually studied art, comments like that are the sure sign of someone with no idea what he or she is actually trying to say.)

Speaking as someone who majored in art history (and who is proud of her degree, regardless of what the President says about it), I really wish I had gone to Katie’s college because it appears to be home to the easiest art history program in the North America! Seriously, I could have saved myself a lot of time that was spent studying.

Lessons Learned

Never turn down a handout. And if you do turn down a handout, you lose the right to then start whining about how you don’t have any money.