Sorority Row

But of course, if "Sorority Row" had a cast of characters - or a story line, for that matter - that was as half as smart, strong, or secretive as the sisters’ Theta Pi pledge, we wouldn’t get all the blackmail, bitching, and backhanded compliments these young women dole out to one another.

But they’re trying to keep it together, and they have the frantic text messages and the stiletto heel fatigue to prove it. We do get a nagging pang of conscience from the regret-torn Cassidy (Briana Evigan). Her nemesis, naturally, is a blond Stepford Wife-in-Waiting named Jessica (Leah Piper) who wants to marry the senator’s son. “Now, let’s go wash the blood off in the lake and get back to the party,’’ Jessica announces after the evil deed is done, priorities in place.

And as for Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s daughter Rumer Willis? As Ellie, she just mostly shakes and screams a lot like she’s really scared. Either she’s afraid the hooded killer is coming to get her next, or maybe her mom is threatening to make her watch “Striptease’’ again.

In either case, “Sorority Row’’ follows the imaginatively bankrupt trend of remaking slasher films from the 1970s and ’80s. This time, it’s a regurgitation of Mark Rosman’s “The House on Sorority Row,’’ a mostly forgotten 1983 horror flick that features a different victim but the same hackneyed formula of nubile (and of course conniving) young women being chased, chopped, beaten, and bludgeoned.

Director Stewart Hendler pays homage to Rosman by having the girls go to a school of the same name. His other touches are less subtle. The “scary’’ moments are of the sneak-up-on-you-from-behind variety, but there’s little suspense. And apparently no one throws a light switch or gets smoke inhalation in a burning house anymore. All of which begs the question: What on earth is Carrie Fisher (playing the crusty sorority mother, Mrs. Crenshaw) doing in this movie? Maybe she liked the idea of toting a shotgun and saying “Come to mama!’’ as she reloads.