I love horror films especially the slasher sub-genre. Being a marital artist and fan of all things in that world to see Randy Couture added to a film in the genre peeked my interest. The film The Row not only features Couture, but also Lala Kent, Shea Buckner, Dylan Sprayberry, Natali Yura, Mia Frampton, Jennifer Titus, and Colin Egglesfield, but does it bring the gory fun expected from the genre or will it fail to make the grade?

 

The Row follows new pledge Riley and her best friend, Becks, whose anxiety of rush week turns into sheer terror when sisters of a sorority are slain — and turned into dolls — by a serial killer. Can Riley uncover the terrible secret shared by her cop father and deceased mother, a former Phi Lambda sister, before becoming a victim herself? Going in I wasn’t expecting anything overly new as the entire premise has been done numerous times, but I was hoping for something more. The story works and the killer itself is actually a great idea, but sadly we just don’t get to see them do all much.

 

Most of the kills are off camera or implied with very little blood. This could have still worked well had they at least built up more tension to them, but some of the cuts and ways of showing them just fell flat for me. I would have loved to see more of the killer at work creating the disturbing final element to each victim that was pretty cool. This entire ideal would have made a great gory slasher flick, but instead its more of a watered down thriller with little intensity and average characters and execution.

 

This is far from a bad movie and I did enjoy what they made, but seeing where it could have gone and all the missed opportunities just left me overall disappointed in what could have been. If you are a fan of the genre decide for yourself and check it out when The Row hits Digital, Blu-ray and DVD on September 25th from Lionsgate Home Entertainment.