Alpha Girls (2013)

Fantastic!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

"The film harks back to the days of those great 80′s Sorority Slashers for example House on Sorority Row or Slumber Party Massacre, and also had a distinct air of the Frat Boy shocker Pledge Night. It has been a long while since we have seen anything like this in the horror world with the sheer amount of found footage, paranormal activity 501, and zombie flicks that seem to dominate our screens in this current climate, so it came as a much welcome relief to see a modern spin being put on an old theme. Being a Brit this strange American custom of Sorority/Fraternity pledging has always been a bit of a fascination to me I cannot think of anything we have over here that compares, apart from Freemasonry, but then who knows what goes on in their little secret meetings. Although the likeness to the aforementioned films is more of an element, or flavor so to speak, as Alpha Girls is not just your everyday common garden slasher, bringing elements of Satanism and Witchery to the mix too. I have to admit I have a massive soft spot for witchcraft/ satanic rituals in horror, so another win for Alpha Girls. The last comparisons I want to make are that firstly it did remind me in essence of Andrew Fleming's cult teen flick The Craft, albeit in a more grown up and violent way, but the same messages were there. It also had the black comedic aspect of Heathers, and the vain and self- absorbed personas of the lead sorority girls were very reminiscent of the characters in Michael Lehmann's 1988 classic."-stigmatophiliablog

It's finally out! Alpha Girls! The indie horror film from Philadelphia! I finally got to see it, thus proving the movie really exists! Alpha Girls follows Morgan (Falon Joslyn), a transfer student at a Philadelphia university rushing for the Alpha Beta sorority. Alpha Beta alumni are known to go onto become some of the most influential people. However, Morgan soon finds out that this power comes at a sinister price.And of course, the viewer finds out even sooner than Morgan did. The movie opened with a human sacrifice scene that occurred in 1896. The scene more or less destroyed any and all chance at subtlety to the movie and eliminated any possibility of a surprise. Since Alpha Girls released ample pre-release material, such as production photos, I kind of knew how the movie was going to play out, but I didn't know it would be spelled out as such right at the beginning.When Morgan arrives, she meets fellow pledges Cassidy (Beverly Rivera), April (Kara Zhang), and Juliet (Nicole Cinaglia). No sooner does she move in that the pledges are put through a rush regimen taken right out of Full Metal Jacket, complete with Gunnery Sergeant Hartman-wannabe President Veronica (Nikki Bell). Of course, things suddenly start to improve when Cassidy performed a satanic ritual that involved eating fish a la A Fish Called Wanda and jamming an ax into Veronica's chest, granting the pledges' wishes, such as improving April's grades or Juliet's financial situation.It's clear the writers were film buffs as Alpha Girls came jam packed with movie references, including an, "I find your lack of faith disturbing." Other than that, I really wished they had someone look at their script before they went shooting as the story's structure was an issue and much of the dialogue sounded stiff and unnatural.For the most part, the acting talent didn't do much to help. The sacrificial victim at the beginning of the movie was supposed to be crying, but she looked like she was laughing to me. I'm seriously impressed Beverly Rivera was able to say her lines with a straight face. IMDb users describe her as being creepy, but I honestly wanted to laugh when I saw her.Falon Joslyn gave a passable performance, but I was blown away by Kara Zhang's and Ron Jeremy's performances. Did I mention neither Zhang nor Jeremy got significant time on screen? The extra they hired to play a cashier at a mini-mart was probably a real cashier, but he couldn't even deliver those lines right.That said, Alpha Girls is a movie you need to see as a B-movie if you were to have any hope of enjoying it. I am aware this is a freshman effort on the parts of writer/directors Johnny Zito and Tony Trov. However, even Quentin Tarantino (who by the way won an Oscar for Django Unchained) is comfortable admitting he runs his script by people to check if the dialogue sounded good.The pacing was also quite uneven. The aforementioned sacrifice scene and the sort of "girls day out" where the pledges are out and about in Philadelphia were both scenes that could've been cut with no consequence to the story. I actually felt like many scenes were actually in the movie purely to pad its length, like when Morgan was in the arcade with JD (Victor Gennaro). That whole sequence just felt like it dragged on for far longer than it should have.Considering the obvious budgetary constraints though, I was actually impressed with the movie's technical competence. The special effects actually looked surprisingly good, and the cinematography (barring some minor bugs in editing) actually was decent. The blood wasn't exactly on par with Saving Private Ryan in terms of realism, but there was a lot of it, nearing the level of that of Saw 7.Overall, this is a movie that I would recommend if you felt like watching an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, except you didn't want to watch Mystery Science Theater 3000. Get some beer and some friends, and have fun ripping the movie to shreds! Again, it's a B-movie that was kind of gross, but never remotely truly scary. Poor Kara got washed out in a flood of bad dialogue and acting.

Alpha Girls is A fun and nostalgic time hearkening back to the cult films of the 70's and 80's with influences spanning from Francis Ford Coppola to Dario Argento. What is abundantly clear is knowledge that this creative team has for the art of film making. For a film that was shot on such a small budget the production has a unique and defined look and feel. Shooting on the Red One and the HD-DSLR cameras gave this film a extensive visual range from up close and intimate to sweeping shots of the city of Philadelphia. The story starts off with introducing the germ of an idea and fallows it unto completion. Go see it.

I was lucky enough to catch this movie and Southwork, the band who scored the film, last night as it played in Knoxville.A lot of other reviewers note the campiness of the movie, but I didn't see what they did. Maybe I'm missing the point, but I think of the Adam West Batman series, Rocky Horror or even Return of the Living Dead when I think "campy" and I just didn't see that here. Don't take that to mean this is a movie that has no sense of humor, it does, but it also has one hell of a mean streak. That isn't a bad thing.Alpha Girls looks a lot bigger than a lot of movies with much larger budgets. Decent sets, costumes and some of the effects helped achieve that bigger feel. Intentional or not, the movie does have a bit of an 80's throwback feel and I'm OK with that either way. The acting is a little hit or miss, but is fine overall. Other than a "girls day out" scene that feels a little long, the movie is well paced. My biggest gripe would be some of the digital effects used feel less like a part of the scene and have a "pasted on" type of look.Overall, I had a good time watching this and would encourage anyone that enjoys a little satanism with their sorority girls or fun horror movies in general to check this out if the tour hits your town.Seeing what can be achieved with so little is promising for low budget films in general, but I look forward to seeing what these guys do next.