Sisters are doin’ it for themselves – covering up murder, that is – in Stewart Hendler’s competent remake of the 1983 slasher The House On Sorority Row.

Cast in the rigid mould of countless other teens-in-peril thrillers, Sorority Row works so hard to discount one of its characters as the hooded campus killer that we’re certain of their guilt.

Try too hard to throw an audience off the scent and we’ll easily sniff out a double-bluff.

While the plot slavishly abides by convention, Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger’s script is surprisingly waspish, providing the teenage damsels in distress with some deliciously catty exchanges as they attempt to avoid an early grave.

When one sorority member is bullied into dropping her towel in the shower room, a rival sneers: ‘FYI, waxing isn’t just for floors any more.’ The dialogue elicits frequent chuckles, whether it be one girl trilling, ‘Friend me on Facebook and I’ll totally confirm’, or another potential victim discovering a room-mate’s corpse and gasping: ‘She looks terrible!’ Jessica (Leah Pipes) is the queen bee of the sorority house presided over by Mrs Crenshaw (Carrie Fisher).

What Jessica says goes, so when it comes to playing a prank on Garret (Matt O’Leary), the two-timing brother of sorority member Chugs (Margo Harshman), everyone tows the line.

The girls decide to teach Garret a lesson by convincing him that he has killed Megan (Audrina Patridge) during a party by slipping her a date-rape drug.

In fact, Megan is just pretending to be out cold while her sisters – Cassidy (Briana Evigan), Ellie (Rumer Willis) and Claire (Jamie Chung) – fake tears as they all drive out to an abandoned mine in the dead of night to deliver the punchline.

However, the prank turns sour and Megan is killed for real.

Jessica decides to hide the body and the tyre iron in the mine shaft and the other girls agree, apart from Cassidy who wants to call for help, but she is blackmailed into silence.

Several months later, the girls receive a chilling picture text, apparently from Megan.

One by one, they are stalked by a killer in a black graduation robe, wielding the same weapon used to slay their friend.

Sorority Row whittles down the pledges one by one, luring the girls and their boyfriends to their doom with surprising ease.

Most of the characters are painted in a negative light and therefore deserve their grisly fate, leaving behind the supposedly nice girls and guys for the final showdown.

Death sequences are gory without being gratuitous and there’s a good variety to the demises, including an eye-watering adieu to Chugs that proves underage drinking can seriously damage your health.

The attractive cast remain remarkably composed and styled when they are slathered in blood and screaming for their lives.

• Release Date: Wednesday 9 September 2009
• Certificate: 15
• Runtime: 101mins