National Lampoon's Pledge This!

National Lampoon's Pledge This!
Promotional poster for National Lampoon's Pledge This!
Directed by	William Heins
Written by	Cheryl Guerriero
Starring	Paris Hilton Paula Garcés Sarah Carter Simon Rex E.G. Daily Kerri Kenney Holly Valance Alexis Thorpe
Cinematography	Fortunato Procopio
Editing by	Michael Matzdorff
Distributed by	Pop Films LLC
Release date(s)	December 19, 2006
Country	USA
Language	English
Box office	$1,751,490[1]

National Lampoon's Pledge This! is a 2006 comedy film starring Paris Hilton, who also served as an executive producer. The film was very poorly received and went straight to video.

Plot

When a dorm toilet explodes on the first day back to school, a group of misfit girlfriends are forced to leave their housing and search for a new home. They ultimately decide on pledging a sorority. However, not many sororities are normal at South Beach University. The girls decide to pledge the most popular and exclusive sorority at the university, Gamma Gamma, which is led by president Victoria English (Hilton).

While pledging the sorority, Victoria sends the girls to do a task: collect used condoms. While searching the park, the leader of the group, Gloria, bumps into Victoria's boyfriend Derek, and they become close. The only reason Victoria plans to let the freshmen pledge is to display diversity, which is a requirement for the "FHM Hottest Sorority In The Country" contest. From then on, Victoria declares war on the girls during "Hell Week" but ultimately lets them join, only to kick them out once they have won the contest. This angers the leader of the misfit freshmen, Gloria. Gloria decides to quit the sorority as do her friends. Derek and Gloria realize their feelings towards each other and seal it with a kiss.

Gloria's ex-best friend, Kristen, convinces Gloria to come back. Gloria and her friends come back but only to declare war on Victoria by sneaking into the Gamma Gamma house and stealing embarrassing photos and video footage of her to show to everyone at the Gamma Gamma victory party. She also reveals to Victoria that she and Derek love each other. Victoria becomes embarrassed and eventually makes a public apology to the freshmen. The movie ends with a giant food fight at the Gamma Gamma party, and Victoria saying that she loved her cover of FHM so much she bought the magazine. Gloria becomes the president of Gamma Gamma the following year.

Cast

• Paris Hilton - Victoria English
• Paula Garcés - Gloria
• Sarah Carter - Kristen
• Kerri Kenney - Kathy
• E.G. Daily - Catherine Johnson
• Simon Rex - Derek
• Geoffrey Arend - Dax
• Holly Valance - Jessica
• Noureen DeWulf - PooPoo
• Alexis Thorpe - Morgan
• Amanda Rowan - Trista
• Greg Cipes - Reed
• Sarai Howard - Tonya
• Amanda Aday - Maxine Picker
• Sofia Vergara - Herself
• Carmen Electra - Herself/FHM Hostess
• Sam E. Goldberg - Teddy
• Paulina Rubio - Herself
• Vitaliy Versace - Boyfriend
• Dieter Meier - Gamsie

Production

Filming started in early 2004 in Miami, Florida before Hilton started filming her theatrical debut House Of Wax. Filming finished later that same year and a trailer was released on the movie's official website. However, producers wanted Pledge This! to have an R-rating, which would allow more nudity in the movie. Paris Hilton disagreed with the proposal. More scenes with nudity were filmed pushing the movie back to mid-2005.

Post production was finalized at World Entertainment - LA in Los Angeles by Edward Oleschak.

Due to the hurricanes that hit Florida in 2005 filming was delayed and then ultimately moved. This pushed the movie back to early 2006. Fans were confused that the trailer had proclaimed this movie as "Paris Hilton's film debut" yet she had already appeared in 2005's House of Wax. Finally in spring of 2006 it was announced that National Lampoon's Pledge This! would be released as an unrated DVD on December 19, 2006. It was also released on a rated R edition. Hilton missed the premiere of the movie at the Cannes Film Festival in protest to the addition of the aforementioned nude scenes. Hilton said, "I was so angry I snubbed my own premiere."^[2] In August 2008, Worldwide Entertainment Group Inc. sued Hilton in the Miami District Court, alleging she did not honor her contractual agreement to provide "reasonable promotion and publicity" for the film.^[3]

Reception

Pledge This! is #10 on IMDB's Bottom 100, with 7,855 votes (as of February 15, 2011).^[4] This is the second National Lampoon movie to be in the chart, the first being National Lampoon's Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj. Four other Paris Hilton movies Nine Lives, The Hillz, Bottom's Up and The Hottie and the Nottie currently are also listed in the IMDB bottom 100.

References

1. ^ "Pledge This!". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=pledgethis.htm. Retrieved 9 August 2011. 
2. ^ "Too much nudity, protests Paris". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2006-05-30. http://www.smh.com.au/news/people/waving-goodbye-to-her-wiced-ways/2006/05/30/1148956336143.html. Retrieved 2006-05-30. 
3. ^ "Paris Hilton sued over lack of publicity for film". 2008-08-12. http://news.aol.com/entertainment/story/_a/paris-hilton-sued-over-lack-of-publicity/n20080812215209990008?ecid=RSS0001. Retrieved 2008-09-09. ^{[dead link]}
4. ^ IMDb Bottom 100, Retrieved on February 15, 2011

External links

• National Lampoon's Pledge This!
• Pledge This! at the Internet Movie Database
• Pledge This! at AllRovi
• Pledge This! at Box Office Mojo
• Pledge This! at Rotten Tomatoes