Frat House
Frat House is a documentary film exploring the darker side of fraternity life. The film was directed by Todd Phillips and Andrew Gurland, and largely filmed at Allentown, Pennsylvania's Muhlenberg College; the majority of the film was shot in the house of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, whose charter was revoked in 2000, though it has since been rechartered.[1]
| Frat House | |
|---|---|
.png) Title card | |
| Directed by | Todd Phillips Andrew Gurland |
| Music by | J.F. Coleman |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Todd Phillips Andrew Gurland |
| Editor(s) | Salamo Levin |
| Running time | 60 mins |
| Distributor | HBO |
| Release | |
| Original release | January 21, 1998 (Sundance) |
The opening fraternity, that drove the filmmakers out of the college and the town, is the Beta Chi fraternity on the State University of New York College at Oneonta campus in Oneonta New York. Beta Chi is an unrecognized fraternity in Oneonta, and was kicked off the Oneonta campus after reports of severe hazing. Beta Chi is currently a recognized fraternity at SUNY Oneonta as of January 22, 2018. Other unrecognized fraternities from SUNY Oneonta shown in the film include Sigma Alpha Mu, also known as "Sammy", and Tau Kappa Epsilon, which was recognized in the spring of 2007 but shortly thereafter lost their recognition from the campus. Frat House won two Sundance Film Festival awards in 1998.
When the feature was attacked for containing sequences that were staged for the cameras it was permanently shelved by its distributor HBO and was never aired officially. [2][3]
References
- Rapkin, Mickey. "Burning Down The House". The Cornell Daily Sun. October 15, 1998.
- Daly, Steve. "Hazed & Confused". Entertainment Weekly. Iss 466, pp. 19–20. January 8, 1999.
- Yang, Eleanor (June 24, 2000). "HEC News: Alpha Tau Omega Members Linked to Fights, Hazing, and More". Higher Education Center, US Department of Education. Archived from the original on February 13, 2009.
- https://www.indiewire.com/2012/03/like-project-x-watch-todd-phillips-unaired-nsfw-hbo-documentary-frat-house-253507/
- https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/wdpee5/todd-phillips-frat-house
External links
- Frat House on IMDb
- "Are Those Two Fools At It Again?", Cahiers du Cinemart (article on the controversy)
| Preceded by Girls Like Us |
Sundance Grand Jury Prize: Documentary 1998 (tied with The Farm) |
Succeeded by American Movie |