‘Brotherhood’ shows a rite gone wrong

Whether or not you’ve ever pledged a fraternity, the process of ritual humiliation known as hazing may seem brutal and unbearable. The new movie “Brotherhood,” the debut feature of Will Canon, seems happy to confirm those sentiments. Canon’s film takes place in one long, no good, very bad night at a fraternity house at an unnamed college somewhere in the South.

Jon Foster (brother of actor Ben Foster) stars as a fraternity brother who is forcing each pledge to rob a convenience store as part of his initiation. And as any sensible person can observe, guns and frat guys shouldn’t mix. Naturally, things go downhill fast.

Canon’s film won the audience award at last year’s South by Southwest Film Festival and opens Friday in Los Angeles. The 32-year-old New York University graduate and Texas native sat for a chat about making a movie about frat life, despite never having been in one himself.

This film is a long way from “Animal House” or “Revenge of the Nerds.” Have fraternity shenanigans taken a darker turn in recent years?

Honestly, if you look back over the years, there have been hazing-related deaths from back to the beginning of the 1900s. I don’t think it’s something that’s all that new or things are necessarily any darker now than they were. But it seems like in the last 10 to 15 years, when things go poorly, I think it gets a lot more media attention. I don’t know if the number of incidents is higher or we’re just more aware of it. I think universities and the fraternities themselves have taken a much harder stance against hazing. It’s like bullying. These things are on our brain a bit more, and people and institutions are speaking out against it.

Have you seen different reactions whether the film plays in a college town or not?

It doesn’t seem to play that differently. The first two festivals it played at were SXSW and Dallas International Film Festival. And it played really well at both. They’re fairly similar cities in the same part of the country. We played at the Palm Springs Film Festival not too long ago. The demographic of that fest was older, but they seemed to enjoy the movie. They responded a little differently because of the age difference. There were older guys in the audience who had been in fraternities in the ‘50s and ‘60s. They were responding how it felt to how real it felt to them and true to their experiences, which is something I had never thought about.

I guess we all have more innocent notions about what fraternities were like a few generations ago.

If you look back in the research, the incidents that lead to tragedy certainly aren’t new. I think we all have a more nostalgic view of the past. I think fraternities have probably been a little more edgy than we want to believe all along.

Your experience of fraternities was through your friends and their stories?

Mostly. I was never in a fraternity. Having never gone through it myself, that’s part of what attracted me to it. I was interested in the process, people willing to go through these physical and psychological challenges. I was also impressed that guys would be willing to go through it and could go through it. It’s the same way that I was impressed with how people went through Marine boot camp. Just because it’s something that’s so trying. I’m always asking myself if I would have the fortitude to do that.

What’s the craziest fraternity story you’ve heard?

I think most of the crazy ones I heard ended up in the movie. All through the process, people I had just met would tell me the craziest stories that had ever happened to them. It was odd because people I didn’t know were baring their souls to me. Someone told me about a pledge who was lit on fire while going through the hazing process. Of the things that didn’t end up in the movie, that was the craziest one I heard. It is a little bit scary how many crazy stories there are out there.

So most of the incidents in the movie are based on real events? At what point did they depart from reality and into fiction? Did pledges really fake-rob convenience stores?

That was one that I have never heard of actually happening. That was the initial idea of the movie. When that was presented to me, it was presented as something that people talk about but has never actually happened. What’s interesting, and a little bit troubling too, is that people see the incidents in the movie and say, “Oh, is that the thing that happened in Ohio? Or is that the thing that happened in Florida?” So these real stories are out there and happening in different places. So it’s troubling to me that it’s happening that frequently. And it could be any number of places or times that it’s gone on.

patrick.day@latimes.com