The surprise is the remarkable script from screenwriter (Zack Weiner) and the sharp-eyed direction from Daniel Robbins who work to take an idea we have seen a million times before and turn out something new and fiercely entertaining.

This third feature for director Daniel Robbins is no delicate flower of cinematic art, but a lean and mean shocker that tells its tale of collegiate hazing run amuck with brute efficiency.

Pledge is a bloody, nervy and lean thriller about “hazing” taken to its logical extreme. If you’re OK with torturing somebody so that the “shared experience” will “bond” you to your “brothers,” maybe there’s a little sociopath in you, Pledge.

It’s not that every film has to achieve some grand epiphany, but Touch Me Not is not nearly as satisfying as the primal act it’s obsessed with.

If you like your torture movies tight, twisty and decently executed, then Pledge is for you.