STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) -- The way the Alpha Tau Omega brothers at Muhlenberg College tell it, two filmmakers just showed up one day in 1997 saying they were New York University students shooting a fictional comedy -- a sort of "'Animal House' for the '90s."
A year later, the film they shot at the school in Allentown showed up at the Sundance Film Festival as something else: a documentary.For its graphic, violent hazing scenes, the HBO-financed "Frat House" won an award and rave reviews at the renowned independent film festival.
But amid allegations that students were paid to act out hazing cruelty, HBO is leaving the film in the can.
"There is no way this will air on HBO," said Sheila Nevins, vice president of original programming for the cable network. "It's not a documentary. When we do children at war, we don't create a war. When we do poverty in Appalachia, we don't create the want for food. We find the story where it is.
"The documentary about what goes on behind a fraternity's doors is still to be done."
Filmmakers Tony Phillips and Andrew Gurland insist they did not stage any scenes.
"Absolutely, unequivocally not. We asked people to show us what happens," said Phillips, 28. "If you scrutinize any documentary, how any documentary films are being made, you'll find similar problems. What's being questioned is the credibility of the movie, but this is what happens at fraternities."
Phillips and Gurland, 27, were interns at HBO when shooting began.
ATO brothers say Phillips and Gurland offered the fraternity $1,500 to shoot some scenes at the house. The pair directed all the action -- with several takes of many scenes -- and starred as pledges during the shooting in the spring of 1997. They say ATO brothers past and present also posed as pledges.
The film's narrator says the directors had to agree to become pledges before ATO would allow them to film inside the house.
"The whole thing, it wasn't like 'The Real World,"' said David Boelker, a 21-year-old Muhlenberg senior and one-time ATO president. "They didn't just come in, put their cameras on and see what happened."