![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiSlumber Party Massacre. 1982. Directed by Amy Holden Jones. Written by Rita Mae Brown. Distributed by New Concorde.
If there's any movie that I've given too many passes to over the years, it's Slumber Party Massacre. Which isn't to say that I loathe it. I mean, how could anyone dislike a movie in which teenagers meet the business end of a two-foot long power drill? Plus, it's written by Rita Mae "Rubyfruit Jungle" Brown, and directed by Amy Holden Jones (whose directorial career never gets bigger than the Ally Sheedy bomb Maid to Order, but who is the writer behind Mystic Pizza*). So it's the feminist critique on slasher flicks, right?
Well, not really.
In the end, it's hard to say that Slumber Party Massacre brings much more to the plate than any of the other mid-'80s slasher flicks**. Which isn't to say that it's bad; this is still one of my favorites from those halcyon days, with witty writing and at least a few nice twists. But if you see this after buying too heavily into the hype, it has the potential to be disappointing.
Plot-wise, there's certainly not much here. The members of a high-school basketball team decide to throw a slumber party***. They don't invite the nice girl on the team, because they're a bunch of bitchy archetypes who have no other purpose in this film but to die. And because she drinks too much milk****. Meanwhile, a local serial killer has escaped, and although there are lots of warnings on the radio and in the newspaper, no one is taking this very seriously (cops included).
After a few pitstops, the killer (who loves power tools) makes his way to the party, where he starts doing what he does best. Meanwhile, the sister of the girl who was excluded sneaks out to the party, so naturally her good-girl sister follows. Eventually, those two (as well as the girl hosting the party) gang up on the killer and stab him.
Like I said, pretty basic. But there are a bunch of things that stand out:
1. The most phallic murder weapon ever. The psycho in this movie (whose name is Russ Thorne, but he's not interesting enough to refer to by any name other than The Driller Killer) carries a drill with a bit that appears to be three feet long, and he sticks it in the women he stalks. Oh, and it never seems to run out of power. You don't have to be a Freudian to figure out where the filmmakers are going with this. But in case you somehow missed the point, during the final chase (going after the surviving "nice" girls), the killer's super-long drill bit breaks! Once that happens, needless to say, his murderous virility goes bye-bye.
2. A girl named Kimberly Clarke. Like I said, in trashier movies, cute names amuse me. Besides, the multinational corporation dies just like everyone else.
3. The murder of the telephone repairwomen. This follows the established slasher movie convention of randomly killing anyone whose path crosses that of the leads (remember the hitchhiker in Friday the 13th Part IV?). But this takes it to a whole new level. In the middle of the day, in the school parking lot, two soon-to-be-dead boys hit on a cute phone repair technician. After she rebuffs the advances, they walk away, and a hand reaches out of her van and pulls her inside, with her tools falling to the ground. The kids, no more than fifteen feet away, see nothing. By the time they do turn around, the door is closed, and they don't see her at the back window, screaming for help. In the middle of the lot, we now see the van a-rockin', but even though there are plenty of folks around, no one comes a-knockin to save her. It's silly and ludicrous, just like the scene it inspired in Scream 2, but not half as believable.
4. After finding the dead body of the pizza delivery guy, one girl comes to the natural conclusion that it would be silly to let the pizza go to waste.
5. More gratuitous topless females than in any slasher flick I can recall. Way more.
6. An early Brinke Stephens death featuring her being stalked through the hallways of her school. She almost escapes, but the arm wound that that the killer inflicts on her early in the chase causes enough blood to leak under a door to give away her position. It's a relatively clever and extended variation on the traditional stalking death.
7. The dumbest house design ever. See, the house in which the party is taking place has a detached garage (making it all the better to murder an amorous couple without getting caught). But, for reasons unknown, the fusebox for the main house is in this separate building. It's almost like the folks who designed this subdivision wanted to encourage slashers or something.
8. A machete scare. Sure, we get the usual cat scares, but there's also a moment in which the creepy neighbor (who dies off screen eventually) scares a girl by sneaking up on her with a machete, then chopping down on the snail right next to her. We need more moments like this in movies (ridiculous as they might be) and fewer fucking cat scares.
9. The Sylvester Stallone issue of Playgirl. Not sure if that makes this movie more or less scary.
10. The Driller Killer's rambling "justifications" at the end. "It takes a lot of love for a person to do this." Yeah, that's the ticket. He does everything for love, just like Billy Fucking Flynn.
You can tell that Brown had a lot more satire buried in her script than eventually made it to film, as the rampant cliches and stereotypes would work so much better if they were pushed further than the movie takes them. Even in the final cut, however, there's enough sly humor (mixed with plenty of classic gore) to keep the viewer entertained (although I cannot emphasize enough that the second film in the series should be avoided at all costs, as it's a fucking mess with no redeeming qualities whatsoever). This isn't the classic that even I'd made it out to be over the years, but it's still a fun camp classic.
*She's also one of the many writers credited with the adaptation of The Relic, something for which I'll take her to task later this year.
**Yes, I know that most of the victims actually get drilled, not slashed. The "slasher" term is still the preferred term for this kind of movie. If you've got a problem with this, take a look at the archetypal slasher, Halloween, in which two of the three victims are strangled and the third is stabbed.
***What? You thought maybe they'd decide to throw a massacre?
****Seriously.
If there's any movie that I've given too many passes to over the years, it's Slumber Party Massacre. Which isn't to say that I loathe it. I mean, how could anyone dislike a movie in which teenagers meet the business end of a two-foot long power drill? Plus, it's written by Rita Mae "Rubyfruit Jungle" Brown, and directed by Amy Holden Jones (whose directorial career never gets bigger than the Ally Sheedy bomb Maid to Order, but who is the writer behind Mystic Pizza*). So it's the feminist critique on slasher flicks, right?
Well, not really.
In the end, it's hard to say that Slumber Party Massacre brings much more to the plate than any of the other mid-'80s slasher flicks**. Which isn't to say that it's bad; this is still one of my favorites from those halcyon days, with witty writing and at least a few nice twists. But if you see this after buying too heavily into the hype, it has the potential to be disappointing.
Plot-wise, there's certainly not much here. The members of a high-school basketball team decide to throw a slumber party***. They don't invite the nice girl on the team, because they're a bunch of bitchy archetypes who have no other purpose in this film but to die. And because she drinks too much milk****. Meanwhile, a local serial killer has escaped, and although there are lots of warnings on the radio and in the newspaper, no one is taking this very seriously (cops included).
After a few pitstops, the killer (who loves power tools) makes his way to the party, where he starts doing what he does best. Meanwhile, the sister of the girl who was excluded sneaks out to the party, so naturally her good-girl sister follows. Eventually, those two (as well as the girl hosting the party) gang up on the killer and stab him.
Like I said, pretty basic. But there are a bunch of things that stand out:
1. The most phallic murder weapon ever. The psycho in this movie (whose name is Russ Thorne, but he's not interesting enough to refer to by any name other than The Driller Killer) carries a drill with a bit that appears to be three feet long, and he sticks it in the women he stalks. Oh, and it never seems to run out of power. You don't have to be a Freudian to figure out where the filmmakers are going with this. But in case you somehow missed the point, during the final chase (going after the surviving "nice" girls), the killer's super-long drill bit breaks! Once that happens, needless to say, his murderous virility goes bye-bye.
2. A girl named Kimberly Clarke. Like I said, in trashier movies, cute names amuse me. Besides, the multinational corporation dies just like everyone else.
3. The murder of the telephone repairwomen. This follows the established slasher movie convention of randomly killing anyone whose path crosses that of the leads (remember the hitchhiker in Friday the 13th Part IV?). But this takes it to a whole new level. In the middle of the day, in the school parking lot, two soon-to-be-dead boys hit on a cute phone repair technician. After she rebuffs the advances, they walk away, and a hand reaches out of her van and pulls her inside, with her tools falling to the ground. The kids, no more than fifteen feet away, see nothing. By the time they do turn around, the door is closed, and they don't see her at the back window, screaming for help. In the middle of the lot, we now see the van a-rockin', but even though there are plenty of folks around, no one comes a-knockin to save her. It's silly and ludicrous, just like the scene it inspired in Scream 2, but not half as believable.
4. After finding the dead body of the pizza delivery guy, one girl comes to the natural conclusion that it would be silly to let the pizza go to waste.
5. More gratuitous topless females than in any slasher flick I can recall. Way more.
6. An early Brinke Stephens death featuring her being stalked through the hallways of her school. She almost escapes, but the arm wound that that the killer inflicts on her early in the chase causes enough blood to leak under a door to give away her position. It's a relatively clever and extended variation on the traditional stalking death.
7. The dumbest house design ever. See, the house in which the party is taking place has a detached garage (making it all the better to murder an amorous couple without getting caught). But, for reasons unknown, the fusebox for the main house is in this separate building. It's almost like the folks who designed this subdivision wanted to encourage slashers or something.
8. A machete scare. Sure, we get the usual cat scares, but there's also a moment in which the creepy neighbor (who dies off screen eventually) scares a girl by sneaking up on her with a machete, then chopping down on the snail right next to her. We need more moments like this in movies (ridiculous as they might be) and fewer fucking cat scares.
9. The Sylvester Stallone issue of Playgirl. Not sure if that makes this movie more or less scary.
10. The Driller Killer's rambling "justifications" at the end. "It takes a lot of love for a person to do this." Yeah, that's the ticket. He does everything for love, just like Billy Fucking Flynn.
You can tell that Brown had a lot more satire buried in her script than eventually made it to film, as the rampant cliches and stereotypes would work so much better if they were pushed further than the movie takes them. Even in the final cut, however, there's enough sly humor (mixed with plenty of classic gore) to keep the viewer entertained (although I cannot emphasize enough that the second film in the series should be avoided at all costs, as it's a fucking mess with no redeeming qualities whatsoever). This isn't the classic that even I'd made it out to be over the years, but it's still a fun camp classic.
*She's also one of the many writers credited with the adaptation of The Relic, something for which I'll take her to task later this year.
**Yes, I know that most of the victims actually get drilled, not slashed. The "slasher" term is still the preferred term for this kind of movie. If you've got a problem with this, take a look at the archetypal slasher, Halloween, in which two of the three victims are strangled and the third is stabbed.
***What? You thought maybe they'd decide to throw a massacre?
****Seriously.