Naked women and a weird guy with a drill, how could you go wrong?
The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)
Directed By: Amy Holden Jones (Love Letters)
The Prologue
I, like everyone that loves horror, has heard of The Slumber Party Massacre. Now up until recently they have been rather hard to track down due to the fact they were mostly out of print, but recently Shout Factory has released the original three (Slumber Party ones not the Cheerleader ones) in a two disc set that you can more or less get for the price of one. So today we start off with the original, and the one I’m sure is probably the favorite. So order a pizza, watch out for your creepy neighbor, and call your significant other “Boo-Boo” cause it’s time to review The Slumber Party Massacre!
The Movie
So Trish is left home all alone right around the time a crazy man is on the lose! As she invites her friends over for a Slumber Party people start dropping like flies! What follows is a film that unlike most slashers doesn’t take it’s self too seriously and as a result you get a lot of intentional and unintentional humor tossed in with the nudity and gore. But to my shock, above all that we also get a slasher that stands well if not above a lot of the slasher films we got during this time period.
Well, it’s a full on cheesy situation with this film. I find it funny that a movie with a female activist involved in it would open with a girl flashing some nudity, but hey, let these ladies do what they want right? Above all that this movie does make use of characters by having more than one you could legit see as the “final girl”, so the fact that right out the gate you can’t really be too sure who will live and who will die helps a lot. I mean how many times with a slasher can you already tell which girl is going to make it? That isn’t so easy to spot once this movie gets going.
I also found the “Driller Killer” Russ Thorn to be interesting a bit. Sure, he’s not really marketable as a Michael or Jason was, but his drill I’m sure is what everyone remembers. He’s not flashy at all, just a weird and crazy dude with a weird drill that seems to get his kicks out of drilling and even slashing with it. Now I dunno if all the things he does with that drill are even possible or not but I’ll give him the benefit of it, seeing as how I don’t think I’ve ever used a drill in my whole entire life. My point none the less is this, he’s creep enough without being too much of a gimmick. I oddly found that refreshing.
So there’s blood (and not bad at all in most parts), there’s nudity, there’s tons of women doing what I guess women do at slumber parties, and we actually have characters here that aren’t all the way cookie cutter. We have a possible final girl here drinking and doing drugs?? I mean what kinda madness is this!?? But you know what? It works out just fine while watching it. I think what you get a the end of this film is probably one of the better slashers of the 80′s. God know there was a ton of very very bad ones, and most were by big time franchises.
The Conclusion
Hell I’ll give this one a slight thumbs up! I’ll even suggest you watch this thing. I think it holds up well with such things as The Burning, The Prowler, and other none Friday the 13th or Halloween slashers of it’s time. If you leave your brain at the door you could find yourself having some fun watching it, due to the fact it at least makes sense..Which is more than I can say for it’s sequel..
The Rating (6/10)
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