The Slumber Party Massacre
This was way better than I expected. The tone reminds me of Happy Birthday to Me. On the one hand it’s the standard slasher/stalker movie, yet on the other it’s so much better than that. The film student in me can’t help noticing that both writer and director are female, but you kinda wouldn’t guess it – a film critic like Laura Mulvey or someone would have a field day with this one. Even the “little sister” character has prize melons, hot pants, and launches herself on big sis’ copy of Playgirl at the first opportunity. There is a lot of subtext in this movie, some more obvious than the rest – one of the dizzy heroines throws her Barbie doll away at the start of the movie, eg, loss of innocence anyone? – but it’s all kinda mixed-up and I imagine it’s really just there to make the movie appear smarter than it really is – the ending isn’t too hard to decipher, though, lol.
Apparently the screenplay was intended as a way-ahead-of-its-time “Scream” – type satire on the genre but it got bought up by an oblivious producer or two who decided to make it just as seriously (if that’s the right word) as any other horror movie of the time. There are laughs here, then, that are both intentional, unintentional, and some you just don’t know whether they were intended or not. Perhaps the only really scary part of this movie is that the killer is just a regular, nondescript guy – he’s unmasked and his face is barely kept in the shadows, his dress is indistinct jeans and top. You can quite imagine he’s just a lonely guy who watched Driller Killer one too many times. It’s actually pretty creepy to have a villain so completely unstylised for once. Even Abel Ferrara’s original Driller Killer, played by Ferrara himself (and incidentally, did he get any money for this series? lol), had some degree of design and motivation to him. This one’s just creepily “in love” with the girls.
If nothing else, watch it for the immortal lines, following the slaughter of a pizza delivery boy, “He’s dead alright.” “He’s so cold!” “Is the pizza?” The all-organ score ain’t too shabby either.