“Are you telling me there’s some totally deranged, dickless dude running around out there?”
Island Guest- Club Dread
I’m a huge fan of the slasher genre, but nothing is worse than a bad slasher film. I’ve heard a lot of things, both good and bad, about Slumber Party Massacre. I had never watched it because it seemed like an exercise in exploitation more than anything. That assumption isn’t completely wrong, but the film has more substance than I thought.
Rita Mae Brown wrote the film. She conceived the film as a satirical take on the slasher film. The original script had a lot of humor and played up the more silly aspects of the slasher genre. When Amy Holden Jones was selected to direct the film, it seemed like a match made in heaven. However, it was clear that Jones had no intention of making a parody. Brown was furious and has denounced the final product.
Slumber Party Massacre is very exploitative. There are multiple shots of gratuitous nudity. There is a shower scene the inexplicably lingers on a girls backside for an uncomfortable amount of time. Maybe this was supposed to be satire, but it felt wrong. There are a few scenes that dwell on nudity for no reason.
The killer Russ Thorn played by Michael Villella, is a special kind of psychopath. He doesn’t wear a mask and uses a large power drill to kill his victims. Villella is menacing and definitely the best performance in the film. The rest of the cast is not only bad but, at some points, unbearable. The murders aren’t super gruesome, but there are a lot of them.
The film is intense, and Amy Holden Jones does a great job pacing the film. The plot makes sense to an extent. The most confusing part of the film is random bits of humor. This was obviously leftover bits from Brown’s original script, but they don’t fit this film at all. One character decides to eat pizza out of a blood cover box.
I would love to see the film Rita Mae Brown intended to make. The film we got in its place is fun but is a bit grotesque. The lingering shots on female body parts and unintentional humor paired with actual humor make this film feel cheap. The plot is interesting and could have actually produced some intense horror scenes. Slumber Party Massacre lives up to its cheesy reputation.
