The Slumber Party Massacre

1982's THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE enjoys a more distinguished reputation than many horror films of its glorious, designer jeans era - it was written and directed by women.  Respected author Rita Mae Brown penned the screenplay and Amy Holden Jones directed.  OK.  Their movie has been described by gore geeks and film scholars alike as a smart, patently feminist manifesto, different than your average killer on the loose movie.  I've also read that the film was originally intended to be a parody of such trash.  Yeah, it only marginally succeeds in both regards.

The plot involves a serial killer who has escaped from prison and plans to resume the spree he began years earlier.  He prefers to use power drills, the kind with very long and wide bits.  This is no whodunnit; we see the face of Russ Thorn (Michael Villela) very clearly at all times.  He even gets to speak at the end; er, probably a bad creative decision. His targets: a group of high school girls having a slumber party.  Other unfortunates also get in the way: neighbors, boyfriends, pizza delivery guys. The new girl at school (who lives next door) declined an invitation to the party and spends the night bickering with her younger sister. Will she come to the rescue? Or will the girls' basketball coach?  There's your movie.  It unfolds the way most others of this type do.

This being a Roger Corman production, expect lots of nudity.  The shower scene surely became legend among pubescents.  I somehow missed this movie when I was thirteen.

And about that scene, we get prime views of toplessness, and even a loving tilt down to showcase a coed's rear.  Surely Jones is spoofing the kind of shots we get in these movie? Hard to tell.  There is a very fine line between saying your movie is a parody and being the sort of thing you're parodying.  I'm not sure if I buy that the director was merely winking. Tommy Wiseau tried to pull that stunt with THE ROOM, but the world knew better. Brown stated that her original script was in fact a deliberate take on horror film tropes, many of which Jones exploits: the false alarm hand on shoulder, the close-up of a weapon, shining in the moonlight, the horny couple, the bad dialogue.  One particular line that deserves praise - after the delivery guy is killed, one of the girls feels his arm.  She remarks that he is cold. "Is the pizza?" asks another girl.

Many critics have cited moments that suggest a feminist essay, and while the broken drill bit and hot dogs over an eye shiner can be argued, I didn't find enough in THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE (which spawned a few sequels that were also written and directed by women) to make the case. Plenty of even the most vile slasher films usually sport a female sole survivor who is strong and virtuous. Is there that much extra here? The finale does boast some XX chromosome teamwork, an exclamation point of overcoming toxic masculinity, but this is hardly novel.

I did like the moment where a drill bores straight through a door just before someone knocks on it.   It's actually a handywoman, creating a peephole. Nice.

P.S. There are scenes which clearly inspired the likes of later movies such as BODY DOUBLE and even THE TERMINATOR.