My Review of The Slumber Party Massacre SPOILERS
"You're pretty. All of you are very pretty." "It takes a lot of love for a person to do something like this"
How weird is it that my Grandpa and Grandma introduced me to this movie, when I was about 12 or 13 years old? My grandparents went through a phase where they loved renting horror movies in the mid 1980s. I can remember watching this one at their house as a young teenager. At the time, I was blown away by the "awesome" nudity and what I considered to be graphic violence. I loved the Killer, Russ Thorn, as he was one of the more unique horror villains (a drill killer) I had encountered thus far. While I only saw The Slumber Party Massacre that one time, for years, I frequently referenced it as one of the best of the slasher films I had seen, perhaps because it was one of the few unedited for television movies I had watched.
Imagine my surprise when I re-watched The Slumber Party Massacre this week and discovered that it was actually pretty tame compared to the movies I have since seen over the past thirty some years. Right off the bat, I picked up on some of the more subversive humor contained in this movie that I would not have appreciated as a young teenager. This movie is not your average slasher film.
The Slumber Party Massacre is one of the few slasher films both written and directed by females. The screen writer, Rita Mae Brown, is a noted lesbian-feminist author who wrote mystery novels under the pretense that they were co-authored by her cat. Rita Mae Brown's script was originally titled Don't Open the Door and was designed with the sole intention of poking fun at the slasher movie genre. The director, Amy Holden Jones was actually an editor who worked on numerous Roger Corman films. For some reason, Amy Holden Jones took an interest in Rita Mae Brown's script and wanted to try her hand at directing it. Amy Holden Jones had a difficult time attracting any investors to finance the film until she convinced her husband, veteran cameraman, Michael Chapman (who shot both Godfather and Jaws) to film a nine minute promo reel for next to nothing. This promo reel was later used in The Slumber Party Massacre and convinced Roger Corman to finance the $200k required to get the project off the ground. While Amy Holden Jones insists that her film should be considered a dark comedy, she never told that to the cast and they played it straight down the line.
Considering the all female writer and director combo, its no surprise that feminist themes are promoted in The Slumber Party Massacre. Typically male roles are instead played by females: the gym coach, the carpenter and the telephone repairman. Writer, Rita Mae Brown wrote this movie as a metaphor about female objectification by men. The ladies in this movie are constantly spied upon, peeped at, stalked and assaulted by men. Far from being the sexist exploitation film that it appears to be at first viewing, The Slumber Party Massacre is intentionally critical of sexism. The men in this film get far more graphic deaths than their female counterparts. The female protagonists are very confident in their own sexuality and work together to kill the male slasher. The iconic weapon the killer uses is clearly a phallic symbol and at the end of the movie the drill is cut off (in half) by the female lead character. Rita Mae Brown intended the character of Russ Thorn (the drill Killer) to be a commentary on the way that male killers compensate for their pent-up sexual frustration. This is never more literal than the moment when he stands astride one cowering female victim with whirring drill bit at full stretch between his legs as he prepares for penetration. Russ Thorn is more outraged by the amputation of his phallus/drill bit than his hand. The men in this film are all portrayed in an unflattering manner, wimpy, ineffective and creepy. The woman are portrayed as athletic, beautiful, fun and sympathetic.
Here are a few quick one hit observations: *The character of Courtney (Valerie's kid sister) is looking at a Playgirl magazine with Sylvester Stallone on the front cover. * There are quite a bit of dark comedy bits that shine through in this film: the dead girl in the fridge keeps slowly falling out without the sisters noticing; the killer counts the bodies in the trunk of the car, finds that he's one short, and goes off in pursuit of a second try at the severely wounded high school boy; the killer makes reference to how many people he has killed so far (six) when the kids ask how much the pizza costs. *Perhaps the most subversively unflattering portrayal of masculinity is the character of the neighbor, David Contant. He assures Trish's parents that he will "look in on her" while they are out of town and then later lets himself into Trish's house. Notice that David Contant enters the scene from upstairs (in Trish's bedroom?). What was he doing up there? Maybe the bag of Maui Wowie weed was not the only thing he was sniffing in Trish's house. He is constantly finding reason to hang around the girls and act like a cool adult. He prowls around outside Trish's house at night allegedly killing snails to protect his garden? Likely story...was he actually peeping in on the naked high school girls just like the high school boys were doing?
How weird is it that my Grandpa and Grandma introduced me to this movie, when I was about 12 or 13 years old? My grandparents went through a phase where they loved renting horror movies in the mid 1980s. I can remember watching this one at their house as a young teenager. At the time, I was blown away by the "awesome" nudity and what I considered to be graphic violence. I loved the Killer, Russ Thorn, as he was one of the more unique horror villains (a drill killer) I had encountered thus far. While I only saw The Slumber Party Massacre that one time, for years, I frequently referenced it as one of the best of the slasher films I had seen, perhaps because it was one of the few unedited for television movies I had watched.
Imagine my surprise when I re-watched The Slumber Party Massacre this week and discovered that it was actually pretty tame compared to the movies I have since seen over the past thirty some years. Right off the bat, I picked up on some of the more subversive humor contained in this movie that I would not have appreciated as a young teenager. This movie is not your average slasher film.
The Slumber Party Massacre is one of the few slasher films both written and directed by females. The screen writer, Rita Mae Brown, is a noted lesbian-feminist author who wrote mystery novels under the pretense that they were co-authored by her cat. Rita Mae Brown's script was originally titled Don't Open the Door and was designed with the sole intention of poking fun at the slasher movie genre. The director, Amy Holden Jones was actually an editor who worked on numerous Roger Corman films. For some reason, Amy Holden Jones took an interest in Rita Mae Brown's script and wanted to try her hand at directing it. Amy Holden Jones had a difficult time attracting any investors to finance the film until she convinced her husband, veteran cameraman, Michael Chapman (who shot both Godfather and Jaws) to film a nine minute promo reel for next to nothing. This promo reel was later used in The Slumber Party Massacre and convinced Roger Corman to finance the $200k required to get the project off the ground. While Amy Holden Jones insists that her film should be considered a dark comedy, she never told that to the cast and they played it straight down the line.
Considering the all female writer and director combo, its no surprise that feminist themes are promoted in The Slumber Party Massacre. Typically male roles are instead played by females: the gym coach, the carpenter and the telephone repairman. Writer, Rita Mae Brown wrote this movie as a metaphor about female objectification by men. The ladies in this movie are constantly spied upon, peeped at, stalked and assaulted by men. Far from being the sexist exploitation film that it appears to be at first viewing, The Slumber Party Massacre is intentionally critical of sexism. The men in this film get far more graphic deaths than their female counterparts. The female protagonists are very confident in their own sexuality and work together to kill the male slasher. The iconic weapon the killer uses is clearly a phallic symbol and at the end of the movie the drill is cut off (in half) by the female lead character. Rita Mae Brown intended the character of Russ Thorn (the drill Killer) to be a commentary on the way that male killers compensate for their pent-up sexual frustration. This is never more literal than the moment when he stands astride one cowering female victim with whirring drill bit at full stretch between his legs as he prepares for penetration. Russ Thorn is more outraged by the amputation of his phallus/drill bit than his hand. The men in this film are all portrayed in an unflattering manner, wimpy, ineffective and creepy. The woman are portrayed as athletic, beautiful, fun and sympathetic.
Here are a few quick one hit observations: *The character of Courtney (Valerie's kid sister) is looking at a Playgirl magazine with Sylvester Stallone on the front cover. * There are quite a bit of dark comedy bits that shine through in this film: the dead girl in the fridge keeps slowly falling out without the sisters noticing; the killer counts the bodies in the trunk of the car, finds that he's one short, and goes off in pursuit of a second try at the severely wounded high school boy; the killer makes reference to how many people he has killed so far (six) when the kids ask how much the pizza costs. *Perhaps the most subversively unflattering portrayal of masculinity is the character of the neighbor, David Contant. He assures Trish's parents that he will "look in on her" while they are out of town and then later lets himself into Trish's house. Notice that David Contant enters the scene from upstairs (in Trish's bedroom?). What was he doing up there? Maybe the bag of Maui Wowie weed was not the only thing he was sniffing in Trish's house. He is constantly finding reason to hang around the girls and act like a cool adult. He prowls around outside Trish's house at night allegedly killing snails to protect his garden? Likely story...was he actually peeping in on the naked high school girls just like the high school boys were doing?