The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)
cast: Michele Michaels (Trish Devereux), Robin Stille (Valerie Bates), Michael Villela (Russ Thorn), Debra DeLiso (Kim Clark), Andree Honore (Jackie), Gina Mari (Diane), Jennifer Meyers (Courtney Bates), Pamela Roylance (Coach Rachel Jana), David Millbern (Jeff), Joe Johnson (Neil), Jim Boyce (John), Ryan Kennedy (David Contant), Brinke Stevens (Linda), Aaron Lipstadt (Pizza Boy).
So the other night, around 3am, I couldn't sleep so I decided to watch a movie. With so many DVDs (and VHS) to choose from, you'd think I'd have an easy time picking a selection. But oh no, I go through my cabinet of movies over and over wondering which would be my best bet. Well, I can always count on the classic slashers of the '80s, so THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE it was. This is a movie that never bores me, and gleefully wallows in the cliches that made the teenkill pics so popular at the time. Luckily, it has a talented cast and crew (mostly women - written by Rita Mae Brown, produced and directed by Amy Holden Jones) and wastes no time in getting down to business: at 1 minute into the film, heroine Trish has the first nude scene, getting dressed before school, and at about 4 minutes in, Russ Thorn, the wild-eyed escaped killer, claims a telephone repairwoman as his first victim.
From there, Russ follows Trish and her friends home from school, where they're having a slumber party while Trish's parents are out of town. A beautiful home in Venice, California, is the setting for most of the mayhem. In true slasher tradition, however, the girls change into their nighties (more nudity), a couple of male classmates stop by to scare them, and Trish's neighbor Mr. Contant catches the girls with beer and "Maui Wowie" (grass). Nextdoor to Trish lives pretty Valerie, who is babysitting her pest of a little sister Courtney all night. Valerie was invited to the party, but declined when she overheard snobby Diane talking about her ("She works at it! Ever notice how perfect her eyeliner is? Just so!"). As night falls, Russ arrives with his blazing drill and starts offing the party guests at a rapid pace. By the time the 1 hour mark is reached, only 4 of the female characters are alive, which means the other cast members have been decapitated, stabbed and drilled within a half an hour. Even the pizza delivery guy gets his eyes gouged out ("What's the damage?" "Six...so far." Ha-ha), and the girls' basketball coach stops by only to get her stomach drilled open. Eventually, all of the screaming and drilling prompt Valerie and Courtney to investigate, where they find Kim's body in the fridge, a knife in her chest. This leads to a culmination outside by the swimming pool, where the machete-wielding Valerie severs Russ' bloody drill (how phallic!) as well as one of his hands. Still, he's a hard guy to keep down, and Courtney and Trish also jump into the fray to take out the sicko once and for all. You can't help but cheer these three traumatized girls on as they attack Russ at once.
OK, so there are plenty of things about the film that you could gripe about. Who is this Russ Thorn and why is he killing teens with a drill? That is never answered - all we know is that he is a mental hospital escapee who had murdered 5 people in the area over a decade ago. Most importantly, after the pizza man's body falls into the living room, you wonder why the girls, along with Jeff and Neil, just don't grab whatever weapons they can find and go running as a group into the street, screaming like banshees. The neighbors would have obviously heard such a ruckus and called the police. If that happened though, there'd be no movie. So they barricade themselves in the house, and Jeff and Neil make that famous horror flick decision to "split up" and try and get to Valerie and Mr. Contant's homes for help. Bad decision, as Jeff finds Diane's bloody body hanging in the garage, and he is drilled, while Neil is stabbed to death with a butcher knife on Valerie's lawn while she is content watching Hollywood Boulevard on tv (nice editing work in this sequence). While waiting for the boys to return with help, Jackie gets hungry and decides to snack on the pizza. ("Well, life goes on, after all!") Not so long in her case as Russ manages to slash open her throat with his drill.
The young actresses, all newcomers at the time, are a pretty bunch who manage to portray believable characters in a genre not noted for character development. The audience gets to know and like most of the girls before the bloodshed starts. Michele Michaels is good and also handles most of the film's topless scenes, but beautiful Robin Stille and the amusing Jennifer Meyers make a winning team as squabbling sisters Valerie and Courtney. Though she doesn't survive the night, Debra DeLiso is also likable as Kim - at least she goes down fighting, unlike many cowering, helpless femmes do in movies like this. Scream queen Brinke Stevens appears (naked) in an early role, but she is murdered in the high school locker room before she can even get to the party. She delivers a great shriek that rightfully earned her her scream queen title.
A sequel followed in 1987 - again helmed by a female director (Deborah Brock) - with Courtney and Valerie returning, unfortunately played by different actresses. In Part II, Valerie (Cynthia Eilbacher) is in a mental hospital while Courtney (Crystal Bernard) now sports a curious Southern accent and is a member of an all-girl teen musical group. When the girls take off to desert for the weekend, a new driller killer terrorizes the characters, but this time in the form of a rocker with a drill attached to his guitar! By no means anywhere near as good as the original, but it has it's entertaining moments and enough gore and screaming to satisfy fans. Another sequel followed in 1990, but it's in-name only, having nothing to do with any of the original's characters. It's also the least entertaining of the series.
So, check out this flick for a good time when you just can't seem to doze off.
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