Saturday, February 18, 2012

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

Like Christmas in February, The Slumber Party Massacre randomly appeared on my queue today.  This randomly reminded me of the Christopher Pike book Slumber Party, which of course, I now must obtain.  My research into purchasing a Christopher Pike book is turning into me buying a mass quantity of Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine books from EBay.  I'm sure my husband is going to be thrilled. 

Back to SPM.  We've got the typical 80s high school slasher setup.  Lots of T&A, shower scenes, short-shorts in gym class, and several girls who avoid wearing bras.  Trish's (Michelle Michaels) parents are going out of town for the weekend and she is planning a slumber party.  OMG. remember those?  My favorite slumber party memory consists of my sister, my friend Ashley and I squeezed together on my parents' pull-out couch watching Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and 4 and snarfing more sugar and caffeine than ever should have been put in our presence.  I'm quite sure it included Fun Dip.  This memory is closely followed by another time (again at my friend Ashley's) where we stayed up all night watching The Stand and recreating the scene from our favorite NOES sequel, where Kristen washes down coffee grounds with Diet Coke.  Truth be told, it tasted disgusting, made me bounce off the walls all night/morning, and is a fun story to tell at bars. 

Anyway, the girls start arriving for the slumber party and we just know this is gearing up to be a good time.  Meanwhile, the apparent new girl/outcast, Valerie (Robin Stille) stays home with her little sister.  The hilarity of this?  Her little sister finds a Sylvester Stallone Playgirl while Valerie investigates a noise outside.  Seriously, who knew such a thing even existed?  Google confirms it:


I feel like I'm forgetting an important plot part, since I'm apparently distracted by memories and occurrences in this movie that are not integral to the plot at all.  Oh yes, there is an escaped killer on the loose, wielding a gigantic drill.  The girls better watch out.  So the slumber party is in full swing and the girls are changing into their flimsy little nighties.  I've been to many sleepovers in my lifetime and they mostly involve sweatpants. 

To add to the equation, there are some guys playing tricks on the girls, such as screwing with the fuse box and leaving bloody Barbie dolls around.  While the girls invite the guys in and make strawberry daiquiris all around, the serial killer is slashing people one-by-one.  We've got awesome deaths like a girl kissing a beheaded guy and a pizza delivery guy with his eyes gouged out (also, $6 for a pizza?!?!  Awesome!)  We even get treated to a dead girl in the fridge!

While the driller killer runs around ending lives, everyone else seems confused and/or stupid.  Someone even stops to eat some pizza.  I know when I need to collect my thoughts during a mass murder, I take a break for a slice.  The slasher continues as most do, with the high schoolers being picked off, while the killer continues to traipse around with a drill with a cord on it.  LOL.  We do see lots of girl power near the ending of this movie, and I like that action.

Funnily enough, this movie was written by a feminist and was meant to be a parody.  However, the producers didn't see it as such, so it ends up both intentionally and unintentionally funny at points.  And in true 80s fashion, the entire score for the movie was done on a Casio synthesizer.  Well played, sirs, well played.         

2 comments:

megzytay said...

OMG i have a massssssssive R.L Stine, christopher pike, point horror fiction collection !!!! i love those books they were like my gateways to my horror obsession !!

i mean ya just have to look at some of the titles to see the connection to the movies lol now i really wanna read slumber party again and i have it in my collection somewhere

i still really need to watch the slumber party massacure i have so many damn movies sitting in my downloaded file that are begging me to watch them haha

megzytay said...

i just had to come back and add that i watched this movie last night...

and OMG !!! this is now my most fave slasher film ever it was so awesome i fell in love with it and now i must download 2 and 3 for their cheesiness haha

also after ur mention of the book i had to go and read that too so i finished that off yesterday arvo it was a fabulous weekend lol !!