BOOBS, BUTTS, AND BABES
★★☆☆☆ (Don’t Bother)
Director: Amy Holden Jones
1982
Forget nerdy teens fighting off serial killers at prom or camp counselors dodging death in the woods. Likely inspired by non-horror contemporaries like Porky’s, Slumber Party Massacre helped kick off a very specific type of cheap 80s slasher movie, the kind with motiveless villains and teen girls running around naked for no good reason before getting picked off in uninspired death scenes. The nudity is the point, and it worked because Slumber Party Massacre made $3.6 million and spawned five(!) films in the franchise. Audiences were thrilled at this behind-the-scenes access to girls locker rooms and dorm bathrooms. While I don’t mind boobs in my horror movies, they must be funny or serve a purpose to plot or character. As far as Slumber Party Massacre goes, I’ve yet to see a commercially released, non-giallo horror flick so blatantly transparent and exploitative. Did I mention this was written by a woman? Directed by a woman? Produced by a woman?
Why aren't you guys making out?
The movie starts with our teenage heroine (Trish) waking up in a pink bedroom filled with flowers and frills and childhood items like dolls. First thing she does after getting out of bed is stand in front of the mirror and strip down to her panties so she can admire her body, and that’s exactly what I do every morning, so I know with certainty a woman wrote this. Some parts do confuse me, though. For example, after our female director pans the camera down a row of girls’ glistening butts as they all shower together in a locker room, they are given napkins instead of towels. This doesn’t seem realistic because we didn’t have open-air showers in my high school. Of course, if we did, my girlfriends and I would have wasted no time getting in there and gossiping about boys and Tiger Beat.
Wait.
I hear something.
A whisper coming from my own home.
“Roger Cooooorman financed the mooooovie…”
Sorry about that. I’m sure I locked the doors, so I know I’m here alone. Maybe it’s the wind. Sometimes a windy night can make you think you’re hearing things. Anyway, back to the plot of Slumber Party Massacre.
Trish’s parents are leaving for the night, so she invites her best gal pals to a sleepover while conveniently ignoring all alerts via newspaper and radio that announce the escape of Russ Thorn. Russ—a serial killer meant to emulate Michael or Jason—is so small, a Girl Scout could knock him over, and he’s as sinister as the angry dad you lived across the street from when you were a kid. I’ll do you a favor and let you know right now that he has no backstory and no reason for being there. He’s no one’s father and hasn’t been wronged by any of his victims. Russ just happens upon the jiggly tits party on his way to somewhere. Whatever the reasoning behind this creative decision, he’s our villain, and his weapon of choice is a massive power drill that he uses to spear the girls.
Hold on.
That’s strange. I hear that voice again, but it’s getting closer.
“The drill represents a peeeeniss...”
Sorry about that, guys. I don’t know where that whispering is coming from. I’m just sitting here typing naked like all women do when they’re alone in the house. In a minute, I’ll get up and go to the mirror to inspect my breasts, and make sure they’re still there.
You ladies should smile more.
The script calls for feminism when a woman is cast as the SCHOOL MAINTENANCE PERSON, and someone grab my smelling salts because I didn’t know chicks could nail things—besides men, of course. Right? Am I right? Never the less, any goodwill from this character is swiftly rebuked when two boys ogle her butt, perfectly cupped in skin-tight pants, before she’s killed in a van in a scene so poorly shot I could have filmed it using my old camcorder. After another dose of feminism in the way of lady basketball players, we’re treated to that shower scene, when Jones focuses the camera on the girls’ tight bodies as they talk about nothing and share a bar of soap.
There’s that damn whispering again, only it’s coming from my closet. I can see the door is cracked, but I know for sure that every piece of clothing I own (including underwear) is in there, and nothing else. I mean, I did leave the room earlier to let my dog back in and… Wait a minute. I haven’t heard that dog barking in some time.
“Some woman in Hollywood just want to make a buuuuuuck.”
Now that’s ridiculous. Now I know I’m imagining things. You’re telling me the director sold out her gender’s dignity for some money? Pishaw. Hold on a second. I think I grew a bra size since I started writing this. Yep, I’m definitely a cup larger which means none of my bras are going to fit, which means I’ll have to go braless from now on. Just like the girls in Slumber Party Massacre!
Fight for your right to get naked.
There’s a subplot about two chicks reading Playgirl across the street from the doomed home, but the movie’s focus is on how many ways Russ can drive that drill into a teenage girl. I have Slumber Party Massacre to thank for one thing: It gave my friends and I the phrase, “eating the pizza”. When one of the teens is about to die, she reaches over a dead pizza boy and starts to gnaw on a slice, shrugging and telling the others that she’s hungry. “Eating the pizza” (the result of terrible script writing) is when a character in a horror film doesn’t talk or act like a human being would in a given situatio-
Oh lord.
There it is again. I just heard a noise in the closet behind me, and I’m sure it wasn’t my imagination. This time I’m getting up to look inside.
I’m creeping toward the closet door. I swear someone’s in there…
Oh my God!
Sorry. I’m just trying to catch my breath with my hand placed across my bare breast.
LOL. You guys. It’s just my friend Lisa playing a prank on me. She’s here to teach me how to tongue kiss, so that’s all for this review of Slumber Party Massacre. Don’t bother with the movie, though. If you want boobs and butts without the sleaze, go to Pornhub.
GENRES: Diverse Characters, Funny, Serial Killer, Teens in Peril
NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this website's (nicolinatorres.com) blog posts or publications to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
댓글