The Slumber Party Massacre (1982, Amy Holden Jones)

I haven't seen "The Slumber Party Massacre" in years, so I figured I'd set aside an evening, pour some cheap booze down my face and revisit it for old time's sake. I didn't remember it being very 'stand out' as far as the 80's slasher craze goes, but upon my recent viewing, I rediscovered it as a relatively fun watch.

A killer has escaped from prison and is on the run around a Venice suburb and seems set on doing away with high school girls, in particular. Luckily, there's a group of 'em having a slumber party (with no parents and some Maui Wowie!), so he goes to work with a big-ass drill - thus, The Slumber Party Massacre...

The funny thing is - this flick was written by a feminist and directed by another woman. Kinda rare, as far as the 80s slasher genre is concerned, seeing as how a lot of women (primarily bra-burning bitch feminists) protested this type of shit back in the day. Thing is, I guess "The Slumber Party Massacre" was intended as some kind of parody slasher, but along the way some wires got crossed and the thing was made as a pretty straight-forward slasher joint with a few bits of 'light' humor tossed in to the mix. Clearly, this wasn't meant to be taken all-that seriously, but I'm willing to believe that there was an initial feminist angle that fell through the cracks, cuz this thing has a fair amount of T n' A and girls cowering in the face of imminent death at the hands of a wild-eyed male psychopath, which I can't see a militant feminist supporting. Nothing out of the ordinary and no female activism, as far as I saw.

As far as the film, itself, goes - it's pretty standard stuff. I guess it's kind of unusual (or you could chalk it up to laziness) that the killer doesn't wear a mask or have any kind of deformity. He's just a nut in denim running around with a drill. He speaks, responds to pain and has no back story or motive aside from breaking outta the joint. It's fine, though. He's not very creepy or mysterious. Just a crazy, murderous wack-job. There's actually a few decent kills, like a drill through the neck and a pretty vicious stabbing. Nothing that sets it apart too much, however...

Somehow, "The Slumber Party Massacre" is so GENERIC that it can't help being entertaining. I don't know why (might've been the booze), but I enjoyed it much more this time around than I did years ago. It delivers what you want in a slasher while never being boring or skimping on any of the 'necessities'.