Some thoughts, brief: Slumber Party Massacre...

I have yet to put a collection of thoughts for this movie in any sort of satisfying review, so, in the mean time here are a few things I have to say about the movie. Losing that review from the other night...it is so excruciating. Anyway, I've been trying to recycle bits and pieces I had meshed into a whole, but nothing I write seems to work to me. Anyway, here's some shit about the movie that rambled around in the gray matter and spit out of the mind...

Regardless of the intention of the female writer-director team, and their possible feminist ideals, I look at what is presented on screen. I felt the ladies were saying with their movie, "Fuck you, guys, we can make a film just a gratuitous, in-your-face, and bloody, if not better." For me, they did. The notorious prolongued shower is one of the more documented scenes with slasher fans, the camera ogling lustfully the naked bodies of the high school girls basketball team, bathing in the showers, a killer not too far away. A newspaper had already established that a psycho was on the loose, Russ Thorn, having killed 4 people. Thorn, mad eyes, no redeemable qualities whatsoever, concerned only with the bloodshed he will spill, comes in contact with his signature kill-weapon, the cordless drill, while disposing of a hot female electrician, having trapped her in her van. About five minutes or so later, poor Brinke Stevens (stunning, fresh-faced, and petite, not to mention, oh yes, nude) has to return to the locker to get something, is locked in, Thorn not far behind. A good chase ensues.

I feel Slumber Party Massacre has something for every slasher fan, even if you don't like it as a whole. The filmmakers have numerous girls take off their tops to show some tits, titillation almost immediately (the lead girl, Trish, played by.. removes her shirt practically in the first few seconds she appears!), foretelling us exactly what kind of movie this would be right out of the chute. The fact that two ladies are murdered within 16 minutes also indicates to us that this is a film that is determined to prove its point in regards to what the slasher genre represents, mocking and parodying male filmmakers and those who make up the audience for these trashy, violent, over-the-top movies. I have to say, though, that the point is taken, but muted because many will watch the film, after the way it is marketed, and miss the message supposedly conveyed, not in on the joke because it favors so heavily the very films it seeks to rib. It's hardly subtle, the way the drill seems to symbolize Thorn's dick, his weapon the means to stick it to the ladies he seems unable to treat any other way than savagely. That's not to say that Rita Mae Brown's script doesn't "stick it to the man" when Robin Stille's reluctant (she winces)defense using a machete (she may be hesistant to use violence, but she sure wields a mean machete when there's no choice left available to her).

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