The Final Slumber Party

To close the Scarecrow Slasher Summer 2013, I chose a double feature of the Slumber Party Massacre movies as the final two to make it to the line-up this year. It has been fun, but the change in approach allowed me to prolong the series of slasher films over a longer period and not burn myself out. 2012 had me watching a large amount of slasher films in a short period of time and while it was a lot of fun to revisit all of them, I think the 2013 approach made for a bit of a more relaxing, less "get it all in before summer end" race, which got a bit exhausting. One could easily say, though, that the line-up last year was far superior to this years. I couldn't argue with that, to be honest. But 2013 wasn't a total loss, either. Gosh, summer went by in a flash, didn't it? I plan to form a page for all the films that made the line-up this year after I finish the Slumber Party blog post.

Slumber Party Massacre: ****
Slumber Party Massacre II: ***

I hadn’t really thought much about the opening scene, but it did kind of stand out. It was one of the teenage girls deciding to “abandon her childhood” by throwing out her dolls. In the trash after her parents hurriedly leave some instructions and telling her that the next door neighbor would be keeping an eye out regarding their safety, it is established that she was no longer a child (“Mom, I’m 18,” she says in disapproval of having the man next door keeping a look out) and would have the place to herself. Can somebody exclaim, “Party!!!”

I noticed there were scenes designed specifically for building suspense involving Trish “hearing something” (later confirmed to be her seemingly “always around” adult neighbor) while practicing on her parents’ piano, and the basketball coach, preparing a meal, dropping her wine glass onto the kitchen floor, unnerved by what appears to be a sound of something (later confirmed—groan—to be her cat). Because we know there’s a killer in the area, these scenes aren’t just perfunctory and wasted screen time. It is a tried and true device in the hip pocket of filmmakers in the slasher genre to build scenes with nothing actually happening at the tail end of them thanks to the knowledge (planted in the back of our minds and confirmed when he kills (or in this film’s case, “drills”)) that a killer on the loose could pop up anywhere there are young women.

Something that has been a topic of discussion in the past when slasher fans talk about Slumber Party Massacre is how “female dominated” in the overall screen time and storyline devotion it is. I think that is a positive in the film’s favor; girls talk boys, sure (even reading Playgirl magazine), and share sex jokes themselves, but the boys remain relatively in the background. Ultimately, the boys factor very little except to ogle the girls from outside a window while they undress. When Russ Thorn eventually emerges to slay, the boys aren’t the heroes; instead, it is the girls who give Russ a dose of his own medicine. It was rare to see girls really punish the killer like what happens in this slasher film. He really gets it good, and deservedly so. But the film is very much a product of its creators, even though exploitative elements (tits, girls in the shower, girls scantily clad, a killer ferociously attacking girls) familiar in the slasher genre are here and accounted for. Of course, there’s the blatant symbolism of the drill as both a weapon of destruction and a phallic representation of the need for penetration.

 

Curiously, there’s a scene that almost seems pointless, but perhaps it isn’t, regarding a woman phone company technician tending to a problem at the school, with two teenage males talking girls, one of them asking her if she dated younger guys. It isn’t much of a conversation, and she seems intent on getting to her van, probably because, (a) talking with horny 18-year old males have one thing on the brain and that is getting laid, and (b) she had other duties to perform. I liked that it was a girl cast in the typically-blue collar male employment of “handiman” but it doesn’t really go anywhere because not five minutes in (not long after stepping down from her ladder and heading back to van while conversing with one of the boys, trying kindly to sidestep his advances) she’ll be dragged into her van and drilled. So that one “handiwoman” in a male-dominated profession is massacred. Tis a shame.

There’s an interesting “shared gaze” between the characters of Trish (the opening teen girl) and “the new girl”, Valerie (Robin Stille) during the “infamous” (that is if you consider it so) shower scene in the girls’ locker room after a basketball practice. Perhaps it wasn’t intentional, but it seemed sexual in nature. Maybe it was just an interest in friendship, but I dunno, it intrigued me.

The slasher chase scene for Slumber Party Massacre has our very own (yep, her fans claim her as our own) Brinke Stevens as the object Russ Thorn's homicidal maniac so wants to destroy. The school halls and rooms never seem to give the girls much hope for survival. It was back in May that I reviewed Prom Night (1980), and that film also was proof positive  that a school offers little help in hiding and escaping a killer always right where he needs to be to complete his kill task.

How about a little Kool-Aid to kick the party off right?

Diane is a peach. The stereotype bitch. Trish labels her a snob because she isn’t fond of Valerie…if for no other reason than Valerie is good at basketball and a perceived threat. Diane also loves talking about men and their qualities that arouse her. She will attempt to shake off her slumber party for some shag time with her jock beau.

Let's see...Vogue?                                       

Or...

...Playgirl?

It has been mentioned in times past that the boys are pretty much useless in the film; a really blatant statement regardless how useless they could be and a direct poke at them as “knights in shining armor coming to the rescue of the damsels in distress.” Assigned the task (voluntarily sort of) of getting help for the girls as Russ Thorn hangs about outside, they are put down in quick order, leaving the females to defend themselves against him.

I had a good giggle at the teenage sister of Val, the way she seems interested in men, but comments to her gal pal across the phone about how gross tongue-kissing was. Plenty of time is devoted to girl and their feelings about the opposite sex. This is certainly a female-centric slasher film, and I think that gives it an advantage over plenty of slashers heavily devoted to the boys.

Ready to chop some wood...no, really.

I hate you!!!

Gotta love that duck lamp!!!

The film does have a sense of humor. The morbid gag regarding the dead pizza delivery boy and the pizza eating while the girls anticipate help arriving (that never occurs because their boys failed miserably to get said help) is such an example.

Something I did notice was that the guys seem to almost get away from the killer, but each time one of them bangs on a door, the ladies on the other end seem unsure of what that sound is on the other side. Neither of these guys had a prayer, and perish because of situations beyond their control.

While the intent may have been to scathingly use this film as a means to depict slasher films (the genre) as something to be reviled and revolted at, Slumber Party Massacre turns out to be an overwhelming favorite for many of the very fans supposedly considered questionable for enjoying them. If anything, those involved in this film have a slasher villain (one scene has him counting his bodies, stored in the trunk of a car!) that is so vicious and coldblooded he rivals some of the most notorious of the period. However, the girls, unlike so many in the slasher genre, not only answer his savagery but actually one-up him in turns of mutilation and graphic violence to his person.

I actually think the film gets better once the conventional slasher elements are provided and the killer goes into some warped “maniac speak” about how his victims are “so pretty”, with him even saying, “I love you.” He seems to believe, within his deviant dementia, that the girls want it. I love the symbolism just a little later when Stille’s Val, coming at him haphazardly (but assuredly) with a machete, chopping the drill bit in half, as if castrating Russ. He looks at it, grabbing it, before Val waylays into him something fierce. It is as if he could no longer function once his dick was severed…or that was the impression I had. Of course this is a slasher so no matter if you sever his hand from the arm or slice open his stomach…he isn’t through until you leave him so good and dead he can no longer function at all. It fends them off the best he can, ready to give Val a taste of her own medicine, but she is ready for his ass. A machete stab all the way through is enough for Mr. Thorn to taste the bitter kiss of death. A final shot has all the remaining female survivors (unfortunately, Coach, who felt something was wrong and wanted to check in on her girls, tries to keep Trish from the harm of Thorn, taking the drill to her guts.) weeping, having made it through quite a terrifying ordeal. The sirens go off and the film fades to black.

While the sequel follows after it with Crystal Bernard (one for the “in cheesy horror films before they became stars”; of Wings sitcom fame) portraying the kid sister of Val now grown into a high school senior, she’s traumatized by dreams that haunt her from that terrible night when Thorn slaughtered a bunch of girls from her school.

There’s an early sequence where Courtney tries to insure her mom she’s mentally okay, sees a dead bird (becoming oddly transfixed with it), hops into her buddy’s car, puts on the make-up, and starts rocking out to “Tokyo Convertible.” Ah, yes, good times. I can just imagine the actresses who were in the garage band, practicing hard, must cringe if they even dare take a gander back to this movie. It would me. The cheese factor registers high, but I just got a good kick out of this movie. I was expecting to really find it a chore, but the experience (the first time, especially) was anything but.

“I know what Courtney’s getting for her birthday…a boyfriend”

Oh, yes, high school crushing has Courtney with romance blooming with a hunky guy who drives a convertible. He’s a jock, too. Oh, yeah, he’s the guy with the pearly whites and that smile that makes the ladies swoon. Courtney invites him up to their “band rehearsal at the condo”. He accepts, and the two share a smooch. Love is in the air and all that shit. 

The situation at home is rather intense. Val “is away at the mental hospital”, and Courtney’s mom (the dad seems to be out of the picture) speaks very little, and the conversation steers towards the mental health of both her daughters. Courtney is able to successfully convince her mom to let her go to the “band practice”, being her birthday and all, and this at least (well, until she faces the guitar-drill killer) allows her to break from the weighted tension at present.

I couldn’t keep from smiling when the girls head out for the condo….in the station wagon. Oh, man, that station wagon; kids today are blessed with SUVs, but back in the day we had the station wagon. And once the girls get to the condo, they snack out to corndogs and Oreos (gotta love it!). Yes, girls used to eat “everyday food”. I can just imagine seeing Katie Cassidy or Brittney Snow munching on Doritos, couldn’t you? After satiating their hunger, the girls dance away to some music from the telly (Rock’n’Roll High School is on the screen!), which just delighted me to no end. Again, the cheese factor is high, so wonderfully high. Guess what also shows up in the movie….Pillow Fight!!!!

This film takes a different approach to the killer that the previous Slumber Party Massacre. Courtney’s dreams are starting to infiltrate her life and what is imagined blurs into reality. Images of her sister falling to a bizarre “metal rocker” with a guitar (the handle is a drill), as he always seems to “rock out” or dance gleefully, are aplenty. The dream killer has a leather jacket, jeans, steel-toed boots; his whole look is right out of the 50s. I wondered who thought up this. Maybe as her pal suggests, it is all “subconscious projection”. Every time, it seems, when Courtney closes her eyes, he emerges to further torment her.

Well, she certainly had my undivided attention.

“Sooooo….thanks for saving me from the crazed chicken."

Oh, out of the dream “attacks”, the “attack of the killer chicken” from the refrigerator on Courtney had me in stitches. Unbelievable. There’s also the “hand hamburger”, too. Once the dreams all started up, the relation between the first and second films in the Slumber Party Massacre series was splintered. No doubt, the turkey and all those appearances of the killer from Courtney’s nightmares severed all serious ties with the first film. The first film wasn’t, to me anyway, total corn. But this sequel is all corn. I can’t see how anyone could watch this and take it seriously in the least. It is just too much. Oh, and the girl on the drums (Sally) with the anxiety regarding her acne at work writing lyrics for a new song…”What I want most is a pie in the sky.” Haha. Then, of course, there is the bloody bathtub, with Courtney just simply always in hysterics, with her friends actually really sympathetic and patient with her. The film by the point of the bloody bathtub raises the question of Courtney’s sanity. All these occurrences to Courtney seem to be in her head, delusions so inherently real, she is unable to balance real/unreal. The guitar-drill maniac has worked his way from mere delusion into the real. He’s having fun, too. This is all Nightmare on Elm Street/Fred Krueger stuff, really. Those involved in this movie have taken that and applied all of it to this film.

Poor Courtney keeps telling her friends that all of this weird shit is real, but you can’t fault them for their concern in her mental welfare. No evidence shows itself so they can authenticate her claims. Sally’s “zit-face bursting incident” (and subsequent disappearance) has got to be the showstopping highlight for this film. Holy shit, was that a gross-out!

“Does this look like a dream to you?” says killer while holding boyfriend’s severed arm.

“Now it’s time for the good part.”

“I can’t get no satisfaction.” This says the killer when he narrowly misses his guitar drill towards a would-be victim.

Atanas Ilitch is unfamiliar to me, but he seems to be positively living it up in this film. They break the wall into pieces with his embracing us in first person and using the prop guitar drill weapon as a play purty. The film has no suspense and the filmmakers seem to not care less. So why should we, right? There's even rock music blaring away as the drill killer pursues the final two girls remaining, and, again, he lives up every moment as if he were having the time of his life. I could only laugh really. It was just hard to feel for the characters' peril when the tone never could escape kicks and giggles. No intensity, just corn.

The violence features a steady dose of spinning drill bursting from the chests of victims. Sometimes, we understand that the drill has destroyed somebody through penetration when a drill pierces through a wall. I think, although they are quick, the bursts of violence deliver in grisly highlights. But, because of the killer's goofy nature, the kills lack any bite. If this had been a more serious killer who didn't play to the camera (this ruined the Elm Street franchise, and has always been a constant in the Chucky franchise), perhaps the drill kills would've impacted. I think the effects are good, but could this have been better in a movie with a more serious approach? Admittedly, the film had me in ribbons. I simply laughed at it all. It was stupid; obviously, this was designed to be intentionally stupid.

Often going through my mind was: Does Atanas Ilitch believe he's in a rock video or in a stadium live in front of thousands of fans? The director just let him do his thing.

This movie just goes off the deep end when the killer emerges. The film, to me, does enough (well, I guess) to establish that what we see could all just be in Courtney’s tortured psyche. She had been through a harrowing experience with Russ Thorn, but I have no idea where a rocker in leather, shades, cigarette, and slicked-back hair has to do with anything. Why does he exist in her horrors of the mind? What distinctively from the past does he represent? He just dances and sings, heckles, plays his guitar, and drills. He always appears one step ahead of the victims and seems to be a spectre of the nightmare. The ending finally (sort of) answers what’s going on and Courtney’s mental state seems to be in question. She is in the same spot her sister is, and there seems to be no way to escape the guitar-drill killer. This movie is just nuts. But using nightmares, it does allow filmmakers to go anywhere they want, and in this slasher sequel, the actor cast as the killer has free reign to mug for the camera, smile with an evil grin, parade around the place as girls scream, and just drills heartily.

And there you have it. Two films. Distinctly different despite a slight few similarities. Completely different killers. Completely different tones. Completely different ways for the killer to do what he does best. Both die rather savagely.

Simple fact: Don't fuck with Bernard when she's packing a torch.

In Slumber Party Massacre, it was a duck lamp, and in Slumber Party Massacre Part 2, it is a teddy bear lamp. What is it with these lamps?!?!

As a cautionary tale, if you ladies plan to have a slumber party be sure not to have a mentally unstable pal over and be sure to check the headlines to ensure there's no lunatics on the loose. Just sayin'.