Intended and written as a parody of slasher movies by Rita Mae Brown, The Slumber Party Massacre director Amy Holden Jones made the brilliant decision to film the movie as seriously as possible. The result is a campy, and at times hilarious, take on the genre filtered through the eyes of underrepresented demographic: women. Specifically, well-written women.
- Directed by: Amy Holden Jones
- Written by: Rita Mae Brown. Amy Holden Jones
- Starring: Michele Michaels. Robin Still Michael Villella
This is not to say that The Slumber Party Massacre is light on some of the standards of the time. There’s enough nudity and death to keep hard-core enthusiasts happy. The movie was financed by Roger Corman, and along with that came certain requirements, like boobs. The context of the scenes containing the nudity however is different. The girls discuss sports, tell jokes, and generally behave like real humans.
One of the Genre’s Best
There’s also plenty of suspense and kills. The mostly silent killer, Russ Thorn, played by Michael Villella, who sadly passed in November 2024, is one of the all-time great slasher villains. His preferred weapon, a massive power drill, is both menacing and wildly impractical, It’s also super phallic. That’s not unusual or terribly subversive. Most killer’s weapons could be reduced to a dick joke. What is subversive about The Slumber Party Massacre is how the girls and boys are presented in general.
One of the first scenes is awkward teen boys hitting on a repair woman. Yes, the main shot is of her rear, but she’s in control of this situation, and he’s the blushing, bumbling damsel. The women play sports while the boys cheer them on; they smoke pot, read porn, and joke about sex. They also fight back violently and creatively.
The boys, on the other hand, are much more squeamish about weapons. They’re also not great about being in any kind of danger.
Gender Roles
One of the most interesting things about The Slumber Party Massacre is the subtle portrayal of the men. The main plot revolves around the girl’s basketball team having a sleep-over at main character Tina’s house, while Russ stalks and attempts to murder them. He’s not the only man who’s attempting to harass them. The neighbor Mr. Contant, and even boys from school, seem intent on crashing the party. The teen boys even go as far as to spy on the girls while changing, and removing the fuses in the house to scare them. While the neighbor and the students might not have the same murderous intentions as Thorn, they’re still intent on imposing their desires over the girl’s.
In addition to the subtle themes on gender roles, there’s some nice stuff about friendship. Even the mean girl Diane worries about her friend’s feelings before her boyfriend’s. They stick together when things get bad, and don’t judge each other. Especially not for eating pizza while hiding from a killer.
Character Based Decisions
They also make mostly smart decisions. I say “mostly”, because this one I’m a little split on. There are times the group does the smart thing, like when they don’t open the door when they don’t know who is on the other side. This is a rough moment since it leads to them hearing one of the boys dying. Then Jackie almost immediately makes that very mistake and rushes to open the front door when she thinks it’s help, only to get killed and let Russ in the house in the process.
One of the team members, Trish, also has an annoying kid sister, Courtney, who is too precocious to be killed, and has a habit of rushing off and playing reckless pranks. Of course, Courtney doesn’t know she’s in a horror movie, but she’s still bratty. Honestly, she’s probably pretty accurate for a young teen. It’s possible I’m just uncomfortable watching her, since it reminds me of how terribly awkward I used to be.
No Reason for Killing, and That’s a Good Thing.
Uneven decision-making aside, the group is a likeable bunch of girls, and it’s tough to watch them die. The murders are not given much screen time, and many of them occur off-camera. The results are shown, but there are no long, drawn-out scenes of suffering victims being brutally or slowly done in. The kill count is high for the short run time, but the gore is minimal. Suspense and tension are more emphasized, as are the moments before the kill. This might seem like splitting hairs; the difference between showing the lead up to the kill, and the details of the kill itself. After all, people are dying either way, and in a rather brutal fashion, but it makes a difference in watchability.
There are horror movies where the suffering is the point; The Slumber Party massacre is not one of them. Like a lot of slasher killers, Russ Thorne is a blank slate, a stand-in for all the harm that can befall women just for existing. He doesn’t need a motivation other than he wants to kill, and there’s no moralizing at play here. The girls aren’t being punished for having sex, or doing drugs, or any of the other genre standards; they’re targets just because they are there. It’s a bit of realism that elevates Thorn as a killer. It’s an important life lesson as well: you won’t always know why people are causing you pain. You also don’t need to figure them out, or fix them. Keep yourself safe first. That goes for men as well as women.
Final Girls
The Slumber Party Massacre ends with two final girls, and yeah, Courtney also survives, taking down Thorn. They start by breaking his drill, not so subtly but effectively castrating him. They then continue to turn the standard killer’s weapons on him by attacking him with a machete. One of my favorite parts of the ending is how quickly Thorn runs away from the machete-wielding Valerie. He’s all very scary when it comes to targets he perceives as weaker, but when they start fighting back, he’s not sure about all that. The movie ends with the surviving girls hearing sirens and sobbing. It’s not overtly triumphant; there’s no heroic music or tough girl posing. Just realistic characters dealing with trauma, and that’s far more empowering.
The Slumber Party Massacre was enough of a success to get two follow up movies. While I’ve never seen part 3, I love Part 2 for its absolutely bat-shit crazy approach to its killer. Courtney, now in high school, is being menaced by the reincarnated spirit of Thorn. This version is just known as “The Driller Killer”, and he’s now a ‘50s-inspired greaser with a drill bit guitar. There is a legit musical number in this movie, as in the killer sings and dances. The characters are as well-rounded and human as in the previous movie, but the tone is wildly less serious. If you are only going to watch one of them, watch the first. But, you really should consider making it a double-feature.
Final Thoughts
Amy Holden Jones and Rita Mae Brown made a feminist movie before it was the trendy thing to do. If I had to take issue with any part of this, and strangely it’s not the boobs, it’s that the simple act of creating realistic female characters automatically makes a movie “feminist”. Existing in a natural state should not be a revolutionary act, but here we are. Since The Slumber Party Massacre, there have been a lot of movies to tackle feminist issues and themes, some more successfully than others.
Women have long been the P.O.V character for horror, but not always for positive reasons. Male audiences can watch them being victimized and be able to fear for them, but not at the risk of their own masculinity. This was much more of an issue in the golden age of slashers. Audiences today are way more accepting of final girls, final boys, and everything in between. Early films like The Slumber Party Massacre helped get us there, one kill at a time.
The Slumber Party Massacre is available on Shudder
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