Nearly three years after releasing the original Slumber Party Massacre as a special edition Blu-ray, Scream Factory has finally put a double feature disc of its two sequels: 1987’s Slumber Party Massacre II and 1990’s Slumber Party Massacre III. It’s something of a good news/bad news situation.
The good news is that Slumber Party Massacre II is really crazy and really fun. The bad news is that part 3 is not. Picking up the subversive campiness of where Amy Holden Jones’ original left off, Slumber Party Massacre II writer/director Deborah Brock dials up the weirdness and adds an abstract, hallucinatory bent to the first sequel. It’s bigger and stranger, more colorful and experimental; I’m reminded of the leap from Prom Night to Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II, except that the original Slumber Party Massacre is a better movie than Prom Night.
Crystal Bernard (TV’s Wings) plays Courtney, a woman tangentially related to the events of the first movie, now grown up and traumatized by the murders and the effect they had on her now-institutionalized sister. When she and her band mates (did I mention she’s in an all-girl band?) spend the weekend in a house, Courtney’s nightmares become a reality when a new incarnation of the Driller Killer appears, this time armed with a guitar and a decent singing voice.
Oh, right: Slumber Party Massacre II is a musical in which both the female heroes and the psychotic slasher get to perform entire songs. It adds energy to the movie and strips away layers of reality to tell us that this is not a horror film that takes place in the world we know, but rather a heightened teenage fantasy in which nightmares and reality intersect so regularly that as viewers we’re never allowed to fully get our bearings. That hallucinatory quality is what gives the movie so much of its charm.
The killer, once just a psycho with a drill and an inferiority complex, is here reimagined as the ghost of a 1950s rock star—part Fonzie, part Andrew Dice Clay, part Elvis, and part Jason Voorhees. Why, I cannot say, though I could theorize that Brock is commenting on the masculine posturing of late-’80s cock rock and the ubiquitous MTV culture, as both our dreams and our waking hours are filtered here through the prism of a music video. Whatever the case, Slumber Party Massacre II is a total blast, a film of such energy and imagination so as to put most other late-’80s slashers to shame. It’s a very different movie from the first one, but it’s every bit as much fun.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that director Sally Mattison got the memo that the Slumber Party Massacre movies are meant to function as sly send-ups of traditional slasher movies, which means that Slumber Party Massacre III winds up being a version of the first two movies, only played totally straight. It places the requisite group of teenagers inside a house for the requisite slumber party, then introduces a drill-wielding maniac into the proceedings.
The problem is that the psychosexual elements and gender-specific satire of Amy Holden Jones’ choices have been drained away; the use of the drill is no longer phallic, but instead is used because someone decided it was the series’ trademark. In the words of Freud, sometimes a power drill is just a power drill. So what was once a comical commentary about the male murderers common to the slasher genre here becomes just another slasher movie, albeit one that is fairly slick and well put together by this series’ standards.
That’s the thing about Slumber Party Massacre III. It’s competent. It’s not necessarily any worse than a number of slashers of the preceding decade. But it’s missing any of the sparks of the entries that came before it. This was a series that started out saying something, and when it wasn’t doing that it was at least being wild and weird and entertaining. Take away those elements and you have a totally perfunctory slasher with generic characters and unenthusiastic gore effects; even in its “unrated” version, the amount of bloodshed on display in part 3 directly correlates to the MPAA’s stamping out of graphic violence we saw from about 1988 onward. The movie ends up being a good example of knowing the words but not the music; the events that take place are very similar to those of the original Slumber Party Massacre, but what is different is its tone and intent. In a series such as this, those things matter.
Scream Factory’s two-disc double feature set of Slumber Party Massacre II and III offers two versions of each movie: the original R-rated theatrical cuts and longer “unrated” cuts. The unrated cut of II is presented entirely in standard def, while III has additional standard def shots and scenes reinserted into the HD version. The theatrical cut of Slumber Party Massacre II runs 76 minutes and is 85 minutes in its unrated form, while the unrated cut of III adds an extra 12 minutes to its 75-minute theatrical runtime. The 1080p transfers on both movies are bright and colorful, without visible digital enhancements or signs of aging. Yes, it’s obvious when the unrated material pops up in III because there’s a significant dip in quality, but it’s all still watchable. Fans should be very pleased with the video quality of both movies.
Slumber Party Massacre II comes with a commentary from writer/director Deborah Bock, producer Don Daniel, and story editor Beverly Gray, as well as a still gallery and trailers for both the theatrical and video releases. The three-part retrospective documentary Sleepless Nights: Revisiting the Slumber Party Massacre has been carried over and for some reason retains the first section, which covers the original film. That’s the section that was already included on Scream Factory’s Blu-ray of the first Slumber Party Massacre, so it would make more sense to only include the stuff from the second and third films here. No matter, as more is better than less, I suppose. Director Sally Mattison sits down with stars Brandi Burkett and Hope Marie Carlton, as well as story editor Beverly Gray, for a commentary on Slumber Party Massacre III, discussing the production and reminiscing about the shoot. Also included is a photo gallery and the movie’s trailer.
I’m super happy that after a delay of a few years, Scream Factory has now released the entire Slumber Party Massacre trilogy in high def. The completist in me is happy to have all the movies in one format (I might have OCD), while the movie fan in me is happy to at least have Slumber Party Massacre II in the best version possible. If it means I also own part 3… well, consider that value added.
Slumber Party Massacre II Score: 3.5/5
Slumber Party Massacre III Score: 2/5
Disc Score: 3/5
Patrick lives in Chicago, where he has been writing about film since 2004. A member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Online Film Critics Society, Patrick's writing also appears on About.com, DVDVerdict.com and fthismovie.net, the site he runs and hosts a weekly podcast.
He has been an obsessive fan of horror and genre films his entire life, watching, re-watching and studying everything from the Universal Monsters of the '30s and '40s to the modern explosion of indie horror. Some of his favorites include Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1931), Dawn of the Dead (1978), John Carpenter's The Thing and The Funhouse. He is a lover of Tobe Hooper and his favorite Halloween film is part 4. He knows how you feel about that. He has a great wife and two cool kids, who he hopes to raise as horror nerds.
Daily Dead's Official Podcast! Daily Dead's Official Podcast!
