Photo: impaawardsSLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE (1982)
Section of the the cinematic cemetery: Darkly funny, feminist gore-and-girls flick
Cause of (premature) death: This innuendo-filled early 80s delight (the rock n' roll-themed sequel is even better!) was given a way-limited release. The actual box office info is still not known, but it's not hard to figure out why it wasn't given much publicity. The writer, feminist author Rita Mae Brown, played up the slasher standards (mainly excessive nudity and blood), in hopes of parodying the genre. Critics didn't get that and just assumed it was another exploitation flick. (I'm sure the awesomely upfront name didn't help).
What its tombstone would read: Creepy dude stalked, and then offed, a group a teenage girls attempting to have a good old fashioned pizza, PJs, nail polish and penis-less gabfest with his big, fat power drill.
Why it should be revived: Slumber Party Massacre is the kind of movie I wish I could have played at my Grade 7 sleepovers. (My girlfriends were all wimps, making me turn off I Know What You Did Last Summer before the credits even started and refusing to even think about watching Scream.) It's a horror fangirl's wet dream: fast-paced, funny, full of unnecessary gore and actually girl-powered. Sure, there are a lot more boobs than I would have liked, but I think it was done to serve a well-deserved point. (You go , Rita Mae!) I wouldn't call it scary by any means (except for maybe the first, back-of-van kill), but it's certainly provoking enough to make you lose some sleep, at least from wanting to stay up all night talking to your girlfriends about it. I'll never forget the part where one girl eats a piece of pizza from a box right next to a dead body. I mean, I would get hungry running away from a horny driller killer too.
