The Slumber Party Massacre (1982): B

The Slumber Party Massacre is something of a 1980s slasher film anomaly: written by lesbian erotica novelist Rita Mae Brown and directed by Amy Holden Jones, this gory story about a drill-wielding serial killer terrorizing scantily-clad high school girls during a nighttime get-together is, in fact, a gruesome, T&A-filled feminist tract about female fears of mature male sexuality. Opening with the sight of Trish (Michelle Michaels) throwing away her childhood dolls and stuffed animals, Brown’s film turns traditional horror conventions on their head, positing a world in which men are spineless wimps and women are sexy, sexually liberated alpha creatures who love to play sports and do the nasty. That these post-puberty women – constantly showering or wearing provocatively skimpy lingerie around one another – are hunted by a maniac with an enormous phallic drill (seen during one murder spinning between his legs) only heightens Brown and Jones’ subtextual portrait of female anxiety about men and their frightening organs. And though the acting is piss-poor, killer Russ Thorn (Michael Villella) is a decidedly ordinary-looking pervert, and the tension is about as thick as a piece of loose-leaf paper, the final showdown between Russ, Trish, and Trish’s next-door neighbor Valerie (Robin Stille) culminates in a fantastic bit of metaphorical rape/castration imagery in which Russ tells his would-be victims “I love you…You know you want it” right before they slice his protruding weapon.

Comments

[Jacob]

I have this on the orignal vhs tape that was released in 1982 and I think it's one of the greatest movies that came out in that period of time