Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

Directed by: Amy Jones
Starring: Michael Villella, Michele Michaels, Robin Stile

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Kim (Looking At Pizza Delivery Guy): He’s dead all right… so cold…
Jackie: Is the pizza? Life goes on after all. Eating makes me feel best when I feel bad, and boy do I feel bad. [Takes a bite of pizza] I feel better already. Really, I do.

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In Slumber Party Massacre, the massacring is done by Russ Thorn, a serial killer who has recently escaped from jail. Hope you don’t need to know anything else about him, because that is literally all the character development this movie gives you. The female lead is Trish, a high-school girl who is just on the verge of womanhood. How do we know this? Because in the opening scene Trish (a) throws away the dolls in her bedroom and (b) gets topless. Subtle.

This movie knows exactly who its target audience is. We get our first murder at the six minute mark (death by power-drill, our psycho’s weapon of choice) and our first shower scene at eight minutes. Interesting, considering the movie was written and directed by women. In fact, the writer, Rita Mae Brown, is a prominent feminist activist. I suppose the movie can be seen as an allegory for domestic abuse, especially when you consider the fact that the killer uses an extremely phallic weapon (check out the DVD cover)… then again, there is a lot of gratuitous nudity, so who knows.

The plot revolves around a slumber party at Trish’s house, the escaped killer, and a new girl named Valerie who lives next door. But we don’t watch these movies for the plot, do we? This movie has everything you expect from an 80’s slasher movie:

1) Psycho with a distinctive weapon? Check.
2) Allegedly good-looking teenagers ripe for the killing? Check.
3) Horny nerds that can't die soon enough? Check.
4) Fake-Out scares by said horny nerds. Check.
5) Episodic design that moves you from one kill to the next? Check.

While most of this movie is by the book, there are a couple of scenes worth mentioning:

1) Trish comes home from school and finds her creepy 30 year old male neighbor waiting inside. He claims he was "checking the house to make sure it was safe." His attempts to flirt (despite the fact that she’s in high school) are interrupted when Trish’s friends show up with beer and weed. He promises not to tell her parents about the drugs if she promises not to tell her parents that he “tried to surprise her.” They laugh and he leaves. Remember when pedophilia was funny? (The same neighbor is later seen stalking around the neighborhood killing snails with a butcher’s knife. He clearly has some issues).
2) Three of the girls eavesdrop on one of the other girl’s phone call with her boyfriend. When the eavsedropee realizes she’s being listened to, she exclaims “I think our First Amendment rights have been violated.” That’s today’s legal lesson, brought to you by Busty Teen #4, Attorney at Law.
3) The infamous pizza delivery scene. This scene is in the trailer, and is the one that most people remember seeing, even if they don’t remember where they’ve seen it. The girls order pizza… it arrives and they open the door… the pizza guy falls into their living room with his eyes gouged out… they call for help, then nonchalantly eat the pizza off the back of the dead delivery man. This leads to the classic quote at the top of this review.

Bottom Line: If you’re in the mood for a mindless 80’s slasher movie, this is as good a pick as any. You’ll get a murder every 9 minutes or so and a couple truly memorable scenes. That’s about all I ask for in these types of movies. The DVD contains trailers for The Slumber Party Massacre 1, The Slumber Party Massacre 2 (starring Crystal Bernard and a rock-n-roll killer with a guitar/power-drill hybrid) and The Sorority House Massacre 2 (complete with stolen scenes from SPM).

- Micah