Directed by Amy Holden Jones

Starring Michele Michaels, Robin Stille and Michael Villella

The cute high school girls on the basketball team decide to have a slumber party while some of the guys are interested in crashing the party for a little fun and it’s just a darn shame that one crazy psychopath escapes custody and goes on a killing spree in the neighbourhood with a power drill.

When looking back at older films that were released in the wake of the great slasher craze of the early 80s, you’ve got to remember that the “rules” we’re all aware of now were still being established in the slasher mould. The characters are exactly what you would expect them to be and do exactly what you think they’ll do.  We have the typical group of horror trope characters such as the tough guy, nerd, bitch, the cute and innocent virgin, etc. The killer just wants to kill; he may have a great reason to kill everyone or maybe he’s just nuts.  Psychos be killin’.  But that’s alright. If the movie delivers on what we expect, we can at least expect a good time and this movie doesn’t take a lot of time to get the ball rolling.

Drill vs. Machete

Within the first ten to fifteen minutes, we are treated to several members of the girls basketball team showering after a game and it’s not long after that that we also get to see the first of the many victims killed by a maniac with a three foot power drill. Yeah, who wants to use a butcher knife? They have been used countless times and so have chainsaws for that matter, but a three foot long drill is a little different and a hell of a way to go. The nut bar never breaks away from using the drill either, it’s his primary and only weapon of choice. The killer’s motives don’t need to be dissected at all; he’s nuts and wants to kill all the pretty girls with his big, hard drill.

I’ll cross the T’s and dot the…lower case J’s.

With much surprise, I learned that the original screenplay was written by noted feminism activist Rita Mae Brown. It was intended to be a parody of slasher movies that contained a bit of humour and euphemistic imagery (like you can’t tell me the drill isn’t supposed to be a dick.) But don’t take this to mean that the movie goes lightly on the subject matter!  The movie was filmed as a straight horror movie with all the expected nudity and gore you’d want, yet the filmmakers kept a lot of the humor from the script so it’s an interesting take with a funny feminist view of the slasher genre.

Just chillin’

Released way back in 1982, despite many “whodunnit” slashers already being released by then, I can actually forgive this movie for being so simple. There’s a good reason why too – it’s a good movie despite being dated.  It just wants to deliver a simplistic, yet fun, story and covers all the bases well with plenty of nudity and gore.  And really, that’s all I was looking for.

All I was…looking…for…

TL;DR

Story: 7 – Well, it’s not really any different from it’s slasher brethren, but it works just enough to never be boring.

Boobs: 8 – Many scenes with many boobs, you won’t be disappointed.

Blood: 7 – Some of the drill kills are nasty, whether you’re seeing them happen on screen (lots of bloody impalements) or seeing the bodies from an off-screen kill (like the poor pizza delivery guy.)

Rating: 7 – Honestly, it’s just like any other slasher but it gets the basics right and turns out to be a fun hour and a half.

Trivia

-There are a lot of “Massacre” movies that are loosely tied together!  There are three Slumber Party Massacres, a couple of Sorority Houses Massacres with a pseudo-sequel to them called Hard to Die, along with a Cheerleader Massacre.

-The entire score was done on a Casio synthesizer.

-Michael Villella, the film’s killer, deliberately avoided talking to the other cast members during the shooting of the picture.