The Slumber Party Massacre (Amy Jones, 1982)

Survival is not a competition, it is cooperation.

I enjoy The Slumber Party Massacre. It’s a fun, goofy, guilty pleasure of a slasher movie.

Browsing reviews of the film on Letterboxd, there were often complaints that the film is a largely unimaginative slasher and, as one person I follow put it; “I have never felt less fooled by a title.”

Sure, on the surface, The Slumber Party Massacre is about as basic a horror film as you could hope for: It’s a bunch of suburban girls being terrorized by a killer while alone in a house for a sleepover. There’s some decent gore effects, plenty of jump scares, and gratuitous nudity from the off.

In that sense, this is perhaps a great reason why this is such a rewatchable horror film. It’s cozy in the way the predictable tropes of the genre are diligently abided by. It doesn’t push the envelope, it doesn’t challenge the audience, it’s just an undemanding, entertaining, and enjoyable ride.

Any yet…

It feels like the film is something more. Despite the plentiful tits and ass and braless basketball playing, The Slumber Party Massacre has a lot of girl power going on.

It was written by a woman. It was directed by a woman. Virtually all the cast are women. (The only males on screen are a psychopathic driller killer, a creepy neighbor, a crotchety dad, and a bunch of horn-dog high school dumbasses.)

So what gives?

According to St. Wikipedia, the script was originally written as a parody of the slasher formula, which feels like it might explain (and justify) the abundant and blatantly unnecessary nakedness, the himbo classmates, and the unsubtly suggestive murder weapon.

One might think it explain would explain the oh-so-obvious title too, but apparently that was a later addition, after the film was turned into a straight horror film against writer Rita Mae Brown’s wishes.

Regardless, there are still many elements of the parody that would have been that still shine through… The film has a wickedly cheeky tongue-in-cheek vibe throughout: examples that spring immediately to mind include an early gag where characters in the foreground chat away, oblivious to a desperate murder victim hammering on a window just behind them, and the later, iconic scene where the terrorized teens eat pizza out of the box over the delivery guy’s corpse.

If the horror antics in the slumber party house are often repetitive set pieces of jump scares and generic slasher mayhem (sounds of smashed glass, power outages, creepy neighbor dude appearing and reappearing, constant going in and out of the garden and garage) then the subplot in the neighbor’s house is what really gives the film some color and dimension (both in terms of plot and character).

New girl Valerie was invited to join the sleepover but declined as she didn’t feel entirely welcome following some jealous rivalry during the aforementioned basketball game. Instead, she sits at home with her younger sister Courtney, who is the film’s lightning rod for budding sexuality and feminism; she ogles a Playgirl centerfold and recounts a disgusting French kiss she endured from her boyfriend.

The dynamic between the two sisters feels charming and believable, and it gives the film as a whole a sense of freshness and expanse beyond the one house. Yet Valerie and Courtney are as much a part of the story as the core slumber party crew of Trish, Kim, Jackie, and Diane; they keep an eye on Trish’s house across the street, occasionally heard screams, and eventually get drawn into scoping it out after their mutual gym teacher reports an unnerving call for help from Trish.

The ending, of course, is as it should be — the fatal threat is neutralized — but there is not just one final girl at this scary slumber party, there are several. Multiple girls work together to destroy the man trying to do them harm. Survival is not a competition, it is cooperation.