Director: Deborah Brock
Screenplay: Deborah Brock
Starring: Crystal Bernard, Atanas Ilitch, Heidi Kozack, Juliette Cummins
Release Date: 1987
SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II has got to be the most bizarre sequel to a decent horror movie that I have ever seen. The original comes off looking like a bastion of subtlety when compared to the over-the-top zaniness and lame comedy that abounds in this cheap attempt to rip off the formula of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series.
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| More like the No-No's! Ha!....I'm sorry, that was awful. |
Five years have passed, and Courtney (Bernard), who was in junior high at the time, is the only one of the three survivors of the original massacre who hasn’t been confined to a mental hospital. She has mostly moved on with her life, shifting her focus to a new guy at her school as well as the Go Go’s-esque all-girl band her friends have started up. She and the members of her band decide to go spend the weekend at a mostly-deserted condo for a debauched weekend with their boyfriends and to practice some of their killer tunes. But Courtney is haunted by visions of a maniacal rockabilly dream demon (Ilitch) with a drill attached to his wicked, Tim Burton-esque guitar. Soon the man of Courtney’s dreams will become a real nightmare for everyone involved in this, the goofiest goddamn movie that I have ever seen.
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| What the movies would have us believe all women do behind closed doors. |
So what looks like happened here is that the filmmakers were trying to exploit the popularity of another, far more popular slasher icon, Freddy Krueger. Hell, the two cops who show up later in the movie are named Officers Krueger and Voorhees. The killer is constantly laughing and cracking wise. Every single line uttered by him is a lyric from a famous rock song. When he is unsuccessful in one of his attempts to penetrate Courtney with his massive drill, he actually says “I can’t get no satisfaction!”, and at another point, just before he is set ablaze, taunts the girl with “Come on baby, light my fire!” Yes, the jokes are that lame. No explanation is ever given for the origin of the leather-clad 50’s - inspired antagonist, though I guess we’re supposed to assume he is the vengeful spirit of Russ Thorn, the killer from the original SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE.
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| The best thing about this movie is, ironically, the thing that makes the least amount of sense. |
And I honestly have no idea if he really is a dream demon. Nothing in this movie makes any sense. The first two thirds consist of Courtney’s extremely realistic visions of her asylum-bound sister being killed, while the killer shreds his guitar and laughs maniacally. There’s even a few ELM STREET-inspired over-the-top dream sequences involving an uncooked chicken that attacks Courtney’s face, a severed hand that appears in a hamburger, a bathtub that suddenly overflows with blood, and a hideous exploding zit that takes over one character’s face. We’re led to believe the killer exists in a dream world, but then an hour into the movie all of the sudden he just shows up and starts killing the kids left and right with absolutely no explanation as to how or why he even exists.
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| No, honey, of course no one will notice! |
The idea of the rockabilly-styled killer is really neat, and pays off in a scene where he takes time out from stalking one of the girls to perform a song and dance number to a song titled “Let’s Buzz”, possibly the most brilliantly retarded thing ever filmed. It’s forehead-slappingly stupid and all-around embarrassing to watch, but then again it’s also something I’ve never seen in a slasher movie before. It was certainly better staged and choreographed than the random musical number in BASKET CASE 3, so it’s got that going for it. Atanas Ilitch’s portrayal of the villain is the flick’s biggest saving grace, a sublimely charismatic performance that gives the audience permission to just kick back and have a good time with the idiocy that’s occurring onscreen.
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| Yes... |
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| ...this ACTUALLY... |
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| ...FUCKING... |
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| ...HAPPENS!!! And God bless them for it! |
My biggest beef with this flick is the pacing. We have to wait a full hour through excruciating scenes of the girls awkwardly attempting to look like they know how to play their instruments while playing terrible girl power ballads before the killer gets to use his drill. Seriously, there are two extended montages of the girls dancing around like jackasses, and only one of those includes any kind of nudity, so that’s one montage too many. The characters are all shrill and annoying, everybody looks like they’re in their thirties, and none of the jokes work as well as they did in the first movie. I suppose the presence of the all-girl band is writer-director Deborah Brock’s attempt to establish the same sort of camaraderie amongst the female cast members that was present in the original, but none of it gels quite as well as that picture. SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE worked on two levels, as a serious slasher and as a wry satire of the misogynistic clichés inherent within the genre. Part II only works on the level of a satire, and not a very good one at that.
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| "Rock 'n Roll never dies!!!" |
I don’t want to sound like I hate this movie. By all accounts I really had fun with this one, just not the same kind of fun I had with the original. Cool guitar-drill gimmick aside, this is a stupefying lame, bad movie, but not a second goes by that is not entertaining. Sometimes it’s okay to check out for an hour and a half and kill a few brain cells. I guess what I’m saying is throw this one on with a group of friends while getting completely hammered and you might have a good time with it. I certainly did.
My Rating:
6/10
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| SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II is acquitted on account of this guy having waaaay too much fun. |
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