The first Slumber Party Massacre was a parody of the slasher genre that knew exactly what it was making fun of. The second Slumber Party Massacre was a rock and roll party that had a good time with being what it was.
It’s a shame it didn’t hold up. The third Slumber Party Massacre just feels generic after the previous entries. It has the weakest villain, the dumbest characters, and the weakest and most obvious red herrings. I feel like things have gone downhill here from the satire, parody, and at times outright wackiness of the previous films into…well…blandness and stereotype. We’ve reached that point where the series has forgotten what it’s about and just devolved into people trying to make a buck.
In this entry, Jackie Cassidy’s family is out looking at houses in a different part of the country, so Jackie decides to have her friends come over and have a party! No boys allowed, of course, but seeing as nobody can ever keep anything in their pants in these movies, the guys wind up over at the house anyway. Also there is a creepy neighbor watching the action through a telescope and a weirdo wandering around outside trying to return a pocketbook in the worst possible way. That’s when the killings start, all because our killer was apparently sexually abused as a young boy by his cop uncle. The evil Uncle Billy has now killed himself, triggering our killer’s psycho switch, and the cops won’t listen to the girls’ pleas for help.
Here’s the problem: this movie does nothing to stand out from the rest of its genre. The characters make some dumb moves, and the acting isn’t always great, but it is at least competent. In fact, competent describes how I feel about the film. It’s middle-of-the-road, not worth the hate I’d fire off at something like Devil Story but not worth the praise I would give The Prowler. Instead it feels instead like this entry is just stale. We’re not down to the level of Jason Takes Manhattan territory. Instead we’re treading water at mediocrity. Then again, if you really just want to see Playboy Playmates get killed, well, here you go.
For a fun bit of trivia though, do you know how many of these movies were directed by women? All three! Hey, the Academy Awards may not recognize their contributions, but I sure do!
Hopefully the Sorority House Massacre series does things better. That’s right, those films are a spin off series that makes up the second leg of this set, and eventually they turn into an awkward erotic action movie and an unreleased final film that’s been sitting in limbo for over 15 years. Joy!
Movie Reviews by a Mook 