Slumber Party Massacre III

My review was written in December 1990 after watching the movie on Concorde video cassette.

Third entry in this slasher film series eschews the role reversal aspects of Amy Jones' superior 1982 original to focus repetitively on a driller killer. Pic has played theatrically since September.

Debuting helmer Sally Mattison proves once again one doesn't have to be male to execute a sexist horror movie. Byu the final reel, when five full-bodied females are scurrying helplessly as the man wielding the phallic drill skewers them, even diehard genre fans will be groaning in dismay.

Poorly scripted by producer Catherine Cyrus, pic has almost no subtext to divert one's attention. After a beach volleyball intro, six young women (several played by older actresses) go to Keely Christian's house for a slumber party while her parents are away. Amon the boy and men who arrive to pester them, killer Ken (Brittain Frye) is a handsome nutcase with a drill, apparently deranged due to child abuse at the hands of his cop uncle.

Except for t&a interludes in which Maria Ford and voluptuous Lulu Wilson (or perhaps her body double)strip for the other girls and camera, pic consists of the women running around the house being killed. Gore is plentiful but unimaginative.

Worse yet, drill-as-phallus image dating back to the original's infamous 1982 poster is overemphasized: Ken is impotent but has his handy drill.

Christian does her best with the inevitable worm-turns central role but the rest of the cast is wasted. Technical support is meager.

The Slumber Party Massacre series will never be known as one of the most life changing horror franchises of all time. They're mindless fun at best and Slumber Party Massacre III attempts to do something slightly different by keeping the gratuitous boob shots and gore, but taking away a lot of the fun.

The basic set up is typical slasher stuff with a group of girls hanging out on a beach and getting ready for a big sleepover at one of their parents' houses that night. They're semi-stalked by a creepy guy and, on the way back to the house, one of the friends is murdered. Obviously, once the party kicks off, a few boys show up to crash the party and check out the girls dancing in their underwear (and less) and the killer decides to crash it, too.

Unlike the first two films in the series, there's an element of whodunit mystery here. Could the killer be the aforementioned creepy beach guy with the ponytail? Perhaps the nosy neighbor across the street who spies on the girls with a telescope and seems really interested in checking out the house to see if he wants to buy it? Or maybe it's one of the goofy guys who have showed up to crash the party? This element does help it stick out from the other two films and keeps things pretty fun at first.

It's only once the killer is revealed that things take a slightly darker turn and it begins to feel more home invasion than slasher. If you're into that sort of thing, maybe you'll enjoy it, but I found it left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth.

This is a great example of why you should always try to hire fans. Watching behind the scenes interviews, it's clear that the director didn't really want to be apart of this, leading to a bland and uninspiring film.

I love the first SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE partially for nostalgia value but mostly because it's a genuinely fun movie, so I figured I'd give a go at this one, ignoring warnings such as the 4 Star Joe Bob review on the front of the video box. I watched it with several friends, and I'll tell you what, we never had such a good time making fun of a brain-dead exploitation movie before. This one really does reach new depths of stupidity, and for that reason alone I adore it!

The plot is basically summed up in the title - Jackie (Keely Christian, whoever she is) throws one last sleepover party for her giggly high-school friends (who look no younger than 25), some dumb guys sneak over and try to scare them and a psycho killer shows up with his portable electric drill and starts laying into these idiots. Apparently the ladies in the house don't know how to open a door or window to escape, which becomes almost a running gag after awhile. They also hilariously fail to subdue the killer despite being given half a dozen chances to do some serious damage. The list of possible suspects is pretty ridiculous, especially the peeping tom next-door-neighbor, who spies on the girls dancing topless with his telescope, and "The Weirdo," a mute voyeuristic albino who earlier in the day was caught staring at the girls during their beach volleyball game.

There's one moment of sheer hilarity when the psycho surprises a guy at the door with his large, high-powered drill, sending a half-dozen lingerie-clad babes shuffling back and forth in front of the camera in a panic. Another highlight is Maria Ford's gratuitous bare-ass shot as she tries to escape up through the basement window but keeps falling. And we've all seen the standard electrocuted-in-bathtub death scene countless times before, scene, though instead of the usual hair dryer or radio being tossed in the tub, this time it's caused by a vibrator that one character plugs in and leaves sitting on the sink while she's taking a bath. A guy who gets his feet cut off with a chainsaw manages to crawl all the way back across town to the house in a matter of minutes. The acting (aside from the guy who plays the killer, who's awful) really isn't too bad for this type of film, some of the songs on the soundtrack are pretty good and if you like your movies trashy, bloody and silly, you'll find a lot to enjoy here. For sheer entertainment it gets a 7 out of 10 but playing by the rules of movie reviewing (i.e. quality), it's about a 3. I'll go ahead and give it a 4.

I first saw this in the early 90s on a vhs.

Revisited it recently.

This is the third and final installment in the series. It is better than part 2.

This one has dumb fellas who wanna close a glass window of the basement so that a killer doesn't enter. Why cudnt they jus close the door of the basement which connects the house.

It has a lil bit gore n nudity but absolutely no tension or suspense.

There is lousy scene where one girl keeps the killer busy, two other girls rather than taking advantage, stays in one corner just to scream later. They cud have run away or attack the killer.

So the conclusion is that part 1 is way much better than part 2 n 3.