While the first Slumber Party Massacre held a light satirical bent, with the phallic power drill wielded by the male serial killer, it also gave horror fans what they wanted: nudity and violence. With the sequel, Slumber Party Massacre II (1987), it feels like a parody with how everything is heightened, right down to the killer, who he is conceptualised as a leather-clad rock and roller who uses a giant red guitar with power drill in the guitar’s neck as his weapon. Produced by Roger Corman, but this time directed and written by Deborah Brock, there’s also a clear influence of the Nightmare On Elm Street movies with dream logic answering for a lot of the movie’s surreal moments and the hazy, pastel-coloured “dream date” aesthetic. Everything feels super-eighties, even within (and also because of) its low budget.
A survivor of the massacre from the first movie, Courtney (Crystal Bernard, future star of the TV sitcom Wings) dreams about her high school crush, nice guy Matt (Patrick Lowe), and wanting to play in The Bangles type band she has with her friends (Heidi Kozak, Juliette Cummins, and Kimberly Arthur). Courtney convinces her fretting mother to let her go away for a birthday to a weekend getaway “slumber party,” which is in a tract suburban house out in the desert, adding to the bright and sunny, but also desolate vibes. Even with the sparseness of the under-decorated house, there’s time for champagne and corndogs, and dancing semi-naked in a pillow fight.
Slumber Party Massacre II repeats horror fake-outs continuously where its heroine imagines something terrifying that turns out to be a hallucination. This should get annoying, but it doesn’t with the use of gloopy practical effects and making the viewer feel off guard, waiting for the real killer to arrive. Intercutting flash forwards and POV shots of characters talking to each other but at the camera, all adds to the heightened reality that the movie’s working in. When then the dream demon emerges, performer Atanas Illitch makes an impression as an unholy amalgam of Travolta from Grease, Andrew Dice Clay and the Stray Cats. Truly a vibe and a very entertaining horror movie, particularly having the serial killer perform a rockabilly song in the middle of stalking teenagers with a giant phallic guitar drill within a pink-lit haze. Director Brock would later direct a sequel to Rock N Roll High School, which is playing on the TV during the girl’s slumber party.
Streamed on Tubi. Halloween recommendation.
VHS Tracking 