Slumber Party Massacre 2 (1987)

August 26, 2018

Directed by: Deborah Brock

Written by: Deborah Brock

Starring: Crystal Bernard, Jennifer Rhodes, Kimberly McArthur

Budget: $500,000

Quote: "I am you, and you are me, until we go all the way."

Trivia: Many characters in the movie have names in homage to other horror movies. Not only Officers Krueger and Voorhies, but Courtney's last name is Bates. The neighbors from the original have been renamed the Cravens instead of the Deverauxs in homage to&nbspWes Craven. One of the main characters is named Sally Burns because Marilyn Burns played Sally Hardesty in the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).


I am now in my mid-thirties and grew up in the 1990s. What that means is that I spent much of my adolescence walking the horror aisle of the local Blockbuster. Without the internet and no access to Fangoria magazine I had to rely on the covers and pictures on the back of the VHS cases when deciding on which movies to rent. I am pretty sure I watched all three of the Slumber Party Massacres. I didn't remember the first or the third, but I have a very vivid memory of watching the second one. This is because it is such a bizarre movie. Having to outdo the original which was already literally a parody of itself, the second one has one of the weirdest villains in horror movie history. Several minutes of the film are dedicated to impromptu music videos. Slumber Party Massacre II is a movie that takes nothing seriously, especially itself. The movie takes campiness to extremes and the genre is better for it.

Slumber Party Massacre II follows Courtney, the younger sister of Valerie (the next door neighbor) from the original Slumber Party Massacre who is now in high school herself and going off to her own slumber party. She also plays guitar is a new wave band with her valley girl friends. The slumber party is at a friend's parents condo in some newly built community. The plot thereafter is pretty much the same as the original. A couple boys sneak peeks at the girls during a topless scene, another boy comes, and then they start being killed by a drill killer. The killer is eventually killed in the end. Although the basic plot is similar, the movie is very, very different than the original and different from any Slasher movie I can remember seeing.

Let's begin with the driller killer in this movie. He is basically a Andrew Dice Clay/Elvis Presley hybrid with an electric guitar with a drill on the end of it. Throughout the beginning of the film, he keeps appearing in Courtney's dreams. As she dreams of boys he appears singing, playing guitar solos or spouting out 1950s cliches. Later in the film, the movie breaks into a music video complete with camera effects, choreographed dancing, and a really catching song with a chorus "Let's Buzzzzzzz." As the driller killer kills, he also throws out some great catch phrases between dancing from on spot to the next: "Oh, come on baby! Light my fire!" "I can't get no... satisfaction." "C'mon baby, let's rock n roll!" The killer is so absurd, it is really hard not to love him. I know he is supposed to be the villain and I think we're supposed to side with the valley girls, but the killer is just so damn cool.

And then there is the valley girls. They are in some crappy new wave band playing 1980s shopping mall songs (think: The Bengals or The Go-Gos). Each of them talk with more or less exaggerated valley girl accents. There is way too much, "totally, fer sure"s in the film. And the guys act to varying degrees like third rate Jeff Spicoli's from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The film also is interrupted by a music video from the valley girl band. All this makes it extremely difficult not to root for their deaths. I don't know if it was intentional by the filmmakers, but the driller killer is the hero of this film.

In addition to the camp and cheese, the film also has some great death scenes. The first one involves a pimple growing and pulsing out of a girls face until eventually her face explodes. In another scene the driller killer drill kills Courtney's new boyfriend and then drills off his arm and tosses it on Courtney's birthday cake. Another girl is drilled right throw a wall as she tries to call 911. Then of course there is the run-of-the-mill average drill kills.

The Driller Killer from this film is probably one of the all time greatest killers in cinema history. A truly original and eighties film.