SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE III (1990)

 

(a.k.a SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE 3. Director: Sally Mattinson. Screenwriter: Catherine Cyran.)

 

Storyline

A high school girl invites her girlfriends to spend the night at her house, only to have it crashed by a murderous nutjob with a drill motor.

 

Review

In Venice Beach, California, high school senior Jackie Cassidy (Keely Christian) throws a slumber party in her parents’ house. Unfortunately, there are a few male weirdos lurking around the girls, and one of them is a psycho with a drill motor.

Considered the worst entry in the SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE (SPM) trilogy, III is an in-name-only, by-the-numbers sequel that recycles a lot of its scenes from the two previous films. III was directed by Sally Mattinson, who said in a later interview she hated horror films─ she made it was because she wanted to direct her first film, and producer Roger Corman offered it to her. She probably hated III more when Corman told her she had to put an unnecessary rape scene in it, one that messes up the continuity of the film and makes the occasionally plucky characters come off as dumb(er), cruel, and cowardly, before they recover their courage.

As with the first two films, III is a brightly lit terror flick, with little suspense, groan-worthy humor, gratuitous nudity, and lots of run-knock-down-killer-run-again scenes, except this time there’s no satirical feminist bent to help III stand out from other slasher works. It does, however, move along quickly, have an impressive body count (twelve), a good, postmortem intestines-ripped-out scene (as well as a don’t-bathe-with-that scene). Not only that, SPM films are the only franchise to be written and directed solely by women (shame on the industry, a plus-point for SPM films).

The cast, who play stock slasher characters (blame the writing), sports some names which appeared in other notable horror flicks:

Maria Ford (NECRONOMICON: BOOK OF THE DEAD, 1993) as Maria;

Hope Marie Carlton (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER, 1988) as Janine;

Maria Claire (SOCIETY, 1989) as Susie;

Brittain Frye (HIDE AND GO SHRIEK, 1988) as preppie Ken Whitehouse;

Michael Harris (SLEEPSTALKER, 1995) as Dr. Morgan Herdman, Jackie’s pervy neighbor;

Yan Birch (THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS, 1991) as The Weirdo;

Marta Kober (FRIDAY THE 13^th PART 2, 1981) as “Pizza Girl”;

Wayne Grace (FRIDAY THE 13^th: THE FINAL CHAPTER, 1984) as Officer O’Reilly;

Alexander Folk (FRIGHT NIGHT PART 2, 1988) as Detective Davis.

 

Sharp-eyed low budget fans might notice two other things about III, like that fact that the poster girls for III are not in the film, and that III’s interior set─located in Corman’s Venice Beach studio─were later used in another Corman franchise sequel, SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE II (1990).

Would I recommend III? For most people, no. However, if you’re looking for a generic, video-slick 1990s production (although III enjoyed a successful, limited-release theatrical run) with some T&A and an unnecessary, strange (though not explicit) rape scene, this might be a flick to fall asleep to.