Slumber Party Massacre: A Remake That May, Out-Slumber Party The Rest

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE (2021)

Dir: Danishka Esterhazy

“Are you Russ Thorn? My buddies and I actually came here for you. We didn’t think you’d actually be alive.”

Danishka Esterhazy has woven a near-perfect remake of Rita Mae Brown and Amy Holden Jones’s feminist slasher satire Slumber Party Massacre (1982). While the original film played through the tropes of a slasher film and peppered humor along the way, the remake turns those same tropes on their head. In Jones’ 1982 film, they utilized subtext to tell their feminist tale. A driller killer chases after women he’s sexually attracted to, kills them off one by one until the women left fight back and castrate the killer’s drill and defeat him. Jones’ used the cliches of the slasher film such as exploitative female nudity, the male gaze as a killer’s point of view, high school girls talking about boys, a pillow fight with nudity witnessed by voyeuristic males, and an exaggerated phallic weapon. The remake attempts to incorporate all of these elements, very knowingly, while shifting perspective at every turn.

For posterity’s sake, October of 2021 has provided audiences with a Child’s Play series, Day of the Dead series, Halloween Kills, the first look at a new Scream film, a new entry in the V/H/S anthology series, I Know What You Did Last Summer series, and a remake of Dune. Nostalgia is a booming business this fall. I’m excited for all of it. There was a time when the idea of a remake was met with vitriol from all corners of the internet, and I agreed. But, from the financial standpoint of the artists behind these films, there are near guarantees in gains. During the pandemic while all film studios were shut down and artists everywhere were economically impacted, the best way to get back on your feet is with an intellectual property that will immediately garner an audience. Now, as opposed to the initial 2000’s torrent of remakes, the only thing we ask is that you allow your scrappy up-and-coming filmmaker to really make a go at it. Find that spark that we loved so much, reignite it, and surprise us. The internet is a divisive place, but even if audiences are polarized on your attempt at first, time will show you as a clear winner.

A remake of Slumber Party Massacre isn’t for everyone, but it should be. The opening 11 minutes prior to the title card, show that Esterhazy knows slasher tropes. Our prologue takes place in 1993 in Holly Springs. The first shot is that of Trish running to a vehicle, from the music we assume we’ve caught the action mid chase, but no. Trish is trying to grab another six pack of vodka coolers, when someone comes up behind her. Another fake out, it’s not a deranged killer with a massive drill, it’s her cheating boyfriend Chad. After she tells Chad to go back to his own cabin, Trish returns to the graduation party already in progress. Trish, if the name sounds familiar, that’s because it is the same name as our final girl in the original film.

There’s pizza like the 1982 film, but this time it’s not eaten off of a dead delivery driver. And then there’s a dancing in pajamas scene. The dancing isn’t amped up for satirical sexiness, no, it’s just friends having a good time. Someone’s watching them though. It’s f*cking Chad. While watching the friends innocently dance, he unzips his pants and starts masturbating. He sees through the cabin to a parallel window where someone else is watching. This makes Chad stop touching himself and call the mysterious voyeur a damn pervert. He investigates and is deep-throated by a drill. In quick succession the group of high school kids are killed off, leaving Trish to face the killer alone. In an homage to Friday The 13th (1980), Trish hides in the cabin’s pantry. She backs against the wall and knocks over a can of clam chowder soup. Our driller killer finds her, drills through her hand, and as inches toward the kill, Trish blocks the drill with the can of soup. The penis-like drill penetrates the clam chowder and it squirts all over our psychopaths face. Trish knocks the man and the drill into the lake. She survives and we earn our title card.

If that section of description doesn’t grab you, then turn back now. This isn’t your type of horror film, and that’s okay. But if you’ve fully boarded the train, the rest of the ride is fantastic. A new group of teens in present day head out for a weekend getaway and end up in the same area of the 1993 killings. Is it a cliched coincidence or something more? Either way, we know there’s going to be more drill kills. The little sister Courtney from the original film gets a huge upgrade in the remake. This time the little sister Alix, played by newcomer Mila Rayne, steals the film. While the group of friends seem to embody hope and joy, Alix uses the angst of adolescence to juxtapose the others. Alix makes decisions the audience would, and in a few sequences, she is the reason exposition in the film exists.

“Are they out slumber partying us?”

It’s not a build-a-bear slasher. While the cliches are there on the surface, Esterhazy works hard to subvert 1980’s horror tropes. The prologue of the remake features the friends dancing in pajamas. Those of us, who’ve seen the original, think we can check that reference off of our list. Okay, there’s that scene, moving on. We are very wrong. The scantily clad scene of people dancing in a living room takes place later in the remake, and it is priceless. There are pillow fights in homage to Slumber 2 and moments of gratuitous mansplaining. Dudes being total dudes. We also get to see a naked butt, though since the film premiered on SYFY a plume of shower mist covers most of it. An iconic guitar also makes a cameo appearance.

“Why is Guy Two Dead?” ”All dead is too dead.”

This remake was fun from beginning to end. It makes fun of the male gaze, and it celebrates feminism by flipping sections of the film to a female gaze. There are literally two guys named Guy. And to differentiate between them, one is Guy and the other is Guy 2. This still makes me laugh. There are many times in horror cinema where female characters were written so badly, they could have just been named female victim #3. This is a not-so-sly wink at that. The two guys also allow for a moment of Abbott and Costello word play that is well executed. I don’t see where any hatred for the mere existence of this remake would come from. Let’s face facts, Russ Thorn was never a beloved villain of slasher cinema. This iteration of Slumber Party Massacre isn’t going to harm the legacy of the original trilogy. Because that’s just not a thing. Each Slumber Party film is dissimilar from the last in style, story, and killer. I can’t see many genre fans getting bent out of shape, but we’ll just have to see what the internet says.