Slumber Party Massacre II (1987)
Directed by Deborah Brock
In the world of slasher movies you have some classics and some horrendous pieces of dog shit. The Slumber Party Massacre lies somewhere in the middle, and has gained a cult fan base. Being one of the few slashers written and directed by a woman, it brought a new look at the genre. With the decent success of the first one, a sequel was inevitable. Is the sequel as memorable?
Slumber Party Massacre II revolves around a young girl named Courtney played by Crystal Bernard of Wings fame, whom keeps suffering from nightmares of a guy with in a leather jacket with a drill guitar killing people. Courtney’s friends and bandmates all go to stay the weekend in one of the girls’ summer home. While there they start experiencing strange things and Courtney’s dreams get more and more real. Soon the man from the dream becomes real and starts running amok in the home.
The acting is fairly decent, for the genre. Crystal Bernard does a great job of playing Courtney the good girl. She’s sweet and innocent but cute at the same time. Her friends are Amy played by Kimberly McArthur, Sheila played by Juliette Cummins, and Sallie played by Heidi Kozak. Amy is her most caring friend, and dang she’s the hottest by far, she’s got some sweet boobs, just sayin. Sheila is the wild child, kind of slutty redhead that gets topless and dances for no real reason during a pillow fight, because that ALWAYS happens in real life right? Sallie is just kind of there, her character really isn’t that strong, she’s basically just there to meet the blonde quota. Along with the girls we get a couple of guys Joel Hoffman as the stoner surfer dude TJ and Scott Westmoreland as Jeff. Man TJ is such a tool, he looks kind of like Justin Long but talks like Pauly Shore, except more annoying and stupid. Jeff is the typical worrisome uptight friend to TJ. The Driller Killer is hilarious looking, he has a big black pompadour and wears a leather jacket and pants. He is played by Atanis Illitch, as far as I know he’s no relation to former Detroit Red Wings and Tigers owner Mike Illitch, also of Little Caesars fame. The Driller Killer is so over the top goofy that you really can’t take this seriously, but I think that’s kind of the point.
The special effects are fairly good. One scene we see the killer jump down the steps and the drill wobbles on his guitar, which is hilarious. The kills are your typical drill kills, through the back, through the chest, through the head, nothing really new. The gore is plentiful and there is a few scenes of mangled meat spinning around on the drill bit which is cool. Aside from the effects the other highlight to this film is the never ending jabs at the typical slasher tropes. The goofy one line spitting killer, the innocent good girl that will die if she “goes all the way”, and random pillow fights where the flattest chested girl gets topless. Seriously they had Kimberly McArthur, former Playboy Playmate that has some big boobs, and they pick the small boobed redhead to whip them out all the time? I guess that’s part of the humor I suppose. Also this has kind of a lame twist ending which was really a common occurance in the slasher genre. Sleepaway Camp, Friday the 13th, Friday the 13th Pt 2, Slaughter High, hell nearly 75% of the slasher genre had these type of endings.
While it is enjoyable and comical for all the wrong reasons, I can’t say that this is as good as the original. It does have some rewatchability since this is my second viewing of it. You notice some funny things on repeat viewings and man I just love Kimberly McArthur she is drop dead gorgeous, has that sweet rack and her personality, dude she’s just cool. The killer is laughably corny and makes this entry a little more memorable than it would be otherwise. I would give this a C, a solid C for sure.
