By Geno McGahee
I was actually quite surprised that Boon Collins wrote SLEEPOVER NIGHTMARE. I was a big fan of his 1982 film “NIGHT WARNING,” and this film made all these years later lacked the quality that we witnessed in that film. SLEEPOVER NIGHTMARE was a paint by numbers slasher film that trudged along in a predictable fashion. It started out with potential but soon turned into an uninspired mess.
We begin with a mental patient being escorted when the van gets into an accident and releases him. He kills the guards, takes their clothing and escapes on foot, stumbling upon a lake house and a party with a bunch of teenagers. Dwight (Chad R. Rook) brings his new girlfriend, Karli (Hayley Sales) to the party, but he’s not very serious. He’s possessive but not faithful, immediately hooking up with an old friend, Shannon (Kristine Cofsky), in the toolshed. As those two reconnect, Harry (Richard Olak) makes his move on the new girl and makes some progress, “rubbing butts” with each other in the pool. Strange. Shortly after, Harry gets naked, but Dwight returns and gets angry with his naked friend and girlfriend. How dare she flirt with another guy while he’s screwing another girl.
The maniacal killer has a rather amusing flashback showing how he flipped out and turned into this killing machine. He was dating Loretta (Jolene White) and found her screwing one of his friends and lost his mind, much like the guy from LAS VEGAS BLOODBATH. Love will make you do crazy things. He shoves Loretta into a car and crashes into a bonfire. As the car burns with her in it, he just keeps saying “Loretta” over and over again. It was a flashback done well, but we went right back into the main story, which got stale very quickly.
The killer starts taking down the guests one by one, until we are down to Harry, Shannon and Karli. They hide and eventually deal with the killer in a big finale that even has the back from the dead shocker…the one last scare. This film is so uninspired. Boon Collins had to see this as a cash grab rather than a statement. At the time, the video stores were still all over the place and with his name and with the budget that this had, it was easy to get it on the shelves and turn a buck, good or bad.
To the credit of Collins, the cast was pretty solid with Sales, Olak and Cofsky giving good performances, despite the mediocre material. To the credit of Collins and the crew, the visuals in this film are very good. The killer standing on top of the police car and piercing it with a spear was impressive and the car accidents were done well. Some of the CGI was pretty poor, but we are still in 2005 and the budget wasn’t tremendous. So, it’s acceptable.
SLEEPOVER NIGHTMARE is very frustrating because of who was behind it. From the name of the film to the execution, we have nothing new here and nothing remarkable. This is really just a copy of many other films with the hope that it would turn a quick buck. It probably did, but it’s forgettable. The killer is not good and the characters weren’t developed. This is just a filmmaker going through the motions and not caring.
I can’t recommend this film. I recommend NIGHT WARNING, but this film is a pass. I usually love slashers even when they are mediocre and unoriginal but this one is bad.
Rating: 3/10
