By Geno McGahee
The 1980s were known for young girls running around, usually near naked, from some guy, usually with a mask, wielding a knife. It was a good time for film. Films like HALLOWEEN set the standard and then they lowered it many notches to bring films like SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE and the 1988 straight-to-video “SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE.” Considering the demand for near-naked teenage girls, there was no question that this film would do well at the video stores and it did.
We have a mental patient escaping the hospital, which was really overdone in the 1980s. Those mental patients always escaping…always causing trouble… They just are a pain in the ass and our killer in this film is no exception. He was slated for a lobotomy, but killed a doctor, stole his uniform, and is now wielding a scalpel and killing people. He also has these big eyes and looks at the camera several times just to make sure that you see his crazy look. I guess he falls into the “bat shit crazy” category at the nuthouse.
A doctor has a busy night and is called to work as his daughter and her friends have a slumber party and they do all the bad things that teenage girls do when daddy’s away. They call over boys to hang out, drink, and dance together… well, that’s not really a bad thing I guess, but it’s odd. I wonder if this really happens at slumber parties. Considering I was never one of the boys that they invited over, I cannot tell you, but I highly doubt that they just hold hands and dance around the bedroom. This film is written and directed by Stephen Tyler and if he’s anything like me, he wasn’t invited into the girl’s bedrooms either and had to make shit up and in his fantasy, the girls dance together while holding hands. Hey, why not?
On top of the crazy nuthouse killer, we also have a teenager that is picked on by the cool kids in school and that drives him into madness and he starts killing people with a scalpel too. There’s not enough room in town for both maniacs, so the nuthouse killer takes out the teen before he can do any more damage. That was pretty strange all together. I didn’t get why the teen was dressed like a doctor to begin with and why he was allowed to play with a scalpel in class. You would think that the teacher would make him leave it at home. I guess we just accept this too.
The bodies keep on piling up and the killer keeps giving those crazy looks to the camera. They never really discuss motive. I know that he’s a killer and I know that he’s bat shit crazy, but what is his motivation here. As far as I know, he wasn’t slighted by teenage girls and is therefore taking his aggravations out on them. I guess it’s possible that he’s going after them because the father was his doctor, but why not just kill the doctor? There didn’t seem to be a lot of thought put into this one. I think that Tyler’s idea was: escaped mental patient, teenage girls and …that’s it. Figure out the rest later.
During the movie, the girls were watching another straight-to-video horror flick called “FOREVER EVIL,” and that one is just about as bad as this one, but at least they were trying to promote their other titles. Actually, on the surface, both FOREVER EVIL and THE LAST SLUMBER PARTY have potential. They have cool titles and cover art and if cut into trailers, they can look pretty awesome…until you watch the entire films.
THE LAST SLUMBER PARTY is so all over the place. I truly do think that the idea was just to kill teenage girls that are having a slumber party and that’s all they had going in. In all honesty, that was all they needed at this time. The shot on video films of the 80s were hot sellers, especially the horror entries. They didn’t have to be good…just have that look, have plenty of dead bodies and hot girls and the audience still enjoyed it. Films like BLOOD CULT, SLEDGEHAMMER and 555 were hot items and this brand of horror films are still in high demand. The look is outstanding and the time was a good time for the genre. It could be argued that a horrible 1980s SOV film is better than most of the indie titles that we see popping up today.
In the end, I cannot recommend THE LAST SLUMBER PARTY…even though I really wanted to. I wanted to love this film, but I didn’t find love here. The story is non-existent and it’s really a title strictly for those that want to get that 1980s SOV feeling again. Other than recapturing that feeling of the video stores in the 1980s, this one offers little.
Rating: 3/10
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