Here we go! The third film in The Slumber Party Massacre series! The third movie in a series is always the best- The Godfather Part III, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, The Matrix: Revolutions, X-Men: The Last Stand, I could go on. But, hold onto your excitement, trilogy lovers. Slumber Party Massacre 3 (SPMIII), sadly, falls dead last in the Slumber Party Massacre series.
SPMIII follows in the steps of its predecessors by being written and directed by women, Catherine Cyran and Sally Mattison. It features a group of girlfriends, Jackie (Keely Christian), Diane (Brandi Burkett), Maria (Maria Ford), Juliette (Lulu Wilson), Janine (Hope Marie Carlton), and Susie (Maria Claire), having a slumber party at Jackie’s house since her parents are out of town. Jackie’s parents are selling their house and will soon be moving elsewhere, so Jackie wants to have one last party with her gal-pals. And just like the other SPM films, their boyfriends show up to join in on the fun… until they start finding members of the party dead all over the house like it’s a morbid Easter egg hunt. Better find those eggs quick, everyone, or good freakin’ luck selling that house!
SPMIII lacks any kind of originality. It follows the blueprint of the original SPM to a T and yet draws no actual connection to any of the prior films. This resembles a remake more than a sequel- it keeps some of the general tone and story beats of the original, but lacks the odd moments of cleverness. The filmmakers do establish a feeling of sisterhood between the women which is nice to see when so many other films NEVER do that. The slumber party girlfriends sort of help each other out, and try to stick together but in the end there’s far too many scenes of them being dumb and helpless that negates any of their potential bassassery attempts. The killer is nothing special, especially if you’ve seen the previous films. He wears a black hoodie and a mask for the early kills, sca-ry. Once his identity is revealed, he sticks with normal clothes and normal eyes. After the manic crazy eyes of Driller Killer in SPM and the insane rockabilly energy of the Rockadriller Killer in SPMII, this driller feels like filler.
This isn’t to say that SPMIII doesn’t at least try to be interesting. It plays some games as to who the killer is, with suspects including: creepy neighbor, creepy volleyball voyeur, and any of the random boys who show up to party. But, surprise! It’s Ken (Brittain Frye), the seemingly nicest party boy! The attractive, well-dressed guy who got specifically invited because Juliette wants to bone him. That tiny little nugget of something interesting doesn’t make up for how un-interesting everything else is. The rest of SPMIII flows like a typical slasher film- girls scream, girls die until finally, someone stops the killer.
Our heroine, Jackie, is somewhat interesting in that she’s not 100% dumb and helpless- unlike the rest of her hapless friends. She often takes charge of the situation and helps herd the other girls along, from telling them to get some water to put out burning coals that spilled onto the wood porch, to telling one of the guys, “Don’t tell me what to do,” as she goes into the basement to check the windows. She also hangs around to help her friends escape being drill shishkabobs when she could have made a run for it.
One thing that bugs me the most, though, is when Maria has been wounded and is lying on the ground with Ken standing over her. She is actually quite clever here as she is telling Ken that she’ll do whatever he says and she’s talking him down from killing her. Buying herself some time while her other three friends, who are right there within full sight, do NOTHING to help her out. All three of them just stand there watching while Maria gets molested, looking like it’s leading to a rape, and then slowly murdered with the drill. THEN, only after Maria is dead, they decide to spring into action and tackle Ken. Where the fuck was that action two minutes ago!!! If I were Maria I would be coming back to haunt the shit out of Jackie, Susie, and Diane- well, if Diane hadn’t also ended up dead that is.
Jackie doesn’t really stick the landing because she, just like her friends, still pulls frequent dumbassery, but she looks like Wonder Woman compared to the other women at the party. When Ken reveals himself as the killer inside the house, four of the women run to the sliding glass door trying to open it for what feels like forever. Yes, it’s been wedged shut, but all they do is pull on the handle the entire time. Then, Jackie even joins them, making it FIVE women pulling on the handle. Out of the five of them, no one thinks to try ANYTHING else? Nope, just pull on the handle of the sliding glass door. It didn’t work the last 5 minutes but hey, maybe the next 5 minutes will do the trick. It’s not like there are other ways to open a sliding glass door and escape safely. In the second round of girls vs sliding glass door, two of them decide to pull on the handle again before Janine finally decides to throw herself through it in order to escape. Really!? I said safely, Janine! Come on!
In round three of girls vs now busted sliding glass door- Jackie, Maria, and Diane try to climb over/under a table that’s been pushed in front of it and not a single one of them manage to get through before Ken manages to pull all three of them, one by one mind you, back into the house. They just kind of flail around and scream at the site of Janine dead on the other side. The more I talk about the women’s fight with the sliding glass door the more I appreciate Janine for at least going out on her own terms- she yells “fuck you” at Ken and then jumps through the door. She’s the only one who succeeds in actually getting out of the house once Ken reveals himself as the killer.
That whole door sequence is emblematic of the muddled tone of the whole film. Mattison and Cyran try to make the girls somewhat “strong” but also has to keep finding ways for them to still get stuck in the house and become victims. In one scene, the girls smash something over Ken’s head. Nice! In another, they stand around gawking as Ken cops a feel on their friend and then kills her. The idea of “the bubble problem” isn’t a new one to horror- how do we keep our characters from just flat-out escaping the scary thing the moment shit gets real- but there are better ways to do it than going three rounds with a sliding glass door.
The Slumber Party Massacre series has been a surprising pleasure to review. Each film tries to say something and puts a spin on its weird formula. Then, Slumber Party Massacre III comes along and copies everyone’s homework without checking where the answers go. You could very well skip this one altogether. However, if you feel curious about it or you need to watch it to complete the series, watch it with a group before checking out any of the other SPM flicks so you can bask in the mundaneness together and then climb the delicious heights of the rest of this weird little series.
Read my review of Slumber Party Massacre (1982)
Read my review of Slumber Party Massacre 2 (1987)
Disclaimer: Just because I am the Action Flick Chick and love action movies does not mean I condone real life violence in any way. Everyone has their own shit to deal with, be nice to each other.
