I kind of feel bad about ‘Rabid’ because it just didnt quite set my world alight in the same way that a lot of Cronenberg films do. Part of me feels though that this is because it’s a little *too* close to ‘Shivers’ in terms of what its trying to do. and realistically, im sure theres more than enough evidence here to lay claim that this could be seen as a bigger budgeted broader remake of ‘Shivers’ only replacing a killer sexy leech organism with a skin graft that causes mega rabies.

Thats not to say the film is a complete wash out however. I really liked ‘Shivers’ as an idea and while im a little dismayed to see the basic concept kind of regurgitated so soon after ‘Shivers’ was made. I do have to admit however that on a technical level, this thing blows ‘Shivers’ clean out of the water.

Its a much more refined and nuanced production that feels like Cronenberg learnt a LOT from his first foray into feature film production, and its clear here that some of his more signature directing style is really starting to fruit quite wonderfully. we have the clear beginnings of a keen eye for direction. The script keeps a decent pace, is pretty well structured and while it does lose a little momentum at the start of the 3rd act, its still an enjoyable and thouroughly grim time that I enjoyed.

The cine is a vast step up from his previous work, as is his direction of the cast and his soundtrack choices.

Honestly; I just dont really have a whole lot to say about this one. It feels like a director on the grow, but I was a little dissapointed that his second ever feature was kind of a retooling of his first feature. Thats not to say I didnt enjoy it, I absolutely did. I just feel this is a case of being more comfortable with ‘Shivers’ having seen it half a dozen times, makes liking this film (even though it IS technically superior) a bit harder because im not as familiar or in tune with its beats.

One I liked, but didnt love. I could see myself being won over by this one with rewatches. as its stands, it’s an obvious recommended movie from me. And if you havent seen any Cronenberg, I’d recommend this one as a solid starting point.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/rabid/

Pretty much everything about 1976’s ‘Bloodsucking Freaks’ should repulse me. In an era when exploitation cinema was really coming into its own as a boundary pusher for cinema in terms of taste and decency. ‘Freaks’ is an entry that even the most ardant exploitation booze hound would say was a bit near the knuckle.

And yet, its the execution within ‘Freaks’ that flips this thing on it’s head for me, from an unwatchable piece of torture porn garbage to something I could actually see myself watching again in future (this’ll mark the 3rd time i’ve put this on voluntarily).

At its core the plot is a bit deranged, but simple. A mad theater performer called ‘Sardu’ is staging experimental stage art in a SOHO warehouse/theater to members of the public featuring the mutilation and graphic torturing of women with a helping hand from his dwarf assistant ‘Ralphus’. The audience love the ‘realness’ of the piece. But the reality is, these women are ACTUALLY being tortured live on stage. But the theatrical setting makes the audience think it’s staged.

The reality is Sardu and Ralphus are kidnapping large numbers of women from across the city and are using torture and conditioning in an attempt to ‘break’ them, turning them into willing and compliant slaves who’ll gladly get their legs chopped off if it pleases their ‘master’, Sardu himself has a furious temper, but is also a submissive and regularly recieves beatings from some of the girls he’s conditioned to be dominant to him on command.

When a theater critic visits the show, he refuses to review the piece for the local paper on the grounds that, even if he wrote a bad review it might tempt the public to come down anyway and see the show to see HOW bad it actully was. Sardu isnt happy with this and concocts a scheme for ultimate revenge which includes kidnapping the critic, a celebrated ballarina and extensive scenes of EVEN MORE graphic mutilation and torture. All leading to a showstopping ‘performance’ that’ll more than leave your jaw on the floor.

And I suppose I should add a bit of context here, a genre of film making that I absolutely detest is the ‘Women getting stalking, mutilated and killed for 90 minutes’ subgenre. Think your ‘Night train murders’ or ‘The New York Rippers’ of the world. I take no pleasure or enjoyment in seeing a film makers excuse to explore their mysoginistic fetishes on camera. With only very few notable exceptions.

‘Bloodsucking Freaks’ is one of them, and for a good reason (at least in my mind) and it’s the same reason that got ‘The Evil Dead’ taken off the ‘Video Nasties’ list all the way back in 1984. And thats that this film is too over the top, campy and rediculous to EVER be considered malicious.

There isnt an OUNCE of this film that could even be taken remotely seriously as a work. Its almost a parody of ‘mondo’ and exploitation cinema of the day. Its absolutely a nasty piece of work; gory, violent and aggressive in it’s construction. But malicious? absolutley not. If anything it’s basically a subtle lampooning of exploitation cinema by my reckoning.

The scripts a little on the slow side, clocking in at just shy of 90 minutes I could easily see this thing lose 15 minutes and be a lot better for it. It has a solid act structuring, keeps a pretty solid pace and has it’s tongue planted FIRMLY in it’s cheek across the entirity of it’s runtime. Everyone involved in this seems to understand the tone and humour thats embedded in this thing and it’s nice to see a cast be so receptive to dark humour of this kind of quality.

Thats not to say its without its faults, the torture scenes are hammy, over the top and overly dramatic, which I appreciated. But I do think it focusses on the torture aspect a bit too much and i’d have preferred more oddnes with Sardu and Ralphus honestly. It gets a little bit repetative after a time and that coupled with a little bit of a slow down in the pacing between the 2nd and 3rd acts does kind of disrupt what was otherwise a pretty electric work that really does stand out for this point in time.

Directions a little sloppy too, but that does kind of work in the films favour. We have low quality heavy grain film stock used for this one (presumably to keep costs down) Which for any other genre of film making would have made the film look cheap, seedy and lower rent. But for horror; it really gives it a ‘rough and ready’ stylistic feel that was the vogue of most grindhouse pictures of the day. and thats pretty much the base that this film works off of really.

Theres a lot of very vivid colour choices used throughout which play against the seedy stock quality quite nicely. Blood is basically poster paint/Hammer red, everything has a flat lighting profile, with most shots leading off into a seeming void of nothingness (again likely a budget decision…but effective) more ‘comfortable’ locations like Sardus living quarters are filled with rich Greens, reds, blues and oranges. And I personally found the stylistic contrast of having all these vivid and royal colours clashing with the blackness and bleakness of the fringes of the sets to be really quite powerful. Especially when contrasted with exterior shots which are almost entirely muted greys and browns.

It really makes you feel like, when your inside the theater with Sardu, your entering another world, removed from the hustle and bustle of society. You’re in Sardu’s domain.

Direction of the cast iiiiis…interesting, our core players are decently managed, they use the set space well and it’s clear a lot of work was put in to nail the exact tone this thing was going for…the extras? Well they’re all ‘broken’ women ranting and raving like lunatics and acting like dogs…I mean; if thats what they’re supposed to be going for, they nailed the brief…but it would have maybe have been a bit nicer to just see a bit more variety in terms of what someone who’s been fundamentally ‘broken’ acts like, because the impression given here is that when someones brain is bent, they start barking and turn into cannibals…and thats about it.

Cine wise, its again a little rough and ready, but the aforementioned colour and styalisation really help pull this thing up, the flat lighting is both a help and a hinderance, giving further illusion to the roughness of the production (a charitable interpretation) while also feeling just a bit uninspiring. that being said compositions are largely handheld wides or mids, compositions a bit sketchy, but theres definitely some shots to love, but it is lacking when it comes to its sequence construction through a mix of akward cuts and lack of b-roll…Which was a bit of a shame.

Performance wise? Seamus O’Brien as Sardu is astounding, giving a wonderfully electric, unpredictable and campy performance that managed to genuinely enthrall me across the runtime, I had no idea what was coming up next with him and even on rewatches, he gives me vibes that I STILL shouldnt get too comfortable in terms of what to expect. Hes fantastic.

Credit also has to go to Luis De Jesus as Sardu’s assistant Ralphus, a VERY malicious and equally campy foil to O’Briens performance with maybe just a hint more relish in the joy he gets torturing. Theres not a dull moment when he’s on screen and his work with Viju Krem who plays the dancer Natasha who’s abducted by Ralphus and slowly broken (herself a fantastic performance that has a nice complexity to it where it could have just been very one note) was a delight.

‘Bloodsucking freaks’ is one of those films that I dont think really could be done justice nowadays, modern film makers are too clued up on styalisation choices and the horror genre now is geared WAY too heavily towards unpleasentness for the sake of unpleasentness. This film came about at the perfect time for a film like this to come about, it isnt afraid to embrace campness while mixing in VERY controversial themes, but it also isnt snobby about what it’s trying to achieve. We have here a film that acknowledges the dark, perverted and gory world the exploitation subgenre was creating and laughs openly at it.

It isnt trying to be ‘Salo’ it’s not trying to make ‘art’ it’s trying to get the job done and put across the absurdness of the genre that birthed it. And even though I cant say I outright LOVE this for that…I can at least appreciate it.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/bloodsucking-freaks/

After a string of some of the strangest and cheesiest movies to ever grace the 80’s, peaking with ‘Hobgoblins’ in 1988. Vice Academy is a definite change of pace in the career of Rick Sloane. A much more toned down picture that dials back the ‘zany’ otherworldly humour of the likes of ‘The Visitants’ and ‘Blood Theater’ in exchange for a much more muted and sexually driven experience that I personally felt wasnt particularly confident in it’s execution.

Quite literally the plot follows a group of ‘hoping to be’ cops as they work through their training to get into the Vice squad. This translates to a few scenes of ‘Police Academy-esq’ slapstick gags about how inexperienced cops can get up to shenanigans while training. But the main focus follows our group of trainees attempting to bust an illegal prostituation and pornography racket. Which has the potential to be quite good fun, but it never quite breaks above ‘tolerable’ for me.

The scripts more groanworthy than anything else, it’s cheesy, but lacking a clear vision as to exactly what this thing wants to be. It definitely has a tongue in cheek attitude to its subject, but the comedy is incredibly basic and really quite groanworthy for the most part, theres some serious elements that get played on (sexual assault, drug abuse etc) but those elements, for me at least, landed incredibly tone deaf in the face of the comedy, and made the comedy itself feel incredibly glib as a result.

We dont really get a lead aggressor in this till the final 20 minutes. which means a lot of the script is just our cast kind of bumbling in and out of CER-AZY situations that dont really add up to a coherent narrative.

The act structures a bit of a mess, the opening act is inconsistent and doesnt really introduce our characters in a memorable or notable way, the 2nd act is really more a series of situations than a developing of the opening, and the 3rd act is probably the most coherent part of the movie. But by this point it’s hard to be enthused by a movie thats wasted over an hour of my time on women running around in lengerie and bland (and sometimes quite questionable) humour that at best didnt make me want to turn it off.

The dialogues quite poor quality, the tone and pacing are off, theres no real payoff worth the time put in and VERY mild spoilers here but [The film ends basically admitting they’re already working on a sequel, which feels like a very lazy way to tell your audience that you couldnt be bothered to end your movie properly, so come back and see if things get better…I will struggle to do that]

Outside of a lacklustre script, the rest of the films actually not too bad, the directions pretty decent for the most part, it has a pretty clear vision on a technical level, though outside of a few shots with coloured gel lighting I wouldnt have linked Rick Sloane to this picture as a director. I really get the feeling he was doing this film for the paycheck and tape quite honestly. its technically sound enough, but a HUGE departure from Sloanes other work and a quite drab affair when all is said and done.

Direction of the cast is kind of flat too, Theres a few animated turns here and there which DOES help sell *some* of the gags a bit more than they might have in lesser hands. But theres just not a whole lot going on here in terms of getting the best out of the cast. a lot of the shots are just locked off scenes of 2-3 actors stood in place on a street or warehouse reeling out dialogue in such a way that borders on ‘softcore’ level standards…it’s not a great experience.

The cine again is fine enough, there a few shots that do experiment a bit more than others, colour is used fairly effectively on the night shots, The continuity is awful in the best way imaginable (my particular highlight being some shots having a smoke machine pumping smoke into the shot for ‘atmosphere’ but its done in situations that smoke being present simply wouldnt exist…like in a warehouse or someones living room.

Compositions are largely fine, theres a couple of wobbly bits here and there, but again it just about does the job. Being honest its the cine and moments where the tone work thats made up the bulk of my score for this thing.

Performances are pretty dire, but at least they’re somewhat tolerable. lines are delivered in the most unbelievable way with a hearty dose of cheese and very little else endearing the performances. You get the feeling from most of the cast that they’re basically there to collect their paycheck and goof about for a couple of months and thats about it. But for the most part the acting here comes across as forced, awkward and just plain weird.

The soundtracks probably the only other thing going for this film, with ‘severe tyre damage’ providing some tracks alongside a rocky and 80s poppy scoring. its solid. Not what i’d have expected for a film like this, but definitely better for it.

All in all?…Ughhhh…I’ve seen far worse, but i’ve absolutely seen better. I think had the film had a bit of a cleaner storyline and clearer vision on how it wanted to present itself tonally, i’d have probably got on with it better. As it stands, it has its moments here and there. But this is absolutely not an essential watch, and probably not one I’ll be back to for a while.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/vice-academy/

Watched on Wednesday June 21, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-wicker-man/1/

One of my biggest complaints about the original ‘Slumber Party Massacre’ was that I felt the script was SUPER messy in terms of how it paced itself structurally, and that it felt a little overly generic in terms of the slasher genre, it quite literally seemed to hit every stereotype of the genre one after another, beat for beat.

WELL! You dont have to worry about that with ‘Slumber Party Massacre 2!’ because for the sequel, they seem to have overcompensated in creating an equally messy, but now incredibly campy and zany production that’s as entertaining in places as it is UTTERLY insufferable.

The film was made 5 years after the original ‘SPM’ but ‘in film’ is set only 2 years later as we pick up with the underaged sister of one of the main characters from the original film as she’s about to turn 17 and is part of a rock band thats managed to score a condo for a long weekend of partying, rehersing and chilling out with their partners.

Its revealed in the opening however that all isnt well with Courtney as she’s having night terrors of a guy dressed head to toe in leather weilding a cherry red electric guitar with a drill mounted on the end of it. Her sister Valarie has been committed after the events of the first film and courtney thinks the trauma that night caused combined with all the other social pressures is causing her to manifest this creep in her dreams.

Anyway; the gang arrive at the condo and things are fine for a time, until the creepy rocker begins to slowly infiltrate courtneys world during the day. leading inevitably to her friends becoming convinced shes into drugs as she claims that her bathtubs filled with blood right the way through to a frozen chicken is trying to attack her. Eventually things turn more ‘murderous’ and from there it kind of falls into the usual holding pattern.

Im gonna get it out of the way from the top with this thing, basically; at its core, ‘SPM 2’ is much the same as ‘SPM’ in the sense that, at the time this came out, this really wasnt trying anything all that different from films that were being made around this time. the age of the ‘self aware’ slasher was well underway, and a LOT of films from the genre at this time were either purposfully parodying the slasher genre, or were trying to be a little post modern about the slasher movies of the early 80s.

The only thing that really sets this film apart from the other in its class is that this film feels like someone marathoned the ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ movies and thought ‘hey…we should do this in OUR movie’ the signs are pretty obvious across the board, you have a main character whos dismissed as ‘crazy’ for believing a man in her dreams is out to kill her and her friends. you have LITERAL recreations of scenes from elm street (see; the bathtub of blood) Hell; they couldnt be any MORE in your face about it than the fact they name one of the lead police officers in this film ‘Officer Krueger’.

And while i’ll be the first to say, the film does try to strike out on its own across the runtime and do some genuinely weird stuff here and there. The fact it tries to ape ‘Elm Street’ so hard really didnt curry any favour with me.

What I will say is the scripting here is a vast improvement over the original. We have a much tighter and more concise work, it pretty evenly spreads out the action across the 3 acts and it balances those 3 acts pretty decently as well. Characters actually have varying personalities which was welcome and they do explore a little bit of depth with them which is nice.

However contrasting that, a LOT of this film is either musical numbers or rehersal footage with the band, which does drag on a fair bit, and while I welcome a much more rich and diverse character pool. some of the characters are annoying to the point of gritting my teeth. Like…dont get me wrong, having an irritating character in your roster CAN work in the right circumstances and can compliment a solid cast.

But here? there are some characters who REALLY tried my patience and didnt give a whole lot back in return. It also feels like, while these characters get a bit of a broader personality range, they do lose a little bit of depth in terms of back story or history. it doesnt feel like any of these characters existed in this world before or after the titles and credits rolled. Which is a shame as just a little more history and depth behind them might have made it a more solid piece.

The tone of writing is also leaning a bit more towards a campier eccentric stance. The first film felt like a pretty legit slasher for the time all things considered. This feels almost like a parody of the first film, the ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2’ of this franchise for lack of a better comparison.

Adding to this, the ending itself, I personally found to be a little dissatisfying. it has a decent enough build up, and in fact the first 2/3rds of the third act are arguably some of the best parts of this film. But that last 10 minutes or so they take all the implied symbolism, audience interpretation and other less defined elements and just utterly throw it to the wall. I had NO idea what was happening by the final 5 minutes and it ends with a plot twist that not only didnt feel particularly satisfying as an audience member, it actively soured the preceeding 65ish minutes.

What I can say in this films favour though is when it does experiment and get a bit more out there, it’s very entertaining, very unusual and in many ways it surpasses the original. Theres a much harder push for gore here, the campier elements (when not pushing into irritating terratory) are fun, easy going, and the kind of thing you want from a zippy little slasher thingie. Its fun for the most part, I just wish they’d reigned in some of the character performances a bit.

The direction and cine isnt as sharp as the original in my opinion, replacing good solid craftsman ship we instead have a work here that has a VERY distinct whiff of ‘Low budget’ cinema vibes. Theres not a lot to actively point to and say ‘This is rubbish’ there just…seems to be less care, less attention and less active creativity going into how this thing looked. Instead theres a lot of superficial faux styalization present, plenty of smokey looking scenes where they just bathe a set in a block colour light without a lot of rhyme or reason and then just get on with it.

Shots dont feel quite as well curated as the original was. Where as the original was clearly made for theaters with a filmic look in mind, this has much MUCH more of a ‘home video market’/’TV Movie’ feel to it, which…depending on your preference you may prefer, but it was a little too garish and cheesy for me.

That however shouldnt take away from the fact that some of the effects shots are rock solid, theres a definite ramping up of the gore and the more ‘dreamy’ sequences where Courtney is experiencing her hallucinations are genuinely engaging and fun to run through. sequences are a little more haphazard than the original, but theres till plenty of b-roll being used to help give the sequences a bit more life. So overall, while I wasnt totally smitten with it, I think it just about does the job.

The performances, broadly speaking are manic. everyone is bursting with energy, throwing themselves around the sets and delivering their lines with more ham than your local deli. When it works, I loved it, I thought it was funny, fresh and interesting. When it didnt work, it was one of the more annoying moments that i’ve seen in my many years of watching slasher movies.

Notably the best performer for my money is Atanas Ilitch as ‘The Driller Killer’ who somehow manages to upstage our main cast by being EVEN MORE over the top, hammy and demented than they’re trying to be…which is no mean feat quite honestly. In fact a good chunk of my overall rating for this film lies purely on his performance in carrying this thing. hes great.

As for the soundtrack? its all poppy rocky stuff. largely diagetic as the band perform repeatedly throughout and listen back to demo tapes of their own music. The more horror driven synth scoring is fine enough, but a bit generic and forgettable honestly. Overall it wasnt my thing really…but I didnt actively hate it.

All in all, this things a bit of a mixed bag, but i’d say there was more good here than bad ultimately. Given the choice of this or the original? Purely for ease of watching and enjoying i’d probably go for the original. But thats not to play this film down. It absolutley has its moments and if your in the right headspace for a loud, aggressive and sometimes border irritating time. You’ll probably really get on with this. I had fun with it for a decent chunk of the runtime and I could easily see it pairing up with something like ‘Hack o Lantern’ or even something like ‘Night of the Demons’ quite well.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/slumber-party-massacre-ii/

If ever you need to introduce someone to the core concept of what a ‘Slasher Movie’ is, this is the movie for that. ‘Slumber Party Massacre’ neither rises above slasher movies of this time, nor does it fall below the base standard. What you have here, quite simply, is a VERY brief film about some girls holding a slumber party that recieves an unexpected visitor in the form of a crazy driller killer, that manages to gather together every single trope of the slasher genre at this point in time and present it in a single movie thats *of* quality.

The scripts probably this things weakest element honestly, the basic plot itself isnt too bad, but clocking in at 76 minutes, this things pacing and act structuring is horrendous. The first act throws about 10 characters at us, info dumps relentlessly and when it isnt telling in detail about or characters its showing boobs and thats about it.

The second act starts prematurely and bloats the film out, where could be scenes of suspense, a chance to get to know our characters a bit better rather than just being told about them or just…SOMETHING entertaining to help settle an audience in, instead; we get a lot of scenes of the girls pulling pranks on each other and kind of idley chatting while our killer slowly begins to make a bit more of a presence, but not in such a way that causes any kind of suspicion from the main characters. This basically might as well have been 2 seperate movies slammed together for what it’s worth.

This then leads to a rushed and inconsistent 3rd act that has roughly 15-20 minutes to actually get our killer in front of our main characters, do the suspensful ‘who’ll survive’ run through AND find a satisfying end while also trying to keep our characters interesting and relevent…and quite honestly it doesnt manage it for me.

Had they extended the first act to bring the slumber party element in a bit more, cut down on the nudity, brought our characters to the forefront and gave them distinct personalities that would have set things up nicely for a more subdued 2nd act where things start not quite going right, throw in a few curve balls and extend the 3rd act out a bit more to help better shape out the film and you’d have had something genuinely quite solid on your hands.

As it stands it feels like a film that doesnt know how to start, didnt know how to hold an audience once it DID find its footing, and then rushed an ending because it didnt really feel confident in the best way to resolve things. Add in some less than stellar dialogue and a continuity structuring that feels like an afterthought and what you have left is a 74 minute film that feels absolutely right in terms of how long this thing should be, but absolutely awful in terms of how it manages that time window.

However, the film does have its upsides. While the script is an absolute hot mess, it cant be accused of being boring. This things actually quite fun once it gets into the swing of things, and the bizarre choice of signature weapon that our main killer has, I thought was hilariously entertaining.

I recently jumped on Scream Factories 4k remaster of this film and its sequel after the longest time of an old SD heavily compressed version. and I’ve got to say they’ve done a fantastic job in cleaning this film up and it’s really made me appreciate the direction and cine a whole lot more than I previously did.

This film has a nice fairly subtle styalisation about it, all the elements of production seem to working fairly well in lock step, they manage to get the best out of the gore shots and the whole film holds together well and achieves what it’s setting out to do. It’s not breaking new ground. Its probably one of the safest slasher movies i’ve ever seen. but I appreciate the fact that it just does what it’s setting out to do pretty solidly and the end results…while not exactly ‘wow’ worthy, are certainly solid enough to stand up to repeated viewings.

direction of the cast is maybe a tad flatter than i’d like. The cast are all pretty animated and do utilise their location and set space *fairly* well. But it does come across as all a bit samey. I like it when a director will give their cast clear instructions that help define their characters motives and intentions…But here, all the performances just kind of come across as a bit samey, everyones kind of told to just, do the same thing as each other and that lack of variety does create a bit of a bland texture after a while in all honesty.

The cine is pretty rock solid, as mentioned we have a fairly subtle production style wise that looks decent, but isnt trying to do anything particularly outside of the norm for the genre. shots are *largely* decently composed, but do come across as a little rough around the edges at times, which is a bit of a shame. Colour use is kind of kept to a minimum, but Reds and Blues do get a chance to showcase from time to time. To be completely honest, the bottom of the barrel for the slasher genre is so low, im just grateful this thing points the camera in the right direction 90% of the time and that they actually bothered to get enough B-roll to make the sequences hold together solidly. It’s cine here is probably it’s strongest aspect and the thing I enjoyed most about it. But thats not to say I loved it.

As for the performances. Well…despite how much our characters talk about each other, the ACTUAL differences between our core cast are neglegable. What we have here are 10 cookie cutter characters who really dont vary very much at all from each other. In fact, across the runtime theres only two characters who really DO stand out. One is one of the main characters younger sister, who basically has the trope of ‘being underage’ and the other being Michael Villella as our killer for the movie who’s SUPER animate a touch campy and actually feels like a break from the half dozen to a dozen ‘npc’-esq characters we’re stuck with for most of the runtime. hes a lot of fun and easily one of the best reasons to stick with this.

As for the soundtrack? Well…the score itself is kind of subtle and didnt honestly leave a lasting impact. I suppose its better for something to not cause offense to my ears than for it to be bad enough to be noticeable. But honestly; I didnt have any issues with any of the tracks in this thing.

What I DID have issue with though is the audio mixing, vocals in this thing are mixed WAY low down in things meaning I basically had to put subtitles on to make sure I wasnt missing anything in the film, as all the diagetic sounds had been mixed a lot higher than the dialogue track…outside of that I also noticed a few moments where sound cues and audio effects (such as thunder and lightning) were playing out of synch by a good second or two to when they were actually happening on screen, which did take me out of things a little bit.

Despite it’s issues, ‘Slumber Party Massacre’ is still a somewhat entertaining watch. its a very sloppy production that seems like the film got to ‘written on a cocktail napkin’ levels of planning before it was thrust into production. But despite its sloppy scripting, mediocre character development and mixed results on the sound and direction fronts. It does have some stuff going for it.

The kills are reletively solid, and as mentioned, while it may be a bit generic on the slasher tropes. It IS nice to have a film that does feature most of the big stereotypes of the genre and I really do feel like if you were trying to get someone into ‘slashers’ more broadly beyond your ‘Elm Streets’ and ‘Friday the 13ths’ this would probably be a decent little spinner for someone dipping their toe into the genre.

Add in some decent moments in the cine, some reasonable direction, a few good moments in the scripting and Michael Villella’s performance and you have a slasher film that (admittedly) wouldnt be my first go to when planning a movie night, but it is a movie that scratches a particular itch for me, and as such I can absolutely see it being one i revisit in future.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-slumber-party-massacre/

Watched on Sunday June 18, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/playing-the-ponies/

Watched on Sunday June 18, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/cash-and-carry/

Watched on Sunday June 18, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/goofs-and-saddles/

Watched on Sunday June 18, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/back-to-the-woods/