Slumber Party Massacre II 1987 –

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/

by tytdreviews

The Slumber Party Massacre 1982 –

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/

by tytdreviews

Ed Wood 1994 –

Arguably my favourite Tim Burton movie, theres VERY little to dislike about ‘Ed Wood’ in my opinion quite honestly. This somewhat fantastical recounting of a 5 year window in the life of the much maligned and often ridiculed ‘Worst director EVER!’ is witty, charismatic and ultimately incredibly charming, and quite often sends me back to my own days of low/no budget film making.

The film opens in 1952 with Ed working on a couple of theater productions before a chance encounter with a newspaper article finally sets him on his way to becoming one of the most infamous directors of our times ending in 1957 and probably his most talked about work ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space’

What I can say at the top of all this is, dont come to this film for historical accuracy. While MANY of the weird and wild events that are shown in this film actually DID happen. The film isnt beyond taking creative liberties in order to help better shape a coherent story. That means large chunks of Eds life are either somewhat tweaked, rewritten or dropped entirely. With the absence of anything to do with ‘Jailbait’, ‘The Violent Years’ or any of the work that went into the, ultimately collapsed feature ‘The Ghoul Goes West’ being totally absent barring the odd background reference.

Instead; We largely focus on Ed and his effects on the people around him across three of his better known feature ‘Glen or Glenda’, ‘Bride of the Monster’ and ‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’. Its regularly pointed out across the runtime that Ed had a certain magnatism for the strange, delusional or dejected from society and its quite comforting to see this BEYOND patient film maker group together these odd job crazies and throw them into his mix of B-movie horror, science fiction and campy fun.

On a scripting front, this things a delight, a wonderfully charming and charismatic piece thats got a perfectly balanced 3 act structure, plays the characters almost intentionally as 50s B-movie pastiches of themselves and keeps a zippy pace making a 126 minutes long feature feel like something closer to 80 with a sense of absolute effortlessness.

The characters obviously being corny 50’s interpretations of themselves doesnt dissuade the film however from giving all the characters depth, nuance, complexities that most ‘normal’ films would struggle to reach and most importantly the dialogues almost perfect, with endlessly quotable moments, genuinely solid humour that simultaineously feels fresh while keeping in line with the kind of humour that would have been around in the 50s and 60s. Its arguably one of the best scripts i’ve ever sat through quite honestly.

Same goes for the direction and cine, Burton here is in his element of ‘otherworldly’ but campy good fun and it’s clear he really understood the work he was getting into with this one as almost every scene screams 50’s hollywood honestly.

Equally direction of the cast is superb, with very clear instruction being given and, based on interviews, most of the cast took their performances very seriously and researched a LOT into their parts in order to perfectly nail the roles they were cast for. they work with set space effectively, they recreate scenes from Eds original movies near perfectly and most importantly, via the performances you yourself feel that your in the action with them as they ride the highs and lows of production woes.

Compositions are gorgeous, and its clear they got someone who specialises in shooting in black and white to work with them on this project as a lot of the lighting and colour cues are very much in line with 50s and older productions.

Theres some phenominal work with lighting here to create some fantastic visuals and scenes feel well thought out and much more importantly, made with care. This isnt a slapped together production at all, it feels very much like they wanted to keep the film as in line with the era it was being shot in as possible.

As for the performances, they’re pretty much flawless. Johnny Depp may not be playing Ed with high accuracy here, but he certainly captures Eds ‘can do’ attitude and his sincere opportunism with an animated reslish that I honestly loved.

Martin Landau is positively transformative as Bela Lugosi, there are moments where its easy to forget that landau is even PLAYING Lugosi and that he hasnt fully BECOME the man. its honestly spooky and I can easily understand how he won the academy award.

Sarah Jessica Parker, Bill Murray, Jeffery Jones, Lisa Marie and George Steele only further enhance this thing, bringing an A* game to an already winning cast. Had this thing JUST been Depp and Landau it would have been incredible. But this really does feel like the planets aligning near perfectly, to get so much talent that not only get it, but full embrace their respective roles in a single place…it’s honestly wonderful. Particularly George Steele as Tor Johnson. It was absolutely uncanny.

Throw in a score that feels like a modernisation of the old synthy 50s stocky scoring, which adds a wonderful tone and vibe to proceedings and ultimately completes the ‘look’ this film is going for and you have a film that really is one of my all time favourites to just dig out whenever. Its got a wonderful balance of light and dark, its pacy, with a rock solid script and casting married up to direction cine and scoring that understands whats needed and goes above and beyond to deliver on it.

You can say what you like about Ed’s movies…But ‘Ed Wood’ is absolutely one you dont want to miss out on.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/ed-wood/

by tytdreviews