Customer Reviews

Slumber Party Massacre 3 [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Predictability ends up being a virtue rather than a sin with "Slumber Party Massacre 3," the 1990 film that was the third installment of the original trilogy (if repeating the same story counts as a trilogy). A young girl has a slumber party with her girlfriends at her parent's beach house. Their boyfriends show up to try and scare them, but out in the darkness lurks a homicidal maniac with a power drill who takes advantage of the situation.

This film was the one and only directorial effort of Sally Mattison, and the script was written by Catherine Cyran, which made me sit up a bit when the opening credits rolled by because I was curious as to how a sex & slasher flick that was directed and written by women was going to be different from the normal voyeuristic approach employed by their male counterparts. Now that I have seen the movie I find it hard to believe that I have gained any insights into what young women do when they play "truth or dare" by themselves. Then again, women have never been the target audience for these movies. This is just another instance when I tried to have a semi-deep thought about this film and was brought back to some semblance of reality when such thoughts spiraled out of control.

Once again the soft core elements in "Slumber Party" outweigh the blood and gore of the "Massacre," but neither justifies getting this far into the series. Watching the first one twice would be better because the second time around you could read a book or pick up stuff around the room. It was a toss up as to whether this film was better or worse than the previous installment, "Slumber Part Massacre 2," and I ended up going with this one because it had more violations of my personal rules of things to do when a mass murderer is in your house and because I was rather offended by the revelation of the killer's motivation. You do not watch these sorts of movies for social relevance. Dismissing this film as a rehash of the first two is rather a moot point because if your title has "Slumber Party" and "Massacre" in it there is little reason to expect creativity in terms of the plot. The killings are your one chance at being artistic, so to speak, and there is nothing special here in that regard. The first killing is the best of the bunch and then the film deteriorates.

Final Note: If there were scenes where (a) the killer went out and nailed shut every door leading out of this house and (b) the teenagers tried every door and found it nailed shut, then I must have missed them, which is strange because I do not normally fall asleep during movies. The victims in this film are definitely Top 10 nominees for stupidest teenagers in a splatter flick. There is only so many times you can yell "OPEN...THE...DOOR!" at the screen before your voice gives out.

One of my few blind purchases. I was always curious about this series. However I think I made a mistake buying the 3rd one first. The movie is a very acceptable slasher film with some good gore... although not enough. There is plenty of T&A, more so than gore, I mean what do you expect from a horror movie called Slumber Party Massacre? The thing that sort of got me a bit mad was that 3 of the implied kills on the back of the box never happened... in fact the pictures on the back of the box, all but one, were actually in the movie. If you can find it for 5 bucks it might be worth it, but I would try and find something else. What excited me the most was the Slumber Party Massacre II preview (which somehow was a coming attraction) where the killer is a rock star, it looked hilarious so I'll definitely be picking that one up. (6.5/10)

Slumber Party Massacre 3 came out when the horror genre was going through some major problems but when this movie was released it turned things around.

Part of a popular movie trilogy that started back in 1982 Slumber Party Massacre 3 starts out with some high school friends out at the beach playing volleyball while the girls are planing a slumber party for the night at the one of the popular girls house the boys plot to crash the party but not knowing that a maniac killer with a portable drill will also be crashing to kill everyone that gets in his way.

With a bit of a twist of why the killer is out to kill everyone the story line comes out that as a child he was sexually abused by his uncle and his uncle committed suicide at the time the killer goes haywire and acts out as he is the uncle to all the sexy co-ed girls can these girls survive this horrible night just have to watch and see.

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE 3 is both a repeat of the original movie, using the same plot and even character names, for the first half of its running time, then unexpectedly segues into THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT territory becoming sadistic and violent. The humor of the first movie and the cheesy fun of SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II are no where to be seen as the killer rapes, beats and mutilates his victims. This can be taken in two ways: 1. it's and effective ode to the horror of early 1970's exploitation pics which does a successful job of making the viewer cringe and feel uncomfortable or 2. is just sick sadism. I actually side more with the first option. Who says horror HAS to be clean and politically correct. It's almost kind of refreshing to see movies like this can still affect a viewer -- yet not promote the violence as a good thing. My only suggestion is to seek out the unrated version if you want more graphic violence. *Note, however, this won't be a great film for everyone.

Reviewing slasher flicks is not unlike reviewing fast food ... it's not SUPPOSED to be good for you or even all that tasty ... it's just supposed to satisfy your need for something trashy and gratifying and cheap. If that doesn't make sense to you, then neither will slasher movies. They're a kind of guilty pleasure movie that we're not SUPPOSED to enjoy (according to polite society) ... but some of us do anyway. So I don't see any point in pretending that these movies are great cinema or that they ever even aspire to be. They're cinematic junk food ... so sit back, relax and enjoy ... or just don't bother.

With that said, is there such a thing as a "better" or "worse" slasher movie? Of course. But since even seekers of guilty pleasures are looking for different pleasures (pretty women, naked women, horror, gore, terror, violence) and suffering from different kinds of guilt (pretty girl guilt, nudity guilt, violence guilt, etc.), the notion that there is a universally good or bad slasher flick is just as pointless as the notion that we should all eat one flavor of ice cream. Personal preferences are just that ... personal ... and preferences. And what sort of personal preferences is this movie likely to satisfy and disappoint?

Of the three SPM movies this is the one I enjoyed the most, which is only to say that its blend of guilty pleasures suited me best ... and Hope Marie Carlton (Playboy late 80's and early 90's and other vehicles) certainly had something to do with that. She was a favorite of mine "back in the day". To me, the faux violence of this film was a bit edgier than in previous "driller" movies, and pushed my personal buttons more effectively than the previous flicks, but that's not really saying much as none of these films is all that graphic. A GREAT slasher movie ... no ... but I did add it to my collectin.

I'm a sucker for punishment. So after watching the abysmal original slumber party massacre, i decided to rent this one to see if it could be worse. Well, its a little better. The music is improved and actually fits the mood of the film. There is at least an attempt at a plot this time albiet a laughably bad one. One that makes no sense. So whats going on this time. Same old story. Sex, booze...a killer. This killer is somewhat more menacing than the killers in the previous two films but hes also over acted with some real bad lines ("uncle..this ones for you" hack!). This film packs the usual carnage found in this series but has no suspense at all. And no suprises. It should take no time at all to figure out who the killer is. Still, with all its faults, this film is oddly watchable and kind of draws you in a bit even though you could really care less which bimbo gets offed next.

My sister had the 'mis-fortune' to purchase this video, from a video store that was going out of business.

I am a fan of the first 2 movies, though for different reasons-one is good, campy, fun and the second one is just hilarious!

This one, however...well, I don't know WHAT they were trying to achieve, but all it resulted in was a ridiculously BAD movie!!

You, basically, can figure out who the killer is WAY before they reveal it.

And the murders themselves are rather dull and unimaginative.....the movie IS fun to MAKE FUN of though!!

It is so silly that everyone could have gotten OUT of the house and been able to save themselves had they only crawled out a broken window and walked over their dead friend....instead of being all squeamish and screaming. Then spending the rest of the movie running around the house trying to keep from being murdered!

After a hard day of partying on the beach a group of girls head to Jackies house for a slumber party. Little do they know a wierdo has followed them home. As the party begins, the girls drink beer, a wierd neighbour spys on them and the freak from the beach hangs around outside spying on them. The guys turn up to scare the girls and get invited to the party. One of the girls invites a guy named Ken that she meet on the beach to the party. Before long a dead body is found in the closit and the girls panic. It's not long before they are all being chased by a psycho wielding a drill. WOW, I truly loved Slumber Party Massacre III, it was a great movie, but I had to look past a few things, most of the girls and guys could not act, the charicter where very stupid, they kept knocking out the killer then running off, leaving him to get up and resume killing. If you look past the stupidity of this movie you begin to see how much fun it is. The twist with this one is that the killer is one of the teenagers, or one of the weirdos, we don't find out until halfway through, the killer also has more of a charicter, he isn't just an escaped mental person, or someone that just desided to show up for no reason. The is alot of gore in this movie (and I saw the cut version) the deaths arn't all drills, there is a chainsaw and even a for sale sign comes into play. Over all this is the best of the three, many might disagree with me, but it's my opinion and I love this trilogy and I think the third is the best.

I did actually enjoy this movie. The story was written well enough to keep you mostly guessing at who the new driller killer was. This is clearly not an Oscar candidate, or a truly terrifying film, but it should keep you entertained for the entire running time. Of course,If just one of these girls knew how to open a latch on a door, this movie could have been a 10 minute short.

The gore was decent, however, after watching all three of the series, you long for the creative killings of Jason or Michael.

The characters were attractive, and were appropriately dressed, and undressed for this type of movie. With the one exception being the "tough" chick, who pretty much looked like a man in drag.

If only they had spent a little time tying up the loose ends. The writer set a stage for killer justification, but left the majority of the explanation up to the audience. I am fine with no reason psychotic killing, but if you are going to tease us with reasoning, you need to follow through.

I wont go into deep detail about the movie, but this movie is hands down as good as Slumber Party Massacre. The acting and plot are really good for the low budget. This was actually better made then alot of big budget horror films made lately. I wish they would make a straight up sequel to the first one though. But this one ranks right up there with it.