Since 2018’s Level 16, we’ve been keeping a close eye on the career of director Danishka Esterhazy. Level 16 was a taut and terrifying science-fiction tale of dystopia in which young girls were ‘nurtured’ to behave appropriately. It was chilling in it’s tone and message, and demonstrated that Esterhazy was a voice to follow. Since then the filmmaker embraced the sillier side of cinema with a rip-roaringly fun horror version of beloved children’s show, Banana Splits. Now Etherhazy blurs the lines between both movies, creating a female-centric campy slasher flick that reimagines eighties guilty pleasure, The Slumber Party Massacre.
This version of Slumber Party Massacre opens in Hope Spring 1993. A slumber party is underway at an isolated lake house when suddenly the festivities are interrupted by a driller-wielding maniac by the name of Russ Thorn. One of the women manages to survive by pushing Russ into the murky depths of the lake. The opening works as a sneaky retrofit of the original film, setting the scene for the story to follow. Events then quickly jump forward to present day where we meet Dana, the daughter of the sole survivor of the Russ Thorn massacre. In spite of her mother’s ordeal, Dana decides to join her friends for a weekend of frivolities in the middle of nowhere. Is history about to repeat itself?
The 1982 film was originally written as a parody to the slew of slasher films that followed in the wake of John Carpenter’s Halloween. However, the production morphed into the very thing it was poking fun at. The end result retains some snippets of humour and an imbalance of tone. This newer version redresses the inequality, Esterhazy handling the silly and the serious to generate a horror that is fun, but keeps just enough darkness to generate unease. One of the more fun elements is the role reversal, everything from the original is spun on its head. The women are strong and in control of their femininity, using it to seduce the men around them into a false sense of security. In contrast, the men are emotional, highly strung, and shot through the female gaze to objectify them as female characters are so often treated. This is all summed up with one simple scene involving a group of men staying across the lake from Dana and her friends. The men, all scantily-clad, frolic with one another, giggling, playing a very feathery game of pillow fighting. Esterhazy goes further still by including a ‘himbo’ shower death.
Over the last few years, there have been a few of what have been touted as feminist slashers, but Slumber Party Massacre is one of the better ones. The empowered female characters here work within the framework of the story, Esterhazy not content to create a singular final girl, but rather an army of them. It’s great work as some others haven’t worked as well as intended, the 2019 Black Christmas being a key example. That film pushed the agenda too far and ended up expressing itself as anti all men and extremely angry. Slumber Party Massacre constructs and communicates its message clearer. It’s clearly taking aim at the patriarchy but does so in a more subversive manner.
Destined to become a staple of younger horror audiences’ own sleepovers Slumber Party Massacre is a brilliantly fun and modern reworking of one of the lesser loved eighties slasher films. A short runtime and a zippy pace make it even more palatable and the perfect film to blow away the cobwebs of the week.
Slumber Party Massacre
Summary
A fun reworking of a tarnished classic, Slumber Party Massacre offers the newer, younger horror generation perfect sleepover scary fun.
Slumber Party Massacre was reviewed at the Soho Horror Festival. Slumber Party Massacre arrives on Digital Download 13th December 2021 and on DVD 10th January 2022.
