Review Overview
Acting
Visuals / Camera
Sound
Story
Pacing / Editing
Characters
Entertainment Value / X-Factor
Mood / Atmosphere
Grease meets the Driller Killer!
If you remember the first Slumber Party Massacre, Courtney is all grown up now and still has problems with what happened that night. She has nightmares, hallucinations and to top it off her older sister Valerie was committed to an institution.
Well if you remember from the first movie Courtney Bates is the younger sister of Valerie Bates. Valerie was the one who put a stop to Russ Thorns murderous rampage once and for all. Courtney, all grown up now still has problems with what happened that night. She has nightmares, hallucinations and to top it off her older sister Valerie was committed to an institution.
Courtney is part of an all girl rock band made up of some friends. Well they decide to take a trip and stay at a condo, during the trip Courtney has her spastic moments with seeing things that aren’t really happening. Once they arrive at the condo Courtney’s episodes gradually get worse. And then eventually her worst nightmares start playing out in reality!
REVIEW
Slumber Party Massacre 2 was released October 30, 1987. Was written and directed by Deborah Brock. Also stars Crystal Bernard, better known in her role on the t.v. show Wings.
Slumber Party Massacre 2 is very different from the first movie. Even though the sequel stays true to the story’s main characters of the first. The story here is Courtney, younger sister of Valerie Bates, is having terrible dreams brought on by that fateful night of when her and her sister was attacked by nut job Russ Thorn. Valerie has since been placed into a psyche institute and Courtney also having a difficult time dealing with that as well. Courtney seems to space out a lot, during these times she has visions of the man she dreams about and at times of her sister. As if her sister is trying to warn her about the doom to come. The man she dreams about doesn’t appear to be real, no one has seen him but her.
One of the things that brings the “fun element” to this movie is the fact that it is so musical! Like a horror movie musical! It is definitely something fresh and not done to often at all. And the way this was set up, it worked pretty well and even had a few catchy tunes in it to bop your head to.
About our “dream” killer….
He mimics Elvis and even sings! He carries this red electric rocker style guitar, which is very cool looking actually, and even has a drill at the top of the neck. Some have said he slightly resembles a young John Travolta, even sporting a Black leather motorcycle jacket to improve upon his “rocker” style look. It’s Grease meets the Driller Killer!!!
Courtney thinks that maybe all she needs is to get away for a while. So her and a few of her rocker band gal pals run off to a condo for the weekend for some band practicing and a girls night out weekend. But Courtney is already feeling bad before she leaves for the trip because her mother wanted her to go up and see Valerie with her that same weekend. Guilt can have quite the influence on a person mentally and may be exactly why Courtney’s dreams and hallucinations get worse once she arrives at the condo. She tries to tell her friends about the dreams, but they don’t believe her. They never do until its to late.
In some odd sick way, even though the driller killer wants to kill Courtney, you get this dreadful sense that he is in love with her too. Maybe we could call this movie Grease 3: The Domestic Violence Chronicles.
Another aspect of this movie I think was taken from A Nightmare on Elm St. with the whole dream killer formula, especially when he finally comes out of her dreams and manifests in real life to start killing her friends. If you pay attention to the two officers in the movie their names are officer Voorhies and officer Kreuger. Even though they spell them differently, I think we get the inside joke. I never found this movie to be boring and its one I can watch more then once. I think its a very fun type of movie, mostly because of the musical aspect. Once again, I didn’t find the kills that creative in this series. But it does have its moments mainly in the dream and hallucination states. One scene that’s hard to forget is when one of the girls comes up missing and Courtney freaks and swears up and down shes been murdered. So they finally call the cops, Voorhies & Kreuger. Well what do you know, their friend shows up. She had left to go get some Oxy Ten because she had a zit. But as shes telling Courtney this, Courtney starts to hallucinate this zit being 50 times bigger then what it really is on her face. And then it explodes!
So there are a few memorable scenes. And of course your fair share of nudity. But sorry, no nudity for Crystal Bernard. The cast is very likable and seems to genuinely mesh well together. Juliette Cummins also stars in this movie. You may know her better as Robin in Friday The 13th: A New Beginning.
Even the driller killer is likable. So I would suggest this film for a watch. I found it quite entertaining in my opinion and was a lot of fun!
Jennifer Rhodes as Mrs. Bates
Kimberly McArthur as Amy
Patrick Lowe as Matt Arbicost
Juliette Cummins as Sheila Barrington
Heidi Kozak as Sally Burns
Cindy Eilbacher as Valerie Bates
Atanas Ilitch as The Driller Killer
Joel Hoffman as T.J.
Scott Westmoreland as Jeff
Michael Delano as Officer Kreuger
Hamilton Mitchell as Officer Voorhies
Lilith’s Tidbits:
The dead bird you see in the movie, was an actual real pigeon. A frozen dead pigeon was supplied for the film.
Cindy Eilbacher, during her audition for Valerie Bates, ran out of the room crying.
Kimberly McArthur, who played Amy and was a former Playboy Playmate, had a stipulation in her contract that she would not be doing any nudity scenes.
The driving scenes in the movie were done without any permits!
Juliette Cummins was injured while running outside, she fell for real and hurt her knee.
After the Credits, this message appears:
“Any unauthorized exhibition, distribution, or copying of this film or any part thereof [including soundtrack] is an infringement of the relevant copyright and will subject the infringer to severe civil and criminal prosecution as well as a midnight call from the Driller-Killer.”
TRAILER: