Slumber Party Massacre III (1990)

The greatest movie ever!

An action-packed slog

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Slumber Party Massacre III (1990) * (out of 4) A group of gals are playing volleyball on the beach when they decide to meet at one of their houses later since the girl's parents are away. The slumber party is crashed by a few of their boyfriends but a psychopath killer also shows up wanting blood. This third film in the series proves that the previous entry wasn't the worst in the series and it's a real shame to see how bad the series fell especially considering how good the first movie was. It's clear that the only reason this movie was made was so Roger Corman could milk some more money out of the series and I'm sure this thing did well when it hit video shelves over twenty-years ago. The biggest problem with the film is clearly its screenplay because we're given some of the most uninteresting characters in any horror film I've seen and it also doesn't help matters that each of them are among the dumbest I've ever seen. For the life of me I can't understand what any of the characters were doing from the twenty-minute point on because it would have been easy for them to survive yet they just continued to make one stupid mistake after another. I know many reading that will say every horror movie has characters doing dumb things but the dumbness here is so obvious that you can't help but roll your eyes and become annoyed with the characters. The characters are all rather bland and there's not much to any of them. You certainly don't care what happens to any of them, which is another major issue because I've always felt that for a horror film like this to really work you need characters you either like or at least have fun watching. There are several weird characters that are used to add a mystery angle but the entire plot is just so boring that you really won't care who's doing the killing and way. It then comes as no shock that when we learn who the killer is you can't help but be confused by his reasoning's for the murders. The performances are pretty much what you'd expect in a film like this and the typical T&A is on hand, although it's not too much. The gore level isn't all that high and the death scenes are mostly forgettable as they're cheaply produced and we never get to actually see too much. The dildo electrocution might be a first though. SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE III is for die-hard fans of the genre only and I'm sure the majority of them will want to turn it off.

Director Sally Mattison and screenwriter Catherine Cyran eschew the usual playful humor that distinguished the first two immensely enjoyable films in this series in favor of a much darker, more harsh, and unpleasant approach to relating the standard story of an all-girls slumber party that's savagely crashed by a vicious killer brandishing an enormous power drill. The violence this time is extremely gory and sadistic, with the killer's distaff victims getting offed in assorted grisly and appalling ways (an electrocution by vibrator rates as the definite alarming highlight). The handsome and outwardly charming Brittain Frye makes for an unusual and interesting choice as the murderous Ken, who's the angry and unstable victim of sexual abuse by his police officer uncle. The gals are spunky and attractive, with stand-out contributions from Keely Christian as the cute and appealing Jackie Cassidy, the adorable Hope Marie Carlton as the cheery Janine, and Maria Ford as the foxy Maria, who sports a massive hairdo and bares her breasts prior to suffering a brutal and disturbing near rape by Ken and then meeting an especially gruesome untimely end. Moreover, the tone is quite grim and mean-spirited, with the deceptively breezy and lighthearted opening giving way to a much more cruel, twisted, and no-holds-barred ferocious sensibility that's anything but silly or inoffensive. It's this latter take-no-prisoners gritty and unflinching edge that in turn makes this slice'n'dice outing a movie that's deserving of greater respect and appraisal for boldly breaking away from the generally inane and innocuous mindset that was the prevalent attitude of the series prior to this last, most serious, and truly upsetting installment.

Teenage girls decide to have a slumber party which is interrupted(..to put it mildly)by a deranged madman whose mania derives from his sexual abuse as a child at the hands of his uncle.Third film in the series shows how tired the formula has become. Nothing at all fresh or original, even the killer's weapon of choice(..the cordless power drill)has become passé. The girls(..including bombshell Maria Ford)are all eye candy in their sleepover clothes, even if the actresses portraying them are unable to transcend their one-note characters. Basically, the film shows some of the girls having a beach hangout with their male friends from school. Juliette(Lulu Wilson)is enamored with a handsome blond, Kenny(Brittain Frye, in a dreadful performance)inviting him to the slumber party later that night..major catastrophic decision. The film presents two red herrings, a strange next door neighbor(Michael Harris) to Diane(Brandi Burkett), the one holding the slumber party, and an oddball staring at them at the beach(Yan Birch). I think no one will be fooled because it's just too obvious.But, the problem I have with this film(..despite the frustratingly questionable acts by the girls when up against the psychopath who locks them inside the house)is that the menace isn't the least bit convincing thanks in part to the performance of Frye. And, this guy is hit over the head by two lamps and a glass dish, is stabbed through the leg with a fireplace poker, with his eyes doused with floor cleaner, yet the girls still can not subdue him! There's one sequence which infuriated me..three girls, after the killer's eyes have been blinded, watch one of their own get her shirt ripped off and drilled to death without even attempting to help her! And, even when they do subdue him, the girls allow him to get free! You just want to pick up a heavy stone and clunk them over the heads! Anyway, the girls' boys are unable to stop him either, which makes this film hard to swallow because the killer isn't very imposing, except for his drill. The strength in numbers, even after they discover he's the wacko, fail to join forces to surround and cease him. They just disperse in all directions, with chaos as a result, the killer allowed to hunt each down, the drill doing some serious damage. Besides the drill boring through victims, there's little else that potent in the ultra-violence department. The murders are sadistic(..one victim's Achilles heel is sawed into with a chainsaw, another is stabbed in the chest by a "For Sale" sign post), but die-hard slasher fans have seen much worse. Maria Ford and Lulu Wilson shows us some flesh, so that's nice(..although Ford's mistreatment at the hands of the killer is pretty harsh). The motive for the killer to randomly kill women(..and the men who get in his way)is rather limp.

~Spoiler~ Slumber Party Massacre 3 is possibly the most predictable movie ever made. This thing held absolutely no surprise for me. It has a lot of mis-direction for no reason. It looks as though they were trying to make a whodunit but you know who the killer is if you look at the back of the box. Absolutely ridiculous! Speaking of the back of the box, there are three pictures that are not in the movie. Never does the "driller killer" use a hook, yet on the back of the box he's killing two different females with one. There is also a ton of filler material to make it a feature length film and the three main guys all could be famous look-a-likes: Richard Grieco, Patrick Dempsey, and Lavar Burton. The flick is majorly lacking a complete story. Ken's (the killer) uncle killed himself, but why he did it is never explained. Why he is killing the girls is never explained, although the main girl's father is a lawyer and that may have something to do with it. I'm completely reading into that one because the movie never refers to that. Also, Ken acts really weird when any of the girls go for his package. Could his uncle have molested him? I'm also reaching there because it's never explained. Funny scenes include the many opportunities they pass up to kill Ken, death by dildo, and one guy dies from getting hit in face. The topper is one scene where Ken is distracted with one girl for 10 minutes and the other girls are just standing around. No one helps out, no one tries to escape, it's hysterical. Typical slasher junk. If you think the first two Slumber Party Massacre's were bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.