Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 10/31/22

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Monday, October 31, 2022

The Slumber Party Massacre (Amy Holden Jones, 1982)

The Slumber Party Massacre (Amy Holden Jones, 1982)

Cast: Michelle Michaels, Robin Stine, Michael Villella, Debra De Liso, Andree Honore, Gina Smika Hunter, Jennifer Meyers, Joseph Alan Johnson, David Milbern, Jim Boyce, Pamela Roylance, Brinke Stevens, Rigg Kennedy. Screenplay: Rita Mae Brown. Cinematography: Stephen L. Posey. Art direction: Francesca Bartoccini. Film editing: Sean Foley. Music: Ralph Jones.

A shabby little shocker with honorable origins, The Slumber Party Massacre was scripted by Rita Mae Brown as a queer feminist parody of the slasher genre. But even the Roger Corman quickie factory wasn’t prepared to go that far, so director Amy Holden Jones played the parody with a straight face. Still, the wit of Brown’s original shows through often enough for the horror elements to be tinged with mockery. The ditzy high school students (played by twentysomething actresses) are terrorized by a power-drill-bearing escaped mental patient (Michael Villella). Most of the victims are the mean girls who decided not to invite newcomer Valerie (Robin Stille) to the sleepover being thrown by Trish (Michelle Michaels) while her parents are away for the weekend, but they also include a hapless pizza delivery boy and the older neighbor who agreed to look after the girls if they need help. There’s a lot of shrieking and running around in the dark, but the blood, considering the gruesomeness of the murder instrument, is kept in check. Yes, it’s a cult classic that defied the initial bad reviews and went on to inspire sequels, none of which are quite up to the original.