It’s Women in Horror Month and we’re taking on Amy Holden Jones’ The Slumber Party Massacre (1982). Both adored and reviled, this cult classic consistently divides audiences. Is it feminist? Is it exploitative? Can it be both?
Today the Horror Homeroom crew is weighing in on those questions as well as asking whether death by a 12-inch drill can ever be anything other than phallic.
Suggested Reading:
- Clover, Carol J. “Her body, himself: Gender in the slasher film.” Representations 20 (1987): 187-228.
- Kendrick, James. “Slasher Films and Gore in the 1980s.” A Companion to the Horror Film (2014): 310-328.
- Staiger, Janet. “The Slasher, the Final Girl and the Anti-Denouement.” In Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film, pp. 213-228. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015.
- The Slumber Party Massacre. DVD. Directed by Amy Holden Jones. Los Angeles, CA: Santa Fe Productions, 1982.
Related: check out Rebecca Booth’s excellent post on Slashers, Sex, and Sisterhood in The Slumber Party Massacre.
You can stream Slumber Party Massacre on Amazon:
