Johanna Isaacson
I first watched The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) decades ago, with too-high, too-pure expectations. As a devout horror fan and a dedicated feminist, I freaked when I learned Rita Mae Brown wrote the script. On top of that, the film was the first slasher to be directed by a woman, Amy Holden Jones. Surely, this was a feminist classic I had somehow missed.
Anyone who has studied second wave feminism or queer history will have encountered Rita Mae Brown, the author of Rubyfruit Jungle (1973), a groundbreaking queer bildungsroman. Although her politics grew tepid over time, during the seventies Brown was one of the most visible, charismatic, and defiant defenders of lesbian rights. She was known to call out homophobia in mainstream feminist organizations, such as NOW, and sexism in the nascent Gay Liberation Front. Eventually, in response to this lack of radicality and inclusivity in existent political groups, she helped form the lesbian separatist Furies Collective.
I didn’t quite know how the conventions of an eighties slasher movie could reflect these politics, but I was eager to find out. So, I was puzzled when the Slumber Party Massacre turned out to be what I would have expected from a male writer and director. The film was filled with scantily clad high school girls who are, one by one, penetrated by a sick serial killer’s unsubtle phallic weapon.
