Tuesday, October 8, 2013

The Last Slumber Party (1988): The Doctor is In... SANE!

The last slumber party 1988 movie poster

It’s the last day of high school and Linda, Tracy and Chris (Joann Whitley, Nancy Mayer and Jan Jenson) are looking to kickoff their summer with a bumpin’ slumber party at Linda's house. Complete with alcohol, loud music and a few totally hot guys, surely this is a radical way to begin one’s freedom from the tyranny of high school. However, unbeknownst to the girls, there’s an insane mental patient on the loose. And to make matters worse, it just so happens that Linda’s father is the mental patient’s doctor, making Linda’s home the prime target for this scalpel wielding psychopath.

Directed by Stephen “don’t call me Steven” Tyler, The Last Slumber Party is best described as such: if Halloween and The Slumber Party Massacre had an incestuous baby, and that baby born of incest fell from its crib and hit its head on a nail embedded cinder block every night of its life, then you would have yourself a fairly good idea of what The Last Slumber Party is like.

The Last Slumber Party 1988 3

The comparison to The Slumber Party Massacre is obvious, and certainly not unfamiliar territory for numerous sleepover slasher flicks of the era, but the Halloween influence is a whole other ballgame. To say The Last Slumber Party is inspired by Halloween is like saying that John Carpenter looks a little old, and this is most notable with the film’s three female leads. From the way they talk, act, the specific personality that each girl has, and even the way in which they are filmed, Linda, Tracy and Chris are essentially carbon copies of Laurie, Annie and Lynda from Halloween. Though these carbon copies seem to have spent a little too much time in the sun eating rock salt covered tree bark.  

The Last Slumber Party 1988 6

Outside of the Halloween influences, something else that is immediately obvious about The Last Slumber Party is just how insanely cheap it is as a piece of “cinema.” The acting is awful, and the filmmaking is completely amateurish. Furthermore, the sound design is horrific, with moments that are particularly astounding in their lack of quality. This is most obvious in an early scene where it’s nearly impossible to differentiate between the score, a talking teacher and a group of loud-mouth teenagers. There is also another hysterically inept scene where one of the girls is talking on the phone (in another Halloween-esque moment), and the girl on the other end of the line is clearly talking from just off camera to make it sound as if she’s actually on the phone.

The Last Slumber Party 1988 5

Magnum P.I. photobombing like it’s no one’s business!

The killer (played with brilliance by the film’s director, Stephen “don’t call me Steven” Tyler) also delivers a high level of entertainment in a fashion that is nothing short of ridiculous. Adorned with a pair of doctors scrubs and a surgical mask, this mental madman spends 90% of his screen time making crazy eyes directly at the camera. The kills, which consist of scalpel induced throat slashes and nothing else, are also cheap in their simplicity. Though, in all honesty, I’d rather have cheap throat slashes than a copout off-screen kill.  

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Depending on your taste, the lack of quality found in The Last Slumber Party could work for or against it. While I wouldn’t consider it an upper tier B-Movie, it’s an amusing watch that will play perfectly to a crowd of drunken friends or to that specific horror fan who enjoys these types of bad movies. Namely me.

8 comments:

  1. Honestly don't recall ever stumbling across this one. Not sure I want to, now, either!

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    1. Ha ha, you might be better off taking the route of avoidance!

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  2. There's actually a scene where in the middle of making out, a guy goes, "Do you have any............drugs?" O_o

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    Replies
    1. I've never tried that line before, but it's pretty smooth!

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  3. I have this on DVD which also has "Terror at Tenkiller". Both movies suck so badly. Last Slumber Party seems so promising too. That poster art, the cliche plot line... What went wrong?!??!

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    1. I have that DVD, too, but I haven't watched Terror at Tenkiller yet. If The Last Slumber Party is any indication, I'm sure it's a masterpiece!

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  4. I'm trying to remember if this is the movie I'm thinking of - I definitely saw the one about the guy in scrubs slashing throats, but did this movie's box heavily promote the musical involvement of 'Stryper', or am I thinking of something else on that front?

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    1. Yep, that's the same movie, but the band that was heavily featured was called Firstryke. This movie couldn't afford Styper!

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