SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE 3

It might be bizarre to consider a slasher movie rehash a breath of fresh air, but that's the case here. After the eclectic music video mish-mash of the previous entry in the series, Slumber Party Massacre III gets back to basics. In fact, it's nearly a rewrite of the original script, with a few improvements and a few misjudgments.

Once again, Roger Corman hired a female first-time director, hoping that the series' feminist energy would continue. Filming began using the same deceptive formula that worked before: the cast and crew started filming Nite Lite, and didn't find out until midway through production that they were making a sequel. Though the script has some clever lines and situations, the film goes more for the horror than the Scream-preview original. Ironically, Slumber Party Massacre III played as Stab (same as the Scream 2  film-within-a-film) in some markets.

A bunch of fun-loving teens are playing volleyball on the beach. Jackie (Keely Christian) and Janine (Hope Marie Carlton, Miss July 1985) interrupt their plans for a slumber party to complain about the "weirdo" (Yan Birch) that's watching them from up the beach. Meanwhile, Juliette (Lulu Wilson) picks up a college boy she knows, inviting him to the party that night. As they’re leaving, one of the girls (Devon Jenkin) is killed in her car with the ol' power drill through the midriff.

While part 2 waited almost an hour before the first murder, 3 sets up at least two suspects, some sexual tension, and scores on the body count all within the first 8 minutes. Wasting no time, next stop is a shower scene. Oh, and the peeping neighbor (M.K. Harris) is introduced as yet another suspect.

The girls assemble and spend some time running down each other’s wardrobe, especially Maria (Ford)'s saucy ensemble, while chugging generic beer. Next, the script ticks off a few more items on the slasher flick itinerary: Somebody is startled by a cat. The boys peep through a window and catch the girls slut dancing. Then they don monster masks (one of them Freddy Krueger) and scare the girls, who throw them out. When one (Garon Grigsby) is sent back to apologize, he gets impaled on a real estate sign while the girls think he's tricking them again and refuse to let him in.

Another cliché of the series makes an appearance: we see the murder site moments later, but there's no body and no blood! Later, a plugged in vibrator offs one young lady in the bathtub, but fails to blow a fuse, which would alert her companions. And of course, no one can hear the noisy carnage in the next room.

Maybe you think the pizza girl (Marta Kober) will escape unharmed when the nerdy guy (David Geenlee) takes her place (and her shirt), but no such luck. She gets drilled on the run.

The who-dunnit angle that the series' first entry merely played with at the beginning comes to center stage here, and it isn't until the third act (when even your tropical fish have it figured out) that the murderer is finally "revealed". Just in case you haven't guessed the killer's identity, a handy still gives it away right on the back of the DVD case. As usual, sexual dalliance lights the fuse that causes our psycho in residence to explode.

Toward the end, the tone abruptly switches from the camp attitude that marks most of the series. Maria Ford (brunette and pre-surgery), who had a small part in the previous film, is captured by the killer and has to endure his mad molestation before he loses his cool again and pushes the drill through her. It's a shocking and disturbing scene that feels grimly out of place, and ends the tongue-in-cheek Grand Guignol fun that had come before. Also, her frightened companions cringe on the sidelines during the entire scene, instead of taking up arms to rescue their sister like the strong heroines in the other films.

For the record, at least this time the driller killer is given some kind of motive, even though it's a flimsy one. To make up for this bit, we never learn who the beach weirdo is and what he's doing in the house.

Despite this unfortunate shift in atmosphere, Ford gets a chance to show some real acting in this early role. Maria went on to appear in dozens of genre films like Naked Obsession, Ring of Fire, Angel of Destruction, The Wasp Woman and Dark Planet. She always makes an impression, no matter how small the role.

The disc comes with a SPMIII trailer, as well as trailers for Slumber Party Massacre I and II, plus Emmanuelle: First Contact. A talent biography section has bios for Corman (yet again), Ford, Carlton, and Burkett.

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE III is available separately, or in a 5-DVD boxed "Massacre Collection" with parts 1 and 2, along with the two Sorority House Massacre movies. All are presented in fresh new widescreen digital transfers -- except for the SHM films which are presented full screen -- and all are bargain priced. Both SPMII and III DVDs exhibited the same glitch on my player, stalling out after automatically playing the FBI warning and the Concorde logo. I was able to bypass the problem on both discs by reinserting and pushing one of the number buttons on the remote right after the Concorde logo disappears.