The Slumber Party Massacre Collection Slices Up the Night on DVD

You might want to lock the doors and load the guns before your next sleepover. The Slumber Party Massacre showed what could go wrong with a house full of girls basketball players and nutjob on the loose. The film and its two sequels are brought together in the Roger Corman Cult Classics collection arriving in October. Here’s the press release from Shout! Factory:

Stay up all night with the films that put a new twist on the slasher genre. Along with Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980) and Prom Night (1980), Slumber Party Massacre (1982) helped define the slasher film ethos of the 1980s. Put together by first-time director Amy Holden from a script, titled Don’t Open the Door, by feminist author Rita Mae Brown (Rubyfruit Jungle), the film was an immediate hit for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, eventually spawning two sequels.

Here, for the first time, all three Slumber Party Massacres are brought together in one DVD set, due to drill its way into your heart on Oct. 5, 2010 from Shout! Factory, in association with New Horizons Picture Corporation. The 2-DVD set includes The SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE: Special Edition, SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II, and SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE III, as well as such killer all-new bonus features as a three-part documentary, “Sleepless Nights: Revisiting The Slumber Party Massacres,” a photo and poster still gallery, and an essay on the Slumber Party phenomenon, “Close Your Eyes For A Second … And Sleep Forever.” A must have collection for all slasher fans and collectors of Roger Corman’s Cult Classics, own the complete set for $24.97 SRP.

Thanks in part to a brilliant marketing campaign pushing a feminist angle because the film was written, produced and directed by women, the story of a girls’ basketball team drilled to death at their celebratory slumber party became a staple in mom-and-pop corner video stores of the 1980s. Bulked in with the “best” of the early slashers, The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) had a secret weapon: a wicked little brain and a dark sense of humor layered between the three nude scenes and one very brief sex scene. The girls take on the masculine roles (playing sports, working as telephone repair women, basketball coaches, carpenters and always willing to fight back against the “Driller Killer”), while the somewhat effeminate boys made the stupid decisions typically played out by women in the subgenre. Additionally, the boys died more violently on screen than their counterparts.

In The Slumber Party Massacre, 18-year-old high schooler Trish (Michelle Michaels) decides to invite her high school girls’ basketball teammates over for a slumber party. What she doesn’t know is that the girls will get an uninvited guest — Russ Thorn, an escaped mental patient and murderer of five people who’s weapon of choice is a portable power drill.

The only sane survivor of the first incident, Courtney (Crystal Bernard of Wings fame), dreams of the driller killer returning in the first sequel, Slumber Party Massacre II (1987). She can’t help shake the feeling that she and her friends will be viciously tormented by the killer. Her nightmare becomes reality when the killer returns, reincarnated as an evil rocker with a deadly guitar, who goes about slaying more teens.

The final, installment, Slumber Party Massacre III (1990), is a reimagining of the first film, but with more gore and violence. After a relaxing day at the beach, a group of teens decide to have a slumber party. Their boyfriends predictably show up to scare them, but there is something much scarier lurking in the shadows as the group starts getting attacked by an unknown killer with a fixation on drilling.

Disc 1
The SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE: Special Edition (1982)

Disc 2
SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II (1987) and SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE III (1990)

Special Features:
· New anamorphic widescreen transfer (1.78:1) of “The Slumber Party Massacre” and “Slumber Party Massacre II”
· All-new three-part documentary: “Sleepless Nights: Revisiting The Slumber Party Massacres”
· Photo and poster still gallery
· Theatrical trailers

THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE
Starring Michelle Michaels, Robin Stille, Michael Villella, Debra Deliso, Andree Honore
Produced and directed by Amy Jones
Screenplay by Rita Mae Brown
Director of Photography: Steve Posey
Edited by Sean Foley
Music by Ralph Jones
Co-produced by Aaron Lipstadt
Rated R

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II
Starring Crystal Bernard, Patrick Lowe, Kimberly McArthur, Juliette Cummins, Heidi Kozak, Joel Hoffman, Scott Westmoreland. Featuring Atanas Ilitch as the Driller Killer.
Written and directed by Deborah Brock
Director of Photography: Thomas L. Callaway
Edited by William Flicker
Music by Richard Cox
Production design by John Eng
Special makeup effects by James Cummins
Produced by Deborah Brock and Don Daniel
Executive producer: Roger Corman
Rated R

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE III
Starring Keely Christian, Brittain Frye, M.K. Harris, David Greenlee, Brandi Burkett, Hope Marie Carlton, Maria Claire, Maria Ford
Directed by Sally Mattison
Written and produced by Catherine Cyran
Director of photography: Jurgen Baum
Edited by Tim Amyx
Music by Jamie Sheriff
Produced by Roger Corman and Catherine Cyran
Rated R
Total running time: 241 minutes
Special features are not rated

Shout! Factory will continue to present ROGER CORMAN’S CULT CLASSICS home entertainment releases on a monthly basis. Upcoming highlights include The Evil, Twice Dead, The Warrior and The Sorceress, Barbarian Queen, Not of This Earth, Terror Within, Streets, Angel in Red, Lady in Red, Crazy Mama, Big Bad Mama, among others.

Independent filmmaker-producer Roger Corman’s storied career ranks as one of Hollywood’s most amazing success stories. Having produced more than 350 films and directed 50 others, his influence on American film goes far beyond his own energetic, creative low-budget movies. He is arguably one of Hollywood’s most gifted and masterful filmmakers. In 2009 he was the recipient of an honorary Academy Award for his contribution to the medium of film.

Noted for his keen ability to spot young talent, Corman’s most lasting legacy will undoubtedly be the legion of producers, directors, writers and actors he has fostered, among them: Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Ron Howard, Peter Fonda, Jonathan Demme, Gale Anne Hurd, Diane Ladd, Tommy Lee Jones, William Shatner, Sandra Bullock, Bruce Dern, Talia Shire, Charles Bronson, Joe Dante, Carl Franklin, Jonathan Kaplan, Bill Paxton, Dennis Hopper, Curtis Hanson, Peter Bogdanovich, John Sayles, David Carradine and Sally Kirkland.