The Slumber Party Massacre is a true '80s slasher classic. Refreshingly, the film doesn't pretend to be something it's not. It incorporates all of the usual slasher cliches, but with a healthy dose of humor. As a result, it's a lot of fun. Interestingly, the screenplay was written by feminist Rita Mae Brown, who intended for her script to be a parody of the slasher genre. Instead, it was filmed as a straight-forward slasher, so it both follows and subverts the rules of the genre. The guys are weak and ineffectual, with serious manhood issues, and their onscreen deaths are more brutal than the girls'. Most of the girls are likeable, and they're not complete weaklings as they band together to fight back against their attacker. There's even humor to be found in the requisite nude scenes. The camera lingers just a bit too long on one girl's butt, and the dialogue includes "I think your tits are getting bigger," to which a chorus of girls excitedly ask, "Mine?" Another example, the boys answer the door expecting the pizza delivery guy. They say, "what's the damage?" On the other end you hear, "six... so far." "Six, even? Okay."

For a film that was directed by a woman and written by a feminist, 'Slumber Party Massacre' is just as misogynistic as the slice-and-dice pictures executed by men. Glances between women can interpreted as latent lesbianism and a prurient shower scene pans up and down the female bodies like a voyeur. The women aren't entirely helpless though as they easily thwart the drill-obsessed killer (a machete severs the tip of his drill which is symbolic of his manhood). Most of the midsection is fraught with torpid scenes of girls gossiping about boyfriends and French-kissing. Even the spoof elements (the girls are oblivious to a body in the fridge and red is a primary color for the beverages throughout) can't enliven this shoddy B-movie.