FILMBRATS - REVIEWS

Trish’s parents are leaving for a trip, and let’s just say they aren’t coming back tonight. What’s an 18 year old girl to do with the house all to herself? Why, throw a slumber party, of course. A few of her girl friends come over to enjoy a night-in full of drugs, booze, dancing and pajamas. Little do they know, or less do they care that a serial killer has just escaped from prison. Russ Thorn, who murdered five people a few years back, is looking to pick up where he left off. Perhaps tonight he’ll beat his record when he crashes the party.

This is a paradigm for a typical horror movie if I ever saw one. It’s also a great example of how to do it wrong. Right off the bat, we’re treated to a little gratuitous nudity when the main character wakes up for school and changes clothes right in front of our eyes. Then not too long after that, it jumps right into the slaughter when our killer pulls a utility woman into her van and drills her life away. See, that’s a great way to start off a slasher flick. The problem is it isn’t scary and it gets worse.

After that first initial sequence there’s some sporadic nudity, but the killing, while relatively frequent, feels extremely sparse. Yeah, he’s killing people, but we don’t always get to see it, or we only get to see a tiny bit of it. There just isn’t much of anything to write home about until near the end. It’s not very exciting and the good make-up effects should have been much more graphic. Also it doesn’t help the fear factor when there’s no crazy backstory or mystery involved. The killer is Russ Thorn. How do I know that? Well, because they drill his name and the fact that he escaped prison after killing some people into your head. That’s a pretty boring villain. He’s not indestructible. He’s not menacing. He’s not someone you trust to begin with and then they turn on you. It’s just an older creepy looking guy who doesn’t look all that strong.

The film was written and directed by a woman (novelist Rita Mae Brown, whose concept for a parody of bimbo slasher flicks was reportedly butchered, and Amy Holden Jones in her debut, respectively). To me, that just makes the totally tasteless shower scene all the more funny. I also mention that because it gives a new perspective to the killer. Russ uses a drill to mutilate and murder his victims. You’d think that with such a blatant commentary as that there’d be more symbolism in there. But you’d be wrong. The psychological aspect of the film is even worse than the rest of it. You’d also think that the women would be smarter. The least they could do is grab the drill after he drops it or maybe try to attack him then. They started off relatively smart, but quickly regressed into predictable frustrating situations and key mistakes that just extended the film for no real good reason. As far as the direction, well let’s just say if it’s not a shot from the murderer’s point of view, then the set-ups have no real purpose. There’s also a frequent lack of proper coverage for the stuff you want to see.

Everything is just bad. You’ll see the worst women’s basketball team ever; you’ll hear horrible audio mixing as well as cheesy synth piano music in the score; and you’ll get a bunch of non-thrilling kills. The worst part is that the film isn’t that scary. I think they go back to the fake scare well too many times. Virtually ever horror movie has a couple of fake scares when something startles the characters when it’s really nothing to worry about. This has a lot, usually involving the tired device of a hand coming out of nowhere. If anything positive can be said about the movie, it’s that the acting isn’t completely terrible for the genre, the dialogue is slightly above par in that there are no excruciatingly dumb lines, and it’ll keep you interested. Somehow.

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