The Slumber Party Massacre Franchise is a Wonderful Fever Dream

The Slumber Party Massacre is an extremely underrated franchise. The series focuses on a simple slasher concept, a driller killer going after teens during a slumber party.

This series is pretty gory, and has gained its own cult following from horror fans! What makes the films stand out, is that this is the only series I have seen that really changes up the horror formula.

It’s pretty original, and I wish more horror franchises would take risks like this! The Slumber Party Massacre franchise has become one of my absolute favorites in horror!

The slasher is a different person in every film of the trilogy.

Yes, you read that right!

We follow a different driller killer in every film of the franchise!

Isn’t that so cool?

When I watched the first film of the trilogy, I thought it was a great slasher. The driller killer was an escaped convict that goes on a rampage against teens during a slumber party. Sounds like your typical slasher, right?

Then he gets defeated by the last three teens that survived the ordeal.

I immediately assumed that the franchise was going to be following an old school horror trope of the slasher coming back from the dead to exact revenge and continue his reign of terror.

Oh boy, was I wrong.

The franchise turns into a wacky fun ride of terror and gore.

It felt like whiplash when I first started watching the sequel.

In the second film, the driller killer is a supernatural guitar rocker that appears from the dreams of the little sister from the first film.

Yes, I’m not playing when I say this.

The Slumber Party Massacre turned into a rip off of A Nightmare on Elm Street, but you know what?

I was here for this train wreck of a turnaround! And I mean that in a best way!

The sequel went above and beyond. This is probably one of the craziest sequels to a franchise. I didn’t care that it was now a supernatural horror film, I was willing to stay for the insanity and the kills.

And I have to say, I loved the sequel.

It was so ambiguous when it came to the supernatural slasher. He loved to rock and kill people at the same time, performing a song as he advanced on his victims.

It was like watching an 80s music video with horror elements, but I thought it was creative as hell. It was a huge risk for the franchise to go down this route, but I thought it was a great sequence overall.

I liked how we never find out if he was real, or if the little sister from the first film went crazy and killed her friends with a drill!

I don’t care if people hated this film!

It was something different, something original.

We got one of the best sequels of all time, and I loved it!

The kills were pretty crazy too!

The third film was the only one in the franchise I didn’t like.

The third film, which is hands down the worst one in the franchise; features a high school driller killer.

Honestly, the villain in this one was so cringy. He was supposed to be the ‘hot killer’ of the franchise, going after teens. I will at least say that it was a creative play, revealing the killer so early to the audience.

Unfortunately, the execution was kind of poor.

I found myself getting annoyed with the killer in this one. His backstory was so disturbing, but I think they could have gotten a better actor to play the killer.

The impact and the insanity of the last two films just wasn’t there.

I think this movie was really made for the shock value of the plot and kills.

My guess is that the director was trying to aim for the wackiness of the new direction the series took, but after doing some research for this particular film, studios kept interfering.

It was a shame to learn, because the director definitely had her own vision for this one!

I’m glad the ending was great for the third film! It was kind of heartbreaking to watch the main character’s best friend die, as she cries in horror.

So yeah, the franchise is super weird, but I really appreciate the crazy differences the directors went for. The writers wanted to go for something new each time, and I love how the movies don’t focus on the same killer.

It’s definitely one of the few slasher franchises that really stands out from so many horror icons and cult classics!

Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn