Slumber Party Massacre (1982) (aka The Slumberparty Massacre)

Director: Amy Holden Jones
Writer: Rita Mae Brown
Starring: Michelle Michaels, Robin Stille, Michael Villella, and Andree Honore

I was in the mood for a horror movie, but also something that was completely mindless...up until a few years ago, I feel like most movies in the genre would have fit that bill. But now that horror movies seem to be gradually rising the ranks from “cult” genre, to one that mainstream audiences are increasingly flocking to, it comes as no surprise that many horror movies are becoming more "complex", in order to cater to the ever-evolving tastes of the theatergoing public.

But there’s one subgenre that will mostly forever remain “mindless”, and that’s the slasher film. There really isn’t much room for cerebral excursions within a structure that mostly just tries to kill as many people as possible within a confined running time. And yet, it’s also shocking just how many movies have failed with that basic premise. You can certainly add Slumber Party Massacre, to the list.

This is a movie I probably wouldn't have even thought of to watch, had I not remembered frequently seeing the cover art as a kid, during my many trips to the local video store. I have to admit, there's just something...fascinating about the combination of scantily-clad women at the mercy of a man wielding a large drill. It encapsulates the entire slasher subgenre better than almost any other singular cover, and it is for that reason the image has always stuck with me. 

Trish is a high schooler (who looks 24) looking to throw a big bash while her parents are away. She tries inviting Valerie, the shy new girl, but considering Valerie overheard Trish trying to convince her friends to let her come over, fears that it’s a pity invite, and declines the offer. It doesn’t really matter, though, because the two happen to be next door neighbors, a little fact we don’t learn until later. Meanwhile, a man convicted of murdering five people escapes from prison...and we can already see where this story is headed.

One of the main problems I have is that, despite a couple (lackluster) kills early on, the entire middle of the movie sags under the weight of its poor acting and clunky dialogue. That’s when there’s an attempt to set up a “story” that’s literally as threadbare as they come; there’s also the addition of horny male characters who mostly end up as fodder for the killer. Obviously, I don’t require my horror movies to be Oscar contenders, but they should at least be entertaining; outside of some bad dialogue and unintentional laughs, this one falls well short on almost every front.

The gore, which should be the main focus in a slasher film, is every bit as uninspired as everything else. There are a couple graphic shots of drill bits exiting victims, but most of the kills leave a lot to the imagination. And that's a big no-no in this type of movie, which should aim to revel in all the yucky details.

I think the most impressive thing is just how unimpressive this whole production is as a whole. The story plays all of its cards early, showing the killer within the first few minutes, thus eliminating the possibility of any tension later on. It even goes one step further by lingering on the unmasked bad guy during the kill scenes, once again throwing out the window the potential for any red herrings or plot twists. It can't even qualify as mindless entertainment; it has the "mindless" part down pat, but very little of it is actually entertaining.

There are a couple minor positives here that prevent it from gaining a big fat goose egg: Despite the lack of tension, I actually thought Michael Villella as the killer is one of the bigger bright spots. Sure, his performance mostly consists of chasing (supposedly) teenaged girls with a large drill while maintaining a stone face, but there are occasional moments where he smiles during the hunt, as if he’s truly having fun. This gives him a rather psychopathic quality missing from other on-screen killers, especially the ones who feel the need to hide behind a mask.

There are the obligatory boobies, which in a film desperate for positives, I guess counts as one. The cast is overall unremarkable, both in looks as well as acting chops, but Robin Steele as Valerie and Andree Honore as Jackie (who looks black but is apparently not) are the two notable exceptions to the rule...thankfully, they each get a good amount of screen time (though only Steele bares her breasts, in an early high school gym shower scene). This would be the first, and most notable, role for Steele, who appeared in a handful of other movies through the ‘80s before the offers dried up; she turned to drinking and ultimately took her own life in 1994, at the age of 34. (Her single sentence obituary that appeared in the L.A. Times is incredibly sad. It was as if she was already forgotten by a world she so desperately wanted to leave a mark on.)

The only other tidbit worthy of note is that this (as well as the first sequel) is one of the few ‘80s horror movies directed by a woman. You can’t really tell it from the story, but the fact that it’s maintained cult status throughout the years in spite of that fact makes it feel like somewhat of a minor triumph, as now female-directed films are all the rage. (And that director is none other than Amy Holden Jones, who has gone on to create the popular medical drama “The Resident”, one of many shows my wife watches on a regular basis. Who’d have thunk it?)

In the end, though, this is a subpar effort with little redeeming qualities that even devout horror fans would do best to skip.

OVERALL: 2.5/10

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Christmas Capsules: A California Christmas (2020)

Director: Shaun Piccinino
Writer: Lauren Swickard
Starring: Lauren Swickard, Josh Swickard, Ali Afshar, and David Del Rio

This one is yet another tired entry into the “save the family farm” trope, but this one takes things to such ridiculous extremes that it can be difficult to watch at times. However, it’s (partially) saved by the two leads (spouses in real life), who deliver tour-de-force performances…at least, as far as cheesy holiday romances are concerned.

Josh Swickard is Joseph, a very attractive man who clearly has no trouble with the ladies. He works for his overbearing mother (surprise!), buying up land from people to---one can only presume—turn them into casinos, or resorts, or some other lofty venture. His latest task is to secure the land owned by Callie and her family, in exchange for some cold, hard cash. Now, in reality, this would probably be a very mutually beneficial situation: Callie’s family farm is wracked with debt, her fiancé and father died in the same car crash, and her mother is (voluntarily) dying of cancer—I’d say that would be the perfect time to just say “fuck it” and move on from the family business.

But good ol’ Callie (Lauren Swickard) is an “all-American” girl, and she’d rather join everyone else around her in death before she gives in to the greed of some land developer looking to make a few bucks at her expense, no matter how desperately she could actually use it.

Through a weird series of events, Callie confuses the all-white Joseph for Manny, a ranch hand who is supposed to start working on their farm. Joseph clearly has never worked manual labor a single day in his life, but Callie doesn’t really seem to notice, as she informs him that some “suit” is supposed to visit her to make her family an offer on the farm. Sensing her hostility, Joseph decides it’s best to just continue to pretend he’s someone he’s not, in order to eventually get what he thinks he wants (to get her to sell the land), but then realizes that it isn’t at all what he wants.

This trope-a-thon throws every sad cliché it possibly can toward the viewer, and it makes for a rather frustrating experience. While Callie is clearly made to look like the “tough family leader”, there just comes a point where you have to throw in the towel for her and tell her to move on. I get that she has “pride” in the farm, but when even your own (dying, may we remind you) mother is on-board with selling it, maybe it’s time to just take a little hint. Sure, it was once the family business, but times change—certainly your dead family members would realize that, and want you to be happy above living in poverty just to continue the family tradition.

Beyond the palpable yearning of the leads, the movie also finds some footing in the relationship between Joseph’s assistant, and the real Manny (who of course the assistant happens to stumble on, because the towns in these movies are so small that only the cast can fit in them). At first, it becomes merely a business proposition: the assistant pays Manny $3,000 to keep his mouth shut, and to not report to work, something he has little problem with. But despite making us believe the story is going to go one way (that Manny will continue to blackmail them to keep getting what he wants), it settles down; the assistant, who basically lives with him for the week, and the Americanized Mexican man become good friends. Their relationship is pretty familiar, thanks to lazy writing, but the cast helps elevate it into another bright point for a movie that sorely needs them.

In the end, this is a promising movie that is undone by the “throw everything and hope it sticks” method that was apparently undertaken by the filmmakers. However, some of it does manage to stick, and that - along with the outstanding lead performances (especially Lauren Swickard, as Callie) - are what elevate this above some similar fare. However slightly.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

• Beyond the tropes listed above, there’s also a kid involved, my least favorite of all tropes. Her character isn’t all that annoying, but she still feels pointless by default, the way kids usually are.
• Of course Callie’s dead fiance’s best friend—who wants desperately to court her now that his friend is out of the picture—is the one who pieces everything together, leading to the obligatory, completely misguided, fight.
• This one might set a record for “most interrupted attempts to tell a person the truth”, as Joseph tries three times to reveal his true identity to Callie, only to get cold feet each time.
• They bang! It’s amazing to me how many Christmas movies just want to be so “wholesome” that they neglect the inclusion of the most romantic, passionate act two lovers can engage in. (Although the fact they're married in real life also probably helped.)
• The strongest part of the movie is also its weakest link: Lauren Swickard (who, for the third time, plays Callie) also wrote the shitty script! Come on, Lauren! Next time write a story that matches your performance!

RATING: 5/10

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Christmas Capsules: A Beauty and the Beast Christmas (2019)

Director: Dylan Vox
Writer: Scotty Mullen
Starring: Leah Pipes, Donna Mills, Ryan Kelley, and Rob Raco

The Asylum is a production company that’s generally the horror equivalent to MarVista—actually, they may be even worse. While most MarVista movies are bland retreads of popular plotlines, they’re at least more or less ripping off their own stale formula; The Asylum tends to take their ripping off to a whole ‘nother level, frequently making movies with titles and box art that are very similar to popular blockbusters, at least partly in the hopes that unknowing people may stumble on their version instead of the real one and—settle for it, for some reason? I don’t know, doesn’t seem to be a very sound business model, but it’s suiting them well, so what do I know? (Supposedly they’ve never lost as much as a dime on a release) (As an example: Fast and Fierce, a movie featuring fast sports cars, is a current release, as is Battle Star Wars a film that has nothing to do with the wildly popular sci-fi franchise).

Well now they jump on another trend: the Christmas movie. I guess that’s actually kind of a good idea, because Christmas movies already suck, and “sucking” seems to be their entire mantra. They’ve made an entire company out of churning out uninspired, Z-grade schlock; since that describes many movies churned out during the holidays, then maybe it’s a better fit than it would initially seem to be on paper?

Well it isn’t…and it is; this is one of those movies that will remind you why you fell in love (ironically, of course) with holiday romance flicks to begin with. Actually, it probably won’t: if you actually watch these because you enjoy the love stories in them, chances are this one is sorely going to disappoint. The leads lack chemistry together, the writing and direction are wooden, the storyline is awful (and only weakly alludes to the title), and Leah Pipes’ sole method for dealing with every issue that arises seems to be to pout like a spoiled 7-year-old-brat. It’s pure, unadulterated crap from virtually every angle.

But—and perhaps it’s merely the spirit of Christmas infecting me—there’s just something inherently…enjoyable about it all. The jokes are frequently off-color and actually funny, the actors themselves seem to be having a good time (and deliver mostly good performances), and the atmosphere is imbued with a sense of freewheeling fun. It does go off the rail at times, and not all of the jokes land, but we found ourselves genuinely laughing out loud on several occasions.

I don’t want to bore you with the details, but I probably should: Pipes is Ginger Holiday, a social media influencer (that’s become the new go-to job in these movies, replacing “ad exec”) who lives and breathes Christmas every single day of the year. When her follower count starts plummeting as a direct result of a facial rash that won’t go away, Ginger finds that her endorsement stature with a popular global cosmetics brand is in immediate danger. To salvage her career, her grimy agent needs to act fast—and figures the best way to right the ship is to have the holiday queen “fall for someone who’s the complete opposite.

And that opposite is Beau Bradley, an aging skateboarding influencer who also is in need of a career boost. Can the two of them successfully use each other to get what they want, without true love getting in the way? Of course not.

The intro is over-the-top, but Pipes hits all the right notes (pun intended), perfectly encapsulating the ridiculousness of the idea to begin with; the results are surprisingly funny, and set a positive mood for the remainder to come. This is literally a woman whose entire being is indebted to a titular holiday; refreshingly, even though she’s a popular star because of her Christmas-themed videos, her actual love of the holiday is genuine.

Also perfect: Rob Raco as Derek, her shady agent. Really, he’s just a stereotypical sleazeball but, for the most part, seems to mean well (at least until a rather idiotic twist near the end). He strikes that tough balance between being a complete douchebag, and being a likeable guy, consistently landing somewhere in between. He also has good comedic timing and consistency, making him far funnier and more engaging than he probably should be.

I mean, really, this is an awful movie: the two leads fluctuate wildly between liking and hating each other; there is no chemistry between them; the writing is abysmal; the entire plot is godawful and bears little resemblance to the source material; and Ryan Kelley is pretty wooden as Beau. Yet, despite all those knocks, there's something that's just...entertaining about all of it. Sure, most of these cheesy holiday romps are "entertaining", the way watching old people fall down, or get hit by cars, is entertaining. But this one somehow manages to be entertaining in all the right ways: the atmosphere is upbeat and positive, the characters are likable (at least, in their own ways), and there are some genuine laughs to be had. 

You also get the feeling that the creators are in on their own joke; nothing feels like it should be taken seriously at all.  That at least helps cancel out some of the downfalls (the terrible plot idea, for one), though the writing is still abysmally bad no matter how you cut it.

If you're one of those old-fashioned people looking for a cutesy holiday romance to get you into the Christmas spirit, this one ain't for you. But if you're a millennial looking for a trash holiday movie that's funny, entertaining, and terrible, then your search ends here.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

• I have very limited experience in the matter, but this may be one of The Asylum's best movies.
• Ginger's black friend is funny. Black friends are always funny.
• The two leads' lack of chemistry is almost endearing on its own.
• Of course Ginger's mom is a supermodel still stuck in her former glory. She's funny, but also a little too stereotypical.

RATING: 6/10

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(only available on Facebook, for some reason.)

Christmas Capsules: Alone for Christmas (2013)

Director: Joseph J. Lawson
Writers: Nancy Leopardi, from a story by Naomi L. Selfman
Starring: David DeLuise, Kim Little, Davis Cleveland, and Gerald Webb

We must be in much better moods than usual this holiday season; although some of the movies we’ve seen have really sucked, there weren’t many (if any at all) that we truly hated. I mean, our relationship with these cheesy holiday flicks are pretty fickle: all it takes is one bad character, one forced plot twist, one obligatory argument started for a stupid reason, to take an otherwise enjoyable movie into “frustrating” territory.

I will freely admit that I picked this movie for one reason, and one reason only: I knew it would bomb. (Well, that, and to get a little break from the romance movies that permeate the atmosphere this time of year.) I mean, an homage (read: rip-off) of Home Alone, only with Macauley Culkin’s character replaced by a dog? There’s just no way possible that can’t be atrocious. Add to it the dad from “Wizards of Waverly Place” (a show my wife and I actually enjoyed, mostly without irony, during its run years ago), as well as the fact that this is a production of The Asylum, and that leaves you a recipe for catastrophic failure. 

It is, but most of it is enjoyably so: it’s not until the actual “defending the house” plotline starts that it veers off into “irredeemably bad” territory, with Bones the dog using everything at his disposal to rid his family’s large house of three bumbling would-be burglars. This is a combination of awkwardly bad special effects, a serious lack of comedic timing, and a rather startling level of violence (I wasn’t expecting a character to land face first onto a grill).

David DeLuise, the aforementioned dad from Waverly Place, plays a character known only as “Dad”, which really goes to show you the level of detail the writers paid to the story. He and his perfect family—which consists of the ideal combination of wife, husband, son, and daughter—are going on a trip to their grandparents’ house for the holidays. However, they are only able to take one of their two dogs with them on the trip, a notion that’s actually ass backwards (I feel like most families would either take both or none); so poor old Bone gets stuck going to the kennel.

In a scene that goes on for way too long, Dad has some reservations about the place, but the weird owner reassures him that he’s been doing this for a long time and will take good care of the dog while they are away. Reluctantly, Dad agrees—but before you know it, Bone breaks free and returns home after catching wind that some robbers might be targeting their house. Christ, whatever. The usual hijinx ensue, including lots of cartoon violence and overly inept criminals that frequently cross the line into unfunny territory.

It’s not without its plusses, though: Jonathan Nation as Anthony, the kennel owner, is genuinely hilarious in the role; so too is--and I’m not making this up--Kevin Sorbo, who clearly was in this just for the check (his character just up and leaves midway through for no reason), but still delivers a performance that’s way better than the material deserves. Once he leaves, the movie’s all pretty much downhill from there.

The end results are about what you’d expect, but despite a decent beginning, the knocks against it quickly start to accumulate: the effects are some of the worst I’ve ever seen (see: the scene where the family SUV backs into something, complete with computer-generated broken glass…despite the car not even touching what it was supposed to crash into), the writing is beyond inept, and the “twist” ending is so illogical that you’ll probably be screaming at the television set. I also hated the voice of the family’s other dog, Cleveland (cute name, though), who frantically tries getting home in time to give Bone a hand. He’s got a couple funny lines, but ultimately he’s an unnecessary side character that distracts from the overall story.

And the scenes of Bone defending the house are so poorly done that they defy logic. I'm even setting aside the idea that he's a dog that somehow manages to not only remember where a bunch of household items are, but also manages to grab them using just his paws (and without making a single bit of mess). I mean, I guess you kind of have to give it that pass, or else you wouldn't have much of a movie. My problem with all of it is that, like most of the jokes, there's no setup to the "punchline"...it just happens.

In Home Alone, you had a kid who slowly realized what was happening, and then sprung into action to defend his home. It isn't believable in the slightest, but of course it isn't really meant to be. Yet, it almost feels believable because of the way Kevin uses random everyday items to destroy the bumbling crooks; the traps feel like they were set up in a way a child of his age would think. In Alone for Christmas, there's no set-up to the defending of the home whatsoever: Bone finally makes it home shortly before the thieves make it there, and then just starts setting up random traps, which of course, the thieves all manage to hit, often with little to no coersion.

But beyond this instantaneous, ungratifying setup is yet another layer to why it doesn't work: the traps aren't really set up in a way befitting a dog. It would have been much..."cooler" (for lack of a better term) if the traps felt like they were actually conceived from the mind of a dog; instead, many of them are ripped off right from Home Alone. It's terrible, and the movie loses all of its remaining grip once these scenes start.

The leader of the thieves is actually pretty decent, and deserves to be in a better movie; the others, not so much. They're just your standard moronic young burglars who overact at everything and get their laughs out of saying stupid things and acting as dumb as possible. Yeah yeah, it's a low-budget movie marketed toward kids, so it's not all that surprising, but that fact doesn't make me hate it any less.

If you were planning on streaming this (and, let's be frank here: you weren't), then I'll make it easy for you: don't. There's nothing here for you. Even if you have kids, I'm sure you can find something that will hold their attention for longer, and that won't give you an intense headache from the stupidity of it all.

OVERALL: 3.5/10

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

• In an odd marketing decision, the dog on the front cover isn't even the one who defends the home from invaders.
• This is the reason Asylum movies have such a bad rep.
• The "mouth moving" effects on the dogs are actually pretty good for a trash movie.

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Christmas Cupcakes (2018)

Director: Dylan Pierce

Writer: Neil Chase, Nathan Usher

Starring: Cindy Busby, Erin Karpluk, Corey Loranger, and Fulvio Cecere

Christmas Cupcakes is the kind of Christmas movie that will appeal to the no doubt growing number of people that are either disgusted, or becoming so, at all the millions of holiday romances that come out every year. I mean, it started off modestly, with Lifetime and Hallmark being the main purveyors of that junk, but now it seems like every channel (and streaming services like Netflix) are jumping on the bandwagon—I feel like it’s becoming a bigger market than cocaine. And I guess it makes sense: People can’t seem to get their fill of them, while others are simply overstuffed on watching the same five stories play out over and over again.

But Christmas Cupcakes is different. Oh, there’s the haphazard story that seems like it was written and finalized in under three hours, and there’s also the occasional appearance of romance, just so it “fits” in with the genre, so all the typical earmarks of a holiday romance are here…there’s just no romance. It’s almost like the filmmakers wanted to tell their own story of a family struggling to maintain their bakery, kept getting their pitch denied, so they threw in a few Christmas references and a kiss, called it a Christmas movie…bingo! Instant greenlight!

For many, this idea will probably fall flat; it probably would have for me if it didn’t bring with it a certain sense of nolstalgia. You see, my wife and I watched dozens of Food Network shows while we were dating, and while we ran the gamut from cooking shows, to Guy Fieri’s latest adventure, we probably spent the most time on baking competitions. The aesthetic of the competition scenes are stellar for a (presumably) low-budget flick, as they get everything down from the lighting, camera angles, and even the cheesy jokes. (Unfortunately, that attention doesn't really translate well to the actual competition, which is completely devoid of any drama and doesn't even show any of the other contestants, outside the two main rivals.)

The Remo family is in a tough place: following the untimely death of the family patriarch, who also ran the bakery, sisters Kim and Gina are forced to decide whether to sell it, or continue its tradition. For maximum dramatic value, Gina is hesitant to take it over, because she has a well-paying job that she completely despises—all it takes is a bad day at work (and it seems all of them are) to convince her to give it a shot. But of course, it's not because she wants to, it's just because it's her best option.

While Kim has the drive to keep everyone together, she lacks the baking skills of her late uncle; that’s where Gina steps in. While she clearly isn't really all that into it, baking comes naturally to her, something that Kim somewhat resents. For her part, Gina resents the idea that Kim was always the “successful” one, while she was always seen as a failure and/or outcast (nothing like siblings bonding over perceived failures!). 

Then they learn of the “Grand Prix Dessert Challenge”, or something along those lines, which is a baking competition that awards the winner an astonishing $150,000 grand prize. Why, that’s almost exactly how far behind they are on payments for their bakery! Although Gina is once again reluctant to partake, she’s nudged ahead when she discovers that Kim went ahead and signed them up anyway, in a rather douche move. I hope they won't have a big fight that could threaten to derail their chances to win the dessert competition, thus giving them enough money to save the day and live happily ever after! Nah, I doubt that will happen, given their completely opposite demeanors.

Even outside of the overly clichéd “save the family bakery” story, there’s some good stuff here. The characters, for the most part, are solid, and there’s some pretty good interplay and (family) chemistry between them—it really feels like they could actually be related. Fulvio Cecere is perfect as the stereotypical Italian uncle, and provides some solid laughs. And of course, the performances are all heightened by the appearance of Cindy Busby, who is either adept at making poorly-written characters believable, or is just really good about selecting which holiday projects she pursues (no offense to her, but I’m thinking it’s the former).

Her character is actually an almost complete piece of shit, throwing temper tantrums when things don’t go her way, buckling at the first sight of pressure, and storming off over the stupidest little things. I could see where people would hate her, but things like that are the fault of the writers—she’s merely doing what she was hired to do--and she does it about as well as anyone else could do. There aren't too many other actresses I can think of that can almost guarantee a decent holiday movie, but she is certainly one of them.

The guy isn't really even worth mentioning, because he's in it more as a "rival" than a love interest. It's kind of a shame, because he's good-looking enough and also appears to be a decent actor, but there aren't really any sparks or chemistry between them. I'm honestly not sure if it's because they're in romance scenes so little, so their relationship isn't given enough screen time to "grow", or if it's just because they literally don't have the slightest bit of attraction to one another; either way, it will be a disappointment to the old-fashioned crowd that what little romance there is, is marred by two people who really don't seem to care about each other in the slightest.

In the end, if you're one of the few that like your cheesy holiday romances largely "romance free", (and a bonus if you're into televised baking competitions) Christmas Cupcakes is a great way to kill some time. It has funny characters, and a likeable cast, that all do their best to overcome the stale concept.

RATING: 7/10

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