Only now does it occur to me... SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II (1987) and IT'S A LIVING (1980-1989)

Only now does it occur to me... that SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II dares to answer the question, "What if A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET swapped out Freddy Krueger with a breakdancing version of 'Kenickie' from GREASE?" 


Dear reader, I can tell from your reaction that this statement was probably too much for you take. Allow me to begin at the beginning.

The SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE series is often analyzed as a second-wave feminist project because the films were written and directed by women, commenting on a central trope of "young ladies socializing at a slumber party who have their gathering crashed by a frustrated male maniac wielding a giant drill-phallus." This project is somewhat undermined by the films' mostly male financiers (including Roger Corman!) basically demanding box-checking exploitation flicks with the requisite nudity and gore that, to the untrained eye, can become indiscernible from the movies they are meant to critique. The satire's certainly there, but, in the context of the completely whacked-out and glorious 1980s horror scene, the subversion reads perhaps a little too subtly. 

Lingerie pillow fights and junk food in spades

The second film begins with the lazy horror sequel trope of "the hero dreaming about/flipping through a scrapbook of the events of the first movie in order to catch the audience up to speed." Our hero is indeed one of the final girls from the events of SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE I, though she's been recast with Crystal Bernard, a Texan performer best known to my household as a star of the cult-classic workaday restaurant sitcom, IT'S A LIVING (1980-1989). More on that later.

She has done her best to block out the horror of her initial brush with the drill-wielding killer "Russ Thorn," and her bleak home life (with her deadpan mother, Jennifer Rhodes––who later would play Winona's mom in HEATHERS) attempts to replicate the stilted, trauma-charged weirdness of the domestic spaces in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.

 

I must say, while the first installment riffs with films like HALLOWEEN, BLACK CHRISTMAS, THE DRILLER KILLER, MANIAC, and MY BLOODY VALENTINE, part two goes all in on A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.

Instead of Freddy Krueger's glove popping up from the bubbles, blood drips from the faucet.... meh


Crystal Bernard and her friends are in a garage band, and they rehearse (er, lip-synch) every day, 

 much to the delight of her middle-aged-high-schooler crush (Patrick Lowe)

and, combined, their chemistry possesses all the raw eroticism of a Mentos commercial. 

 A weekend slumber party is arranged at his condo (check out that knock-off Care Bear lamp!)

 

and the girls and their boyfriends go on a road trip. Once there, some incredible 1980s tableaux are achieved: pastel couches and matching swimwear,

exceptional pool toys,

a fancy night filled with champagne and corn dogs,

and the '80s rule of pools is obeyed (my definition of the '80s rule of pools is thus: if A., a swimming pool exists, then B., someone must be pushed into it, arms flailing).

 

Here, we receive a notable upgrade to the '80s rule of pools: we switch to a POV-angle halfway through the push; truly it's as if we the audience have been flung into the deep end.

 

Because this is a Roger Corman-produced venture, we must recycle some old Corman footage. Here, it's the ladies watching ROCK N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL (1979) on TV. 

Apparently Corman's crew code name was "Jennifer"––as in "look alive, people, Jennifer's snooping on set."

 

At roughly the halfway point, Crystal Bernard's character begins dreaming about a nefarious madman. Except it's not the generic "prison escapee serial killer" whom they dispatched in the first installment. Somehow, the driller killer has returned... and he has returned, inexplicably, as a giggling 1950s greaser (think: one of Stephen King's ubiquitous bullies) with a 1980s arena rock guitar, except its neck has been replaced with the bit of an industrial power drill.

It definitely bears mentioning that this new driller killer is played by Atanas Ilitch, aspiring actor/musician and the son of the CEO of Little Caesar's Pizza (Mike Ilitch, who also owned the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Red Wings), who would go on to appear in a grand total of three films. He really goes for it, shouting one-liners about "rock n' roll never dies" and "I can't get no satisfaction!"

He's basically indiscernible from a maniac version of Kenickie (Jeff Conaway) from GREASE. 

Now, you're probably wondering, why did the movie decide to update its major villain in such a radical and 1950s-inflected manner? Well, there is no reason. Not within the text of the film. If you squint, you might think "oh, he's a killer musician and the girls are also musicians" but there's no effort to play up even that flimsy connection. Far more of an effort is made to give us nothing. 

No Faustian bargain for a record deal (like in PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE), no secret connection to the characters' parents (like in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET), no 50s-80s crossover event (like IT), no historical curse or motivation or backstory whatsoever. It'd be like replacing Freddy Krueger in the sequels with Ward Cleaver, or Elvis. And without comment.

Speaking of Freddy Krueger, the Greaser Driller Killer begins tormenting the women with hallucinations––like when a raw chicken flies out of the fridge and attacks Crystal Bernard:



A moment which recalled, for me, a pivotal scene in the subsequent ZOMBI 3 (1988)

Oh, and when the cops show up, their names are Officer Krueger and Officer Voorhees.

Anyway, the Greaser Driller Killer begins murdering our cast one by one, though he takes the time to show off his break-dancing skills in a wonderfully anachronistic scene. He does 'em all, The Worm, the Backspin, I think he was about to do a Windmill when Corman probably showed up on set and told them to get back to making a horror movie.

Ultimately, Crystal, now our final girl, manages to lure him onto a construction site and set him on fire, therefore actually setting up the possibility of additional Freddy Krueger-inspired sequels. 

Unfortunately, this is the last we would ever see of this character, as he was not invited back for SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE III. Whomp whomp.

 

Now, this is where I would usually end the review––but after my own viewing of the Crystal Bernard sitcom, IT'S A LIVING, I must direct your attention toward Season 6, Episode 10: "A Very Scary It's a Living," which aired on January 7, 1989. 

Today, IT'S A LIVING is probably best known as a sitcom starmaker for Sheryl Lee Ralph (of DREAMGIRLS and ABBOTT ELEMENTARY fame), though its cult following is truly well deserved, and I personally love their use of the SEGA font for their main title.

Crystal Bernard's character on this show ("Amy Tompkins") is portrayed as an extremely devout Christian and occasionally bumpkin-y Texas transplant to Los Angeles––but lovably so, like Woody Harrelson's "Woody Boyd" on CHEERS. In this particular episode, the part-time waitress/part-time casting director "Dot" (Gail Edwards) is supposed to cast a horror movie, and the episode is essentially an extended nightmare sequence, whereupon the workaday happenings at their restaurant are reimagined as a horror film. 

 

This is all very much in conversation with SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II, as Crystal's character describes her love of horror films in general and Freddy Krueger in particular:

 

In the nightmare-within-the-episode, someone is murdering everyone at the restaurant, Dario Argento-POV style.

 

As the episode reaches its increasingly surreal climax, the typically innocent Crystal rips off her Jason Voorhees mask and reveals herself to be the "killer." 

 

 

They've got her done up in a tuxedo with teased hair and a statement bow worthy of Tawny Kitaen, and honestly, she looks... fucking awesome?



What a major missed opportunity, that SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II did not star Crystal Bernard as a Weimar-era maniac, contorting her face and making absurd and Expressionistic acting choices. Look how much fun she's having!

 

The people (me, at least) demand more of... whatever the hell this is! 



Hold on, I'm gonna make this my desktop background. Amen.

Only now does it occur to me... BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980)

Only now does it occur to me... that James Cameron first encountered the "TERMINATOR font" while working for Roger Corman.

What we have here is a John Sayles (!) scripted, low-ish budget sci-fi remake of Akira Kurosawa's THE SEVEN SAMURAI, starring a hodgepodge of affordable actors, from Richard Thomas (THE WALTONS) to Robert Vaughn (THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN) to John Saxon (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) to Sybil Danning (REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS) to George Peppard (THE A-TEAM). It's more enjoyable than you might expect––slightly better than STARCRASH (1978) or KRULL (1983), but pretty much playing in the same "poor man's STAR WAR" sandbox. I rate it lower than FLASH GORDON (1980), if that says anything.

According to James Cameron (credited as co-art director), he was responsible for most of the film's special effects, which are quite impressive for the budget. For comparison, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK had a $30.5 million budget, BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS had a $2 million budget, and there are several spaceships which easily look good enough to be in STAR WARS. (The same cannot be said for the sets, costumes, and makeup effects.)

Anyway, it's notable that this early Cameron effort uses the same font that Cameron would make famous in THE TERMINATOR (I cannot find any interview where this is mentioned––since he had such an outsize role in the art direction, production design, and special effects, it's possible he helped pick out the font.)

It's also where Cameron met composer James Horner,

and the two would go on to collaborate many times before Horner's death––from ALIENS to TITANIC to two AVATAR films. In all, quite a formative experience for the 25-year-old Cameron.

R.I.P., Roger Corman

Farewell at 98 to a legend of genre cinema, B-Movie mogul Roger Corman. On this site, I have opined at length about films he directed, like X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES or THE PREMATURE BURIAL, or movies he produced and/or presented, like CANNONBALL!/CARQUAKE, CRAZY MAMA, BLOOD BATH, ELVIRA, MISTRESS OF THE DARK, ROCK N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, or CHOPPING MALL, or even movies he just had a cameo in, like SCREAM 3 (pictured), SWING SHIFT, or John Carpenter's BODY BAGS. There are a lot of great artists, from Jonathan Demme to Jack Nicholson to Jack Hill to Joe Dante to John Sayles to James Cameron (um, I guess he had a preference for dudes with 'J' names?) whose careers he helped launch and cultivate. He handled the American distribution for Akira Kurosawa's DERSU UZALA, Ingmar Bergman's CRIES AND WHISPERS, and Federico Fellini's AMARCORD, keeping one foot in the arthouse while the other was in the grindhouse. R.I.P.

Only now does it occur to me... HEART LIKE A WHEEL (1983)

Only now does it occur to me... that I've found my new favorite alliterative way to refer to this movie, and that is a "Bonnie Bedelia/Beau Bridges boundary-breaker biopic."

The story of Shirley Muldowney (the first woman to become a champion top-fuel dragster), HEART LIKE A WHEEL is a solid studio programmer with a compelling lead performance by Bonnie Bedelia (DIE HARD, THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY?, THE BOY WHO COULD FLY, SALEM'S LOT). Most importantly, it allows me to make statements such as:

"Bonnie Bedelia and Beau Bridges are bitterly brooding at a bar––bring Beau a Bacardi" and

"Bonnie Bedelia and Beau Bridges' Byzantine bond becomes a burden at this Baton Rogue B&B"

 

Directed by Jonathan Kaplan (TRUCK TURNER, WHITE LINE FEVER, OVER THE EDGE, TV's ER), HEART LIKE A WHEEL is basically a rogue's gallery of Roger Corman veterans, including cinematography by Tak Fujimoto (DEATH RACE 2000, CAGED HEAT), a bit part by Dick Miller (A BUCKET OF BLOOD, THE TERROR), 

Because this is "a movie," that means Dick Miller is in it

 

supporting roles from Leo Rossi (GRAND THEFT AUTO) and Bill McKinney (CANNONBALL!), as well as a wonderful Paul Bartel (HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD, ROCK N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL) cameo as a sexist French chef (playing the character, "Chef Paul").

We've also got baby Anthony Edwards (with hair!) as Bonnie Bedelia's teenage son 

and a variety of other interesting players, like THE OFFICE's Creed Bratton and musician Hoyt Axton.