In 1975, Amy Jones served as Martin Scorsese’s assistant while he directed Taxi Driver. A few years later, she turned down the chance to edit Steven Spielberg’s E.T. in order to make her 1982 directorial debut, a slasher written by feminist author Rita Mae Brown.
The movie follows a slumber party’s dark demise at the hands of a serial murderer who fetishizes power tools. It has all the trappings of the era — plenty of blood and the standard nudity screen time expected of an early-’80s horror film — but woven through the storyline are the complexities of female friendship, isolation, and trust. It’s a body-count film built around the female experience. Even with a woman in the director’s chair, the movie drew criticism for exploiting women, a charge Jones pushed back on by pointing to male directors who made similar films and escaped the same scrutiny.
Today, Slumber Party Massacre is remembered as a clever subversion of the slasher subgenre. While it delivers all the gore, nudity, and tropes expected of a 1980s body-count film, it stands apart for its distinct female gaze. Rather than leaning on a single “final girl” savior, the movie champions female collective action and survival — a choice that helped cement its status as a cult classic.
It’s also remembered for its sharp, deadpan dark humor, which consistently undercuts the terror with absurd situational comedy. Where its slasher contemporaries played everything dead straight, this film treats its horrific scenario with a wink to the audience, striking a satirical tone that skewers the bizarre nature of teenage priorities. The humor ranges from witty, macabre dialogue — like Valerie’s infamous Jim Jones Kool-Aid quip — to broad visual gags, such as a character casually eating pizza off the corpse of a freshly murdered delivery boy.
Slumber Party Massacre is currently streaming free on Tubi.
