Editorials
‘The Slumber Party Massacre’: Slashing the Patriarchy
Knife wielding killers, synth scores, and premarital sex are the language of slasher films. Rising to popularity in the late 1970s and early 1980s, this subgenre of horror is known for its violent and exploitative nature. Films like Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre helped create the formula, and ever since films have been copying, subverting, and reinventing the form. Amy Holden Jones’s 1982 film The Slumber Party Massacre dissects the slasher with feminist ferocity, commenting on the misogyny of slasher films as well as the generally male dominated genre.
As the film begins, the audience is informed that a mass murderer has escaped from prison. Within the next few minutes we meet Trish (Michelle Michaels), a high school basketball player who seems like a nice girl. She is shown topless in the very first scene in which we meet her, the gratuitous nudity not wasting a minute of time. Since her parents are going away for the weekend, Trish plans a small get together between her and her friends on the basketball team. With boyfriends, mischievous jocks, and the new girl next door, the night is already primed for trouble. Throw in a drill wielding psycho killer, and you have yourself a slumber party ripe for a massacre.
What distinguishes this film from most other slashers is the approach it takes in portraying the female characters and how it satirizes the elements of the genre. Written by feminist author Rita Mae Brown, the film was originally meant to be a parody of slashers. The producers went against her ideas and wanted a more straightforward horror flick, but Jones’s direction still accomplishes what Brown might have originally intended. Through using the known tropes of slasher films to an exaggerated degree, Jones is able to comment on the stereotypes of the genre in a clever way.
The gratuitous nudity is the most obvious example. At nearly every possible moment, topless women are shown, with the camera slowly gazing over their nude bodies. This happens within the first few minutes when we meet Trish, as well as when the girls are showering after basketball practice. During a later scene in Trish’s house during the sleepover, their jock friends peer in through the window of the living room and watch the girls change into their pajamas. The constant leering at the women’s bodies, done so in an exaggerated manner, highlights the obsession horror has with nude women. They are constantly murdered, raped, and tortured in horror films, seemingly punished for their bodies. The excess of nudity in this film calls attention to itself, highlighting the ridiculous, often senseless disregard filmmakers have for women’s bodies.
Apart from the commentary on female bodies, the film also explores female sexuality. Courtney (Jennifer Meyers), the younger sister of the new girl Valerie (Robin Stille), steals her sister’s porn magazine to look at out of curiosity. Valerie teases her and they talk about masturbation. Courtney’s interest in sex is discussed naturally, not something to be afraid of or something that girls don’t experience. This contrasts with the voyeuristic way in which the girls’ jock friends sneakily look into their window to watch them undress without their consent, which is treated as normal in most films.
Where the most blunt commentary lies, however, is in the portrayal of the killer himself. Russ Thorn (Michael Villella), the escaped mass murderer whose weapon of choice is a power drill, chooses Trish and her friends to terrorize. The immediate irony is his weapon, which is a phallic symbol and is oftentimes held at his waist to appear as so. In an iconic shot, Thorn closes in on one of the girls with his drill, but the shot is taken at a lower angle through his legs so that it looks as if it is his penis. Thorn also doesn’t speak until near the end of the film when he has Trish cornered. She asks why he chose them and he states, “You’re pretty, all of you are very pretty… It takes a lot of love for a person to do this. You know you want it. You’ll love it.” This language is clearly very similar to things that victims of sexual harassment and assault hear, which plays as the killer’s motivation.
In the final showdown, only Trish, Valerie, and Courtney are still alive. It takes the three remaining girls to defeat him, which features Valerie using a machete to slice the drill in half, rendering Thorn useless. The symbolism of her destroying the phallic symbol — the weapon of the killer and a patriarchal stereotype — is a powerful image even if overt in its imagery. A satisfying ‘plunk’ sounds as the end of the drill falls into the pool water beside Thorn. He falls into the pool after Valerie cuts off his hand. Celebrating their victory, Courtney and Valerie don’t notice that Thorn rises from the water — it’s a slasher, the killer always comes back for one last scare. Trish, Courtney, and Valerie struggle with him as he tries to strangle Valerie. Then she grabs her machete and holds it upward as Thorn falls onto it.
Interestingly, the girls are only able to defeat Thorn by also using a phallic shaped weapon. Valerie’s machete is what slices through his power drill, and she also holds it at her waist as he falls onto it. The phallic shaped power drill can be seen as a metaphor for the patriarchy, misogyny, and hypermasculinity. By Valerie cutting through this with her own phallic shaped weapon, it can be seen as her reclaiming power that she has never been granted under a patriarchal society. This extends to how a lot of women are treated in other horror films, their helplessness usually resulting in only one final girl surviving. That doesn’t happen here. There is no final girl.
Slumber Party values its female characters, something that many other slashers tend to disregard. The girls, despite being objectified by the camera in the first half of the film, are rounded out beings with greater depth than their male counterparts. Valerie and Courtney are not sentenced to death because of their interest in sex, and Trish is able to make smart enough decisions to fight off Thorn and survive. After an era of horror films featuring massacred naked girls covered in blood, this underseen gem shines bright amongst the onslaught of slasher movies made in the 1980s. Although overt in its satire and feminist message, The Slumber Party Massacre is a cleverly executed criticism of the slasher genre that still holds up today.
In this day and age, the word “troll” is often used to describe various online nuisances. Yet as abundant and irksome as the modern troll can be, they aren’t usually as fearsome as their mythological counterparts. I’m not talking about the small and gentler versions that have become more common to see in media. No, there are much bigger and scarier trolls out there—and André Øvredal’s movie Troll Hunter is one of the best places to find them.
It doesn’t take long for Troll Hunter (or Trolljegeren) to dump the Blair Witch Project-esque setup and aim for something a lot fresher. The trajectory of the story is augmented by Otto Jespersen’s character Hans, the titular Troll Hunter. The second he comes barreling out of the deep, dark woods and shouts “troll” at the camera, this movie takes a turn into what feels like uncharted territory. Not only subject-wise, but also conceptually.
For fantastical and made-up subject matter in cinema, found footage is a fast way to add a guise of believability. After all, what we accept to be the most crucial aspect of documentaries—the truth—rubs off on pseudo-documentaries, despite our understanding of the pretense involved. That is what Øvredal delivered with Troll Hunter: a movie so convincing that some viewers wondered if trolls really do exist. So, had this been straightforwardly made, it likely wouldn’t have been as effective. Conventional narratives would be more inclined to treat something like trolls as flat out unreal, and never try to convince the audience to think otherwise.
Hans petrifies the three-headed Tusseladd troll.
The viewers, like the characters trailing Hans, are quickly thrown into the deeper end of that extraordinary story. They have to process all this new information while staying on the go. So, although there is no significant amount of meandering, narratively or physically, there is still a good amount of atmosphere, not to mention tension building. It’s never anything frightful, but then again, Troll Hunter isn’t your standard offering of horror; it’s more on the low end of the dark fantasy spectrum. We aren’t ever spirited away to a faraway world—we stay in rather familiar surroundings, as well as dip into those less so. The outcome is a movie where you’re constantly more in awe than in terror.
As fantasy fiction might do, Troll Hunter prefers not to deal with incredulity. There is no time to waste on doubt, as interviewer Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), soundperson Johanna (Johanna Mørck), and cameraman Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) all follow Hans around, recording whatever this character is willing to reveal about his bizarre job. Of course, the Troll Hunter himself is not an open book; in that respect, the diegetic documentary fails to fully capture and unpack the more interesting of its two subjects. Yes, all those giant, monstrous trolls are indeed incredible, but understandably, your mind wanders to their pursuer. What kind of person signs up for this gig and then chooses to stick with it for so long?
Reviews have called out Troll Hunter for its lack of character development. In regard to Thomas and his fellow documentarians, that criticism is valid, but bear in mind, they aren’t the focus of the story, either. Meanwhile, Hans is a well-crafted character. At least better than first realized. Before he was introduced, Hans had already grown tired of the troll grind. Fed up with that low compensation for his services, resentful of the bureaucracy, and wanting to expose his employer on a large scale, Hans’ discontent is glaring.
Then there are those finer details about the Troll Hunter, such as that indifference to both the natural splendor of his everyday surroundings and the affections of an obviously smitten colleague, that also suggest some level of despondency. So it is fair to say this movie doesn’t feature any sizable growth for its characters; however, the namesake isn’t underwritten. No doubt, putting a real-life character like Otto Jespersen in that role is partly why Hans is so fascinating—maybe even relatable.
Otto Jespersen as Hans the Troll Hunter.
There is always a small risk whenever using the term “mockumentary” to describe a found-footage movie, as the word could imply humor where there is none. In the case of Troll Hunter, the term’s usage is appropriate. Some folks have claimed the English-dubbed version has the more comedic tone, however, the Norwegian cut isn’t exactly humorless. Apart from the trolls’ absurd appearances, this is a movie where the characters nearly choke on the monsters’ farts, and Christians are like walking targets. Hans’ complete apathy towards everything is another cause of laughter. Overall, the comedy is intentionally dry and inconsistent. Unfunny, though? Absolutely not.
In a movie where endemic creatures are maltreated, as well as disavowed from living freely and peacefully, it’s hard not to notice the ecological message buried beneath the story. In addition to that is the unmistakable political satire. There is this whole business about intrusive and unsightly power lines—like trolls, they’re big blemishes on the land—that leads to what is perhaps the movie’s funniest moment. The scene in question is that one where certain electric lines, the ones secretly being used to keep the trolls at bay, go in a loop and don’t actually send power to any residents. Yet the monitors of said lines don’t find this at all weird. So it stands to reason that Øvredal was having a go at those who accept the government’s doings without question.
Looking past the fact that trolls aren’t actually real, this movie is an enlightening source of information. And not just for international audiences; Norwegians, too, get schooled about their homeland’s own mythology. It’s also evident from everything on screen that Øvredal and his crew were enthusiastic about the topic. The creature designs are the most indicative of that zeal; those imaginative yet myth-accurate manifestations are equally amusing and grotesque. One second you’re laughing at their phallic noses, the next you’re white-knuckling during a hairy sequence. Most surprisingly is how well the trolls’ visual effects hold up after fifteen years. It’s not all spotless, but on the whole, they remain impressive.
Vouching for a mockumentary about trolls isn’t easy, but those who do come around and give it a shot will more than likely be grateful for the recommendation. For Troll Hunter is a real find in that vast and varied genre we call “found footage“.
A bridge troll reaches up for food and finds Hans decked out in armor.
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