TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Lawbolisted Powerful

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

TdSmth5 Years ago, a girl and two guys are hanging out. She's going to party later with her girlfriends so she tries to kick them out. One of them pulls out a knife and kills her. At around that time the pizza delivery guy walks in on the scene of the murder. The suspect is sentenced to jail.In the present a cop and a fed discuss some crime at a crime scene, a girl is a survivor. And in long flashbacks we learn what happened. Some kids (some look actually pretty old to be college kids) hang out during spring break at a lake. The guys of course want to spend time with the girls. But the girls have other plans--a slumber party. It will take place at Heather's house. Her father left for a couple of days and a creepy neighbor offers to help if she needs anything. The guys in the meantime spend time at a bar and argue whether to visit the girls anyway.It's not long before the creepy guy starts stalking the girls, the lights go out, and some of the guys end up killed. Some of the cops in the meantime vanish and someone helps the killer from the intro escape from jail. More killings ensue and we find out eventually who's behind all of it.Spring Break Massacre is the worst of the The ____ Massacre movies. It's fatal flaw is its atrocious look. The movie looks pale, dark, out-of-focus, which is not the way you want to go when this movie is all about attractive girls. Oddly enough, the deleted scenes look better than the actual movie. So it doesn't look like equipment is the issue but a conscious decision to make this movie look lousy.Speaking of girls, most of them are attractive, in particular Sarah Minnich and another actress who's name I don't know, she's the girl on top on the cover.Audio and re-recording also has issues. The story is alright though and shows some effort. Acting by the more experienced actors is good (audio problems don't help though) and Minnich does also a solid job. Several other actors don't do a solid job.I'll give The Spring Break Massacre 3 stars. One for the lovely Sarah Minnich, who is attractive and can act. Why hasn't Hollywood given her more and better roles? One star for the little bit of nudity. One more star for the story that deserved a much better production.

Scarecrow-88 Just the idea of a cranky, insulting Reggie Bannister as the sheriff of an Illinois town is incentive enough to watch this absolute waste of your life. That and a rather frail Quigley as his deputy. The director just doesn't know how to shoot a scene. Close-ups at the wrong time. The use of black & white photography for no apparent reason other than to do so. Slow motion when not needed. Zoom lens that is awkward instead of effective. The overbearing score that wears out its welcome right out of the gate. The film goes back and forth from "the day after" and what transpired "during the night", becoming rather jarring when you try to follow the damn thing, with patience put to the test. There are Grindhouse lines that are sometimes used just for the hell of it. The director even casts the film in a pink hue at one point. Dialogue in the film goes on and on about testicles in disarray, what guys' girlfriends might be doing at their sleepover, sex (of course), and wisecracks towards each other (mainly poking fun at insufficient lovemaking) covering a number of subjects (from who's pectorals are more impressive to lake house girl's insufferable father). Both the guys and the girls discuss pulling pranks on each other. There's a creepy neighbor of Heather (Sarah Minnich; she's the one with the house by the lake the girls are having a sleepover at) who pops up occasionally to give the girls the heebie jeebies because of his strange vibes. When the first murders happen (to the boys), it is just right out of left field (the throat slashings aren't too bad actually, with lots of squirting blood (although one of the male actors who got the knife couldn't fake a death if his life depended on it), and there's a nasty face gash that is rather a nice bit of prosthetic work). As much as I dig Reggie, I could do without a bunch of damn close-ups of his mouth. That and the droning piano playing when he's communicating to a prison official about an escaped convict (freed from a psycho in a cop's uniform). There's this soft focus lensing, too, that will probably force you to squint at times. Minnich makes these expressions when she's grossed out or freaked out that did kind of amuse me (at first) but even that becomes tiresome after awhile. And I could have done without that same over-and-over shot of Minnich with her head covered with a hoody and bandages over her nose. There's even the Jigsaw voice across the phone threatening the Sheriff and telling him his deputies are "still at the station". Quigley fans will have to accept the fact that she's in the film for a few minutes and has conversations with Reggie that get on his nerves, not long after getting her head slammed multiple times on a cop car hood. Daddy re-emerges after supposedly going on a trip to a tool convention, totally a lunatic for absolutely no reason except that it must have seemed like the ideal twist when the script was written. There's this whole back story on a pizza delivery man wrongfully accused, but if he doesn't step in any evidence or damage the crime scene it is kind of hard to swallow he'd be sent to prison. The whole murder scene, to begin with, is shabbily staged with one teenage kid just slicing his girl buddy's throat, leaving the scene with his friend, the pizza man arriving at the worst possible time. There's the girls showing their tits, most of them hot enough to divert your attention momentarily, but even here the garbage photography, shooting style, and fast edits undermine even the chance to enjoy the eye candy. To cap it all off, lots and lots of explanation when it isn't needed. Hell, even the closing excerpts that are supposed to be funny mistakes flop like a fish. What crud. I so wish Bannister and Quigley could get roles in better films, but this kind of crap is what they're often relegated to.

homerjer I'll try to be brief, and not give SPRING BREAK MASSACRE any more attention than it deserves. SPRING BREAK MASSACRE could be described as an homage to SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, in the sense that the distributors went to the trouble to imitate that film's video box art. Apparently they felt that was as much effort as homage required. This makes sense, once you realize that the filmmakers thought that the actual making of a horror film required no more effort than finding a roomful of inexperienced actresses willing to do nude scenes, then filming them running around screaming.The tacked-on presence of 80s horror stars Reggie Bannister and Linnea Quigley in the film is obviously meant to be the big bone thrown to horror fans. Instead, seeing them in such an amateur production just inspires sadness.Cynical productions such as this only exist to snatch up the money of unwary horror fans who think "Well, how bad can it be?" Trust me, the answer is "Way TOO bad." SPRING BREAK MASSACRE isn't even worth a couple of bucks just to check it out (trust me on this one; when I was young I too was a "show me" kind of fan). It isn't "so bad it's good". It's just a piece of crap to be forgotten.If you're the kind of viewer who likes incredibly bad acting, home video cinematography, and lots of planted good IMDb reviews, then SPRING BREAK MASSACRE just may be the movie for you. If, on the other hand, you expect a film to fill a full 76 minutes (including blooper padding in the closing credits) without insulting your intelligence, then you may want to look elsewhere.

FrightMeter The cover art for "Spring Break Massacre" tells you everything you need to know about the film; yes, it's a homage to "The Slumber Party Massacre." Anyone expecting anything but a slasher film featuring a killer murdering topless co-eds will be sadly, sadly disappointed. At least you can say the DVD cover was deceiving.Plot wise, the film is very similar to the original "The Slumber Party Massacre." A group of female friends decide to have a sleepover where "no boys are allowed" by order of our heroine's father. Needles to say, an escaped psychopath known as the slumber party killer has just escaped prison and happens upon the little gathering. Meanwhile, the local sheriff (Robby Bannister) and his deputy (Linnea Quigley) are alerted to the psychopath's escape and must try to keep the town safe.Fans of 80's slasher films will undoubtedly enjoy this film because it does possess a nostalgic feel with its simple, straight-forward premise and tongue-in-cheek reference. Though the pacing lags in the second act, enough happens to keep us interested. The kills come fast in the last act and seem a tad rushed. Additionally, they aren't all that gory or bloody, and for a homage to an 80's slasher classic, I'd expect the kills to be better thought out, a tad gorier, with much more suspense leading to them. Along those same lines, there is no final "chase scene" with our heroine that is a staple of 80's slasher films. Still, the film is technically well done and, again, does enough to keep the viewer interested.Unlike "The Slumber Party Massacre," this film does attempt to be different and set itself apart. Much like his other unknown-killer-stalks-group-of-friends-having-a-sleepover film "Reunion of Terror," screenwriter Michael Hoffman, employs a mega-twist ending and motive that is clever, unexpected, and disturbing. I can see this being his trademark as a writer simply because he is so good at it.Overall, "Spring Break Massacre" is a nicely done homage that doesn't really offer anything new to the genre, but succeeds in taking us genre fans back to the simpler days of horror.Fright Meter Grade: C+