INTERVIEW: ‘Slumber Party Massacre’ director on how the Syfy remake honors the original slasher
Image courtesy of Syfy / Provided by press site with permission.
The Slumber Party Massacre films from 30+ years ago are groundbreaking for a number of reasons. In the horror genre, especially in the 1980s, male directors made films with young men as their target audience. It was unfortunately rare to have a female writer or director leave their stamp on a scary movie franchise.
And then there was The Slumber Party Massacre in 1982, with two sequels following in 1987 and 1990. This trilogy of gore and blood splatter was written and directed by women — namely Amy Holden Jones as director and Rita Mae Brown as screenwriter of the original film.
Now Syfy is honoring the original horror classic with a reboot, which is set to premiere Saturday, Oct. 16 at 9 p.m. on the network. This time around, Danishka Esterhazy serves as director and executive producer, and she was an immediate yes when the project came across her desk.
“I think the minute I heard about it, there was no question in mind that I wanted to do it,” the filmmaker said in a recent phone interview. “The Slumber Party trilogy is celebrated by women in horror because it being the only slasher franchise written and directed by women. When I think you discover horror, for me as a teenager, those films are something that you discover pretty early and that you hear about and that you think about as being very groundbreaking, so when I was approached by Syfy about remaking a new version of Slumber Party, I didn’t question it for a second. I thought, to be a part of that history in horror would be an incredible opportunity.”
Esterhazy became enamored of horror films at a young age. Her mother was a wonderful storyteller, often regaling her and her friends with ghost stories until the early hours of the morning. Coincidentally these stories were shared with her during sleepovers, which seems like fitting research for the future director of Slumber Party Massacre.
“She would tell us really terrifying ghost stories that would probably be inappropriate for children,” Esterhazy said with a laugh. “They made my friends cry, so I grew up with this love of dark storytelling. I fell in love with older horror movies when I was quite young, the strange horror movies from the ‘50s and ‘60s that would play on late-night television. I felt a real passion for watching those films, so I’ve always loved horror movies long before I started to discover contemporary horror movies being made by people of my own age and my own period. I remember quite a few of them that were an inspiration that I would watch again and again because I always loved a really good scare.”
Remaking Slumber Party Massacre posed some welcome challenges for Esterhazy. She wanted to make an original film that would effectively scare a 2021 audience, but she also wanted to honor the original and ensure that the messaging came through in the narrative.
“It’s a tricky balance,” she said. “I absolutely wanted to honor the original film. I have huge respect for Amy Holden Jones. I think what she achieved with that film, with it being her first feature film, is quite amazing. There’s some incredible sequences in the film, and there are sequences I didn’t even go near, that I didn’t want to touch because I thought they’re too good. We’ll leave them where they are, but then there other sequences where I wanted to tip my hat to some of the blocking and the framing of how she put the scenes together. People might not know this right off from the first viewing, unless they know the original film really well, but there’s quite a few scenes where I have my characters staged and blocked in the same arrangement that she staged and blocked her characters in some of the group shots. I actually really loved the way she placed her actors within the frame, so I wanted to call back to those elements that I really enjoy from the film.”
Other parts of the original, in Esterhazy’s mind, needed some updating and were reworked for the 2021 version. She wanted to change some sequences around, always keeping in mind the history of horror filmmaking and the restrictions that female directors had in past decades.
“There was this series of films that were written and directed by women, but they didn’t have creative carte blanche,” Esterhazy said. “In fact, they had really specific rules on what they had to deliver for those films, so the films don’t necessarily represent the true vision of what perhaps they might have wanted to achieve. So on this film, I had a lot of support from Syfy, from Shout! to take it in a very different direction, and partnering with Suzanne Kielly, my wonderful screenwriter, we really had the creative freedom to take this story farther in terms of exploring some of the issues that the original films explored.”
Esterhazy added: “I think the entire film industry, including the horror film industry, has come a long way in the last few decades. We’re in a wonderful renaissance of horror films right now. The diversity of storytellers in the horror community is amazing. Women are part of the conversation. Multiple cultures and personalities and ethnicities and genders and orientations are part of the conversation. There’s a horror movie for everyone now. It’s not such a monoculture of films aimed at juvenile men, so I think the horror world has blossomed. And the kind of stories that we’re getting right now are really exciting because there’s such a range, such a depth.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Slumber Party Massacre, directed by Danishka Esterhazy, premieres Saturday, Oct. 16 at 9 p.m. on Syfy. Click here for more information.
