31 Days of Feminist Horror Films: THE GUEST + THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE
There may not be much new under the sun when it comes to horror, but sometimes, all you need is an especially clever remix of familiar elements to create something special, which is the case with 2014’s THE GUEST. For much of its runtime, THE GUEST is more of a thriller than a horror film, but it certainly uses many of the genre’s most beloved tropes — a kickass final girl, an autumn setting with two Halloween-themed gatherings, a sexy stranger, and a government conspiracy — to blend the two genres seamlessly.
Dan Stevens plays David, a veteran back in the heartland after the Afghan War, who’s come to “help” the family of his fallen comrade, Caleb. Caleb’s despondent, weary parents (Leland Orser and Sheila Kelley, truly excellent) welcome David with open arms, as does Caleb’s bullied younger brother, Luke (Brendan Meyer), but Caleb’s sister Anna (Maika Monroe) is more skeptical of his intentions.
Between this and IT FOLLOWS, Maika Monroe has established herself as the scream queen heir apparent — she’s effortlessly cool but also totally believable as someone’s rad older sister, and conveys true fear through her nuanced body work and ability to wail like a banshee in a way that few of her peers can. Director Adam Wingard and co-writer Simon Barrett make smart choices throughout the film when it comes to Anna’s look and characterization: her unconventional, goth-y style (The hair! The neon diner uniform! The spooky tees and tights looks!) feels progressive without Anna needing to be hypersexualized like other final girls, and she’s doesn’t fit into the “virgin/slut” binary that limits so many other women in the genre.
Anna might work at a local diner and have a sort of scummy, low-level drug dealer for a boyfriend, but she’s also the only one who knows David is much more sinister than he appears, and makes all the active choices in the film when it comes to exposing David’s secrets and attempting to protect her family from him.
We as the viewer have seen enough horror movies to know that David is bad news from the moment he arrives on the Petersons’ doorstep, but Wingard does an excellent job of making him so seductive in every way that we totally understand why David casts such a spell on everyone. Whether it’s helping Luke throttle some bullies, chiefing a blunt in one cinema’s most eroticized pot-smoking moments, assuring Caleb’s dad of his own masculinity over beers, dead-lifting some kegs before a party, or getting Anna all frazzled after emerging from a steamy shower, six-pack gleaming, David’s appeal is overwhelming.
It’s a clever subversion of the male gaze for Wingard to take the lens off of Anna and place it on David, and Stevens revels in his status as the film’s center of attention — he’s basically the Terminator made flesh, thanks to government experiments, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be a charming beefcake while doing so. Anna comes very close to letting her guard down around David (especially after he makes her a sick mix CD featuring Sisters of Mercy and Love and Rockets), but her cunning keeps her from fully embracing him, which saves her life.
Many of THE GUEST’s pleasures come from the aesthetic sense Wingard develops while telling the familiar tale of a stranger coming to town. THE GUEST feels like it could’ve been released in the 1980s, the best decade for Americana horror, and Wingard’s love for that period informs his visual and sonic choices throughout the film. By drawing on a neon-tinged visual sense that recalls films like NIGHT OF THE COMET and BEETLEJUICE, Wingard is able to recreate a similar vibe visually without being wedded to his influences.
Likewise, by crafting a soundtrack that mixes 80s new wave and goth artists with contemporaries like Gatekeeper and SURVIVE (who also provided the soundtrack for STRANGER THINGS) Wingard is able to further immerse us in the world of this story — he also creates the best soundtrack in recent memory while doing so. Horror will always be sensory experience first and foremost: Wingard understands that by creating a visual and aural aesthetic that blends 1980s nostalgia with 21st century updates, THE GUEST will avoid the dated disposability of some other contemporary horror films.
This idea extends to Anna’s characterization as well: she’s got all of the best qualities of her 1980s final girl godmothers (smarts, savvy, and style), but she’s not restricted by the conservative ideas about what women could or should be that were present in that decade. Anna is exemplary of the entire final girl archetype, and her fully evolved form brings the trope into a new decade. And…she gets a truly killer final moment as she delivers a great last line. It’s a difficult trick to pull off, but the entire film updates the very best parts of 1980s horror while leaving some of the more problematic tropes of the genre behind — especially shallow, oversexualized female leads.
THE GUEST is available from Google Play and other streaming services.
THE GUEST pairs well with THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE: both films are well-aware of their influences and remix them to great affect. THE GUEST and THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE both provide a commentary on the horror genre while still existing within it, and delight in subverting the expected tropes of the genre. Anna would undoubtedly be pals with the heroines of THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE.
Originally intended as a parody of slasher films, THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE boasts an impressive creative pedigree: the script was written by acclaimed lesbian novelist Rita Mae Brown, and directed by Amy Holden Jones, an editor-turned-director from the Roger Corman school of filmmaking. Determined to make the film exactly how she wanted, Holden Jones shot some early scenes with short ends procured by her husband (TAXI DRIVER cinematographer Michael Chapman) and this creative fortitude is apparent throughout the film. Brown’s intention to have the film play as a satire of the slasher genre didn’t always translate throughout the production process, so be prepared for a few tonal discrepancies. However, THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE is a truly unique entry within the slasher genre.
THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE has a familiar premise: a group of teen girls gather for a slumber party, but are soon stalked by an escaped killer, Thorn, who wields a comically large phallic drill as a murder weapon. Holden Jones misses no opportunity to call attention to the absurdity of such a weapon, and how the killer uses it to overcompensate for probable impotence with lots of shots of the drill extending from between his legs.
Throughout the film, Holden Jones also explores the voyeuristic, dangerous nature of the male gaze. She includes sequences of the girls showering in a typical T&A parade, and shows them undressing in their own home, while both local boys and Thorn spy on them. It may seem like Holden Jones is simply participating in the grand tradition of female objectification with these scenes, but she’s really asking the audience to consider how this kind of reduction of women to mere sex objects affects the male psyche at every level — whether its the psyche of a psychotic driller killer or the psyche of “innocent” neighborhood “boys being boys.” The boys are ultimately punished for their spying — in the same way that many final girls are punished for being sexually active — and are killed by Thorn.
The film also turns this objectification on its head by having the female characters dish on male physiques throughout, and by having two sisters, Valerie and Courtney, gaze lovingly at an issue of Playgirl. The film’s true heroine, Valerie (Robin Stille) isn’t initially part of the slumber party, and spends the evening next door babysitting her younger sister while their divorced mother is away on business (subtle sisterhood in action!)
Valerie eventually swoops in for the big save, and destroys Thorn’s drill bit with a machete, effectively castrating him. She later kills him with the same machete — a phallic symbol that becomes all-powerful when wielded by a sexually-assured young woman — but not before Thorn tells the girls “they’ll love it” when he kills them, an all-too familiar tactic from sexual predators.
There are certainly hiccups in the satire/slasher fusion of THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, but it’s a compelling watch with lots of thoughtful visual cues throughout, many of which provide the film with its pitch-black humor (the death of a pizza guy is certainly a highlight.) THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE asks the audience to consider what the pervasive male gaze in horror film does to the casual horror viewer’s perception of women in the genre…and then challenges them to consider how female filmmakers can subvert that gaze when given the opportunity to make a slasher film.
THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE is available from Amazon.
