Slow-Motion Tumblin’ Cheeseburgers?
I always seem to flounder at first whenever I try to sell a friend on the wonder and majesty of Sleepover Nightmare.
“There’s no sleepover,” I say excitedly, “and it takes place during the day! It should be called Couple of Hours at a So-So BBQ Daymare!”
I mean, Jesus. What more do you need to hear?
I gave it a chance for far less than that: the silly title, plus the summary: something something deranged killer menaces teens at a party something. Who cares, right? You can get deranged killers who menace teens at a party anywhere nowadays.
But no. My friend’s already lost interest. So next, I pull out The Big Guns:
“It features The Slow-Motion Tumblin’ Cheeseburgers of Heartbreak!”
Because you know what? I’ve seen 27,000,000 shitty horror films already in this life, and some of them have been legitimately good, and others have just been the good kind of bad, but none of them have The Slow-Motion Tumblin’ Cheeseburgers of Heartbreak.
And so there are times when I look back on my long, inglorious history of watching lousy movies, and think of Sleepover Nightmare, and smile fondly–nostalgically, even, as if reminiscing about my first love.
Which is what TS-MT’CoH are all about, incidentally.
The killer’s backstory flashback thingy shows him enjoying a picnic in a vacant lot with his lady and their friends. Off at the barbecue pit by himself, he hunts and gathers two perfectly-presented cheeseburgers, which he brings back to his lady on small paper plates, one balanced on each palm.
Sadly, when he finds her, he finds her getting rogered enthusiastically by some other guy in the back of his car. First the camera lingers on said rogering–titillation!–but then it zooms in on those beautiful, sad little cheeseburgers, which tumble out of the future killer’s hands in slow motion, end over end over end.
I mean, think about that for a second, will you please?
Even if those cheeseburgers were built securely–which they were, you know, they’re held together with those ruffly toothpicks you sometimes see in bun-based lunch creations–there is no way you could make them roll off a plate like that unless you had a lot of practice at it.
Basically what I’m saying is, Natalie Portman trained in ballet for five months before she made Black Swan, Christian Bale ate nothing but a can of tuna and an apple every day to lose 63 pounds for The Machinist, and Sleepover Nightmare‘s cheeseburger wrangler came away from that miracle with a broken marriage, RSIs in both hands and the kind of whackadoodle crypto-vegan pseudo-evangelism that makes people post your private stuff on Failbook.
But trust me, baby, Sleepover Nightmare has a lot more going for it than improbable sandwich physics. It has:
· Teens dancing to music that was very obviously not actually playing when the scene was shot;
· A house and grounds that seem to span across an entire town–complete with Endless Plastic Tiki Lights™;
· A killer who’s far stronger than he should be even with Teh Crazees on his side, seems to pride himself on his creativity–switching up his weapons when he feels like he’s getting stale–and steals clothing from his more fashionable victims so he can wear it himself;
· A Groundskeeper Willie character, who has weird, unintentional sexual tension with the movie’s Slutty One.
(Seriously, you’ll want to write fanfic about them. The scene near the end where he searches for her in vain across the blood-drenched grounds of her family home will tug at your heartstrings, bigstyle.)
But that’s not all!
One of the victims dies when the killer shoves a beer can through his skull, and then the killer keeps moving his body, I guess so everyone will get a chance to see it. It’s basically the mass murderer version of that guy you know who always finds a way to tell people about his degree.
And Sleepover Nightmare is also responsible for introducing me to a new courtship practice amongst Today’s Youth: rubbing bums.
You might think the rubbing of bums takes place when one uses one’s hand to rub the bum of one’s intended, but actually, it’s like Eskimo kissing, but with your hinder. One entire scene of this movie is comprised of two swimsuited teens cavorting in a swimming pool while the boy convinces the girl to get bum-to-bum with him.
Upon completion of The Bum Rub, his friend–who spends the whole movie cheerleading this dude’s horniness to a seriously questionable extent–honestly and for real says:
“You just rubbed bums with the hottest piece of ass to ever grace this pool!”
You read stuff in the news every damn day about the depraved shit kids are getting into these days: new ways of getting drunk and stoned, pole-dancing kits and thong underpants for little kids, raunchy sex taking place between kids who are way, way younger than you think they ought to be.
But you never hear about rubbing bums.
(Well. This movie’s Canadian.)
So: that’s the case for Sleepover Nightmare. Do you ever learn why the killer targeted this crummy party? Was he really just that proud of Beer Can Guy, or were there darker forces at work? Did the sound of the hostess’s squeaky trampoline trigger his homicidal urge, as it seems, or was that just shitty editing?
You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.
But the trailer tells you every other goddamn thing about it.
Way to guard the mystery, Boon Collins. Way to rub its bum, you crazy bastard.
Jeez Louise.
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Well, maybe the title comes from a dream a kid had at a sleepover and then he grew up to recreate it frame by dramatic frame and showed off his Auteur by cutting to video, just like in his nightmare? The nightmare inspired by too many cheeseburger?
Yeah, I’m selling it short. That’s the problem.
PS: your anti-cheeseburger bigotry is way unbecoming.
I love cheeseburgers more than enough for the both of us.
If you don’t love them as much as Randy from Trailer Park Boys loves them, you might as well not love them at all.
He drove a Trans Am before he became a killer. I bet he once had a beautiful soul.
Heh x a billion.