Rock N Roll Nightmare – SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II

Formula is not necessarily a bad thing.  Like a recipe, a formula can reliably provide just the thing you are in the mood for.  Just because a formula promises certain results doesn’t mean it has to be predicable or unoriginal.  Rollercoasters have a very established formula.  Go up, go down, the faster the better.  Within that framework, however, is room for almost infinite variation.  A good rollercoaster gives you the thrills you were expecting but doles them out in innovative ways.  The same is true for movies.  Slashers, for instance, thrive on formula.  A vulnerable group ends up in an isolated place were, unbeknownst to them, some nasty fellow bumps them off one at a time.  The fun—if that’s your bag—lies in the who, what, and especially how the mayhem goes down.  Nothing says you can’t find a creative way to travel from A to B to C (usually standing for Alcohol, Blood, and Corpses).

Slasher sequels can fall into a tricky position of having to double down on formula.  Not only do they have to follow the basic roadmap, they also need to tie in to the previous film.  Some play it safe, like the FRIDAY THE 13^TH movies (the loony JASON GOES TO HELL not withstanding).  Others try to mix it up.  Then there is Deborah Brock, who was tasked with intersecting pillow fights, sexy shenanigans, and power tools for 1987’s SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II and did so in a way no one could have seen coming.

The Capsule:

Years after surviving a horrific night with a slumber party crashing driller killer, Courtney (Crystal Bernard) has put the past behind her and is living the life of a normal teen.  She plays guitar in a band, is all about pastels, and is getting attention from the dreamy and frequently shirtless Matt (Patrick Lowe).  Sure, she has the occasional post-traumatic nightmare, but she’s in better shape than her fellow survivor and older sister, Valerie (Cindy Eilbacher), who is wrapped up tight in the nuthouse.  Courtney is so confident in her emotional recovery that she agrees to join her bandmates, Sheila (Juliette Cummins), Sally (Heidi Kozak), and Amy (Kimberly McArthur), at a secluded beach house, for what could be considered a party of the slumber variety.  Sure, her nightmares are becoming more vivid, and happening while she is awake, but that’s all just her imagination.  She isn’t going to let a few hallucinations ruin her fun, especially when her not-so-secret crush shows up.  One night in Matt’s hunky arms makes all of Courtney’s dreams come true.  Unfortunately, one of those dreams was about a demented, leather clad rock n roller with a wicked drill-tipped electric guitar (Atanas Ilitch), and he will turn this slumber party into a nightmare for everyone involved.

Growing up in the days before online databases and on demand movie consumption meant living with unsolved mystery.  Without easy access to every film ever made, tracking down obscure films took considerable leg work.  Who has time for that?  This left me fruitlessly pondering things like, what the hell was that movie I caught a few minutes of on HBO where a Stray Cats reject was chasing a bunch of girls around with a cherry red drill guitar?  Did I dream that shit? 

While this particular driller killer was unique, a killer with a drill was not.  There is THE TOOLBOX MURDERS, the first SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, and plain old DRILLER KILLER, plus that drill murder through the ceiling scene from BODY DOUBLE.  That is a lot of drilling to keep track of.  I finally stumbled upon the answer after falling down a click-hole in IMDB which led me to the poster.  Thank you, Internet, for helping us sort out all the various drill killing films 

There might be a lot of driller killer movies, but I’ve never seen a story structure like this one.  The first SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE was your standard maniac hunting high school girls’ affair, with a slight feminist turn.  The sequel is a supernatural thriller more akin to A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, yet not quite that, either.  Aside from Courtney’s escalating—and nutso—hallucination (a hand-burger, being mauled by a raw chicken), nothing much happens until the Rockabilly killer literally bursts forth from out of nowhere, completely unexplained.  The last act is a brilliantly mad dash, tearing through Courtney’s friends in record time.

It’s a good thing, because the rest of the cast is hands down the blandest bunch of white people ever put in front of a camera.  Crystal Bernard, or as she is better known, that chick from Wings, does a decent job when freaking out, otherwise she is Pastel Barbie.  Amy and her boyfriend, um, Jeff (Scott Westmoreland, thanks again IMDB) practically blend in with the beige wallpaper.  If you thought Courtney’s flare-free fashion sense was bad—and you should--Amy dresses like a zoo tour guide.  Sheila is only interesting because she is a perv, but she shines compared to the others. 

Matt, the dreamy, mid-twenties teen that Courtney constantly fantasizes about isn’t anything more than a hunky face, but I appreciate how Deborah Brock inverts the typical expectations by having the camera ogle the himbo rather than the bimbo. Not only is he always shirtless in Courtney’s daydreams, the scene where he is talking to her on the phone is shot like a Calvin Klein ad, only with ‘80s color gel lighting.

The only notable personality in the group is T.J. (Joel Hoffman), and it is for all the wrong reasons. T.J. is a remarkably obnoxious take on the California surfer dude horndog. At least half of his lines in the script must have just been “uh-huh-huh-huh” stoner laughs. Every single time he opened his mouth I wanted to punch him in the face. His death scene takes forever to arrive and is not nearly satisfying enough, though I doubt any death could be brutal enough for this guy. True to character till the end, he manages to get out one last “Whoa,” before shuffling off the mortal coil.

Placed against these clowns, Atanas Ilitch’s long delayed entrance as the Rockabilly Driller Killer is absolutely electric. Iltich, who only did a couple of films after this, chews the hell out of every scene he is in. His delivery and swagger remind me of Billy Zane in DEMON KNIGHT, despite being saddled with mostly song lyrics for dialog. Not as pitch perfect as Zane, but with similar chaotic energy. It becomes a completely different movie after his arrival, and all lulls are forgiven. Pulling off a plot twist like this takes an actor with crazy confidence, and even more to wield a weapon of this caliber.

Keep your machetes, pitchforks, hedge clippers, and knife gloves, the silver horned, cherry red, drill tipped electric guitar is unquestionably the most impressively ridiculous killing device ever. It’s even more ludicrous than the flying guillotine. For one thing, it is huge. With all its twisted hooks and fangs, it's the size of a cello, yet Rockabilly wields it like a psychotic Eddie Van Halen. It’s also very versatile, great for slashes, bashes, and,of course, impalings. And how many other murder weapons allow the killer to pause in mid-pursuit for an impromptu music video?

The feminist angle is harder to pin down here than in the first SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, where the girls banded together to overcome (and castrate) their murderous male stalker. The most notable thing with this one is that all the girls have a genuinely close relationship. None of them are catty or bitchy with each other. At first it seems like Sheila will be the diva of the faux Bangles band, maybe even having eyes for Matt. Nope, she’s just a bit of a nympho (with her own boyfriend, only). Given how clearly nuts Courtney is acting, all her bandmates are notably supportive of her. Sally is a bit oblivious, always equating Courtney’s hysteria with her acne breakout (to the point where Courtney hallucinates Sally’s face is one giant zit), but otherwise, they are very protective.

The funny thing is Courtney does not return the favor when the shit hits the fan. Rockabilly chases a wounded Sheila back to the house, where Courtney and Amy have barricaded themselves in a bedroom. When Courtney hears Sheila banging on the door, they try to let her in, but Rockabilly gets her while the door is still closed. At first I thought they were just comically bad at moving the small dresser blocking the door, but rewatching the scene, Courtney actually moves the dresser back when she hears Rockabilly is out there, too. She lets her friend get skewered rather than risk opening the door. The door that Rockabilly busts through in about 30 seconds. Later, another friend tips over the edge at a construction site and dangles above a three-story drop. She pleads with Courtney “Don’t let go!” Guess what happens at the first sign of danger? They should really vote Courtney out of the band. Posthumously.

Brock also gives the stereotypical slasher attitude on sex a twist. Instead of the “have sex and die” model, in Courtney’s case, it’s “have sex and everyone else dies.” Even before the bodies start dropping, all of Courtney’s bloody hallucinations occur after someone brings up the topicof sex. The girl clearly as some serious hang ups. Once Courtney and Matt finally go all the way (against dream Valierie’s express warning), Rockabilly jumps straight out of her repressed nightmares and into the real world, via a very phallic drill through Matt’s chest. There is zero explanation about why or how this happens. All I know is that I am grateful it does.  

Okay, that is not entirely true, since we find out that [Spoiler] the rampage was all a dream. Courtney wakes up in Matt’s bed and everything is fine. Lame. But wait,that was just a dream, too! Courtney really wakes up in the same nuthouse as her sister, screaming and hallucinating (?) a giant drill ripping through her rubber room. A popular theory is that she went nuts after the events of the movie, but that makes no sense because the events were entirely supernatural. I prefer my own theory, in which Courtney has been in the nuthouse since the end of the first movie, and Valerie is the sane one. We can only hope that Rockabilly was merely a figment of Courtney’s cracked imagination, and more importantly, so was T.J.

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II didn’t make Deborah Brock a household name, though it did lead her to direct RETURN TO ROCK N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, which I’m sure is great. I would like to have seen what other horror tricks she had up her sleeve, but if her legacy turns out to be a nightmare Elvis impersonator in fringy leather, wielding a drill guitar, that’s something to be proud of. I don’t know if she is, but I certainly am.

C Chaka

Bonus: More shots of Rockabilly, because I love this guy.

Elm St. Anarchy - FREDDY’S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE

After years of diminishing returns and a near lifeless horror market, New Line felt it was time to give up the ghost of the franchise that made them, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.  The honor of putting the last nail in Freddy Kruger's coffin fell to Rachel Talalay, who had worked on every NIGHTMARE since the very beginning.  This was Talalay's chance to put her own spin on the series.  The result, 1991’s FREDDY’S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE, was less of a spin and more of a tornado.  Prepare to get dizzy.

The Capsule:

Alright, I'll give it a shot.  The year is 1999, and the last living child in Springwood (Shon Greenblatt) escapes the razory clutches of that dream controlling asshole, Freddy Kruger (Robert Englund).  He takes refuge in the adjacent, unnamed town, where he is immediately arrested for having amnesia and thrown into the classic one-size-fits-all Youth Shelter that only exists in movies.  There he meets the rest of the misfit cast.  Rich kid Spenser (Breckin Meyer) is there for disappointing his controlling dad, and also arson.  Tracy (Lezlie Deane), is a touch-averse kickboxer with anger (and daddy) issues.  Carlos (Ricky Dean Logan) is there because…he has hearing problems? Since the only thing John Doe can remember is that he is terrified of Springwood, crackerjack therapist, Maggie Burroughs (Lisa Zane), hauls him back there, with the rest of the delinquents stowing away in the van.  Maggie’s flooding therapy technique goes poorly, resulting in the deaths of several youths in her care.  None of that matters, because it was all an unnecessarily convoluted plan to lure back Maggie, who is really Kruger’s hitherto unmentioned daughter. She is the only one who can transport his spirit (maybe?) and allow him to escape Springwood.  Because…he couldn’t…leave before?  For some reason?  In any event, Maggie and the remaining delinquents must pool their dream strengths and defeat Freddy before he can torment the five or six people living in Unnamed Town, or pass the child killing torch onto daughter Maggie Kruger, or something.  Also, Yaphet Kotto is there.  

I have to put this out there, this is not a good movie.  It’s not even a so bad it’s good movie.  It’s like a neutron star, collapsing in on itself from the shear density of its badness, creating a reality that cannot be measured by modern science.  It does not follow the rules of the previous NIGHTMARE entries.  It doesn’t follow its own rules from the previous scene.  FREDDY’S DEAD is beholden to nothing, least of all logic.  Not even basic math.  John Doe, the amnesiac teen from the beginning, becomes convinced that he was the child taken away from Freddy Kruger, despite being specifically told this happened in 1966.  33 years ago.  Again, he is a teenager.  This sort of ballsy defiance of reason is usually reserved for ‘80s Italian horror.  Impressive show, Ms. Talalay.

The line between dream sequence and reality is nonexistent.  It’s like looking through the eyes of a schizophrenic on acid.  At first, I honestly thought all of Springwood existed inside a dream world bubble, since that is exactly how it is portrayed in the beginning, and because every person in the town is bugnuts insane.  Plus, every scene is classic nightmare shit.  When Maggie orders the escaped delinquents to drive themselves back to the Youth Shelter (as any responsible guardian would), all roads lead back to the town square, CHILDREN OF THE CORN style.  Carlos is almost smothered by an ever-expanding fold-out map that tells him he’s fucked.  The nondescript abandoned house the kids break into physically transforms into Nancy’s house.  But the kids still have to fall asleep before Freddy can get them.  

The movie doesn’t even follow dream logic.  Sometimes, it plays by the classic rule where the dreamer's physical body manifests the same injuries inflicted in the nightmare.  One kid lands on a bed of spikes in a dream, he gets a chest full of holes in the real world.  Another time, though, Freddy jams a stick straight through Carlos’ skull and the dream just goes on.  I'm no doctor, but I think that would have killed him.

Sure, other sequels have played fast and loose with the dream/reality connection, but this one really takes it up a notch.  Since Spenser likes video games, Freddy pulls him into a faux Nintendo nightmare where he must fight an 8-bit versions of his dad.  Tracy jumps into the dream world to save him (because she inexplicably has Dream Warrior powers).  Except, instead of going directly into the Nintendo dream, she goes into sort of a dream lobby, where Freddy in front of a TV, controlling Spencer’s game (on the Power Glove, naturally).  To make it extra confusing, Spenser falls down a pit to hell that exists in the real world, but not the game world.  It’s multiple dimensions of what the fuck. 

Anyone going in hoping for scares will be sorely disappointed.  Freddy sets the tone in his first appearance, riding a broom, doing a Wicked Witch of the East schtick (I'll get you, my pretty, cackle, cackle).  At this point in the series, Freddy has fully transitioned from Boogieman to Bugs Bunny.  I will bet money there is a deleted scene somewhere with him saying "Ain't I a stinker".  Hell, the Itchy & Scratchy cartoons from The Simpsons are more visceral—and plausible—than anything Freddy does here.  The most frightening thing in the movie is the surprise cameo from Rosanne and Tom Arnold as child-longing wackos at the sad little Springwood town fair.

One of my favorite things about the franchise is how each one shoe horns in more backstory about Freddy Kruger.  Sure, he murdered children, but did you know his mom as a nun and he’s the son of a thousand maniacs?  Usually, they are minor details, but FREDDY’S DEAD goes balls to the wall with the backstory retcon.  It seems that Fred Kruger was not the cellar dwelling degenerate we all thought.  Turns out he was a clean cut, home owning family man.  Things only went south after he kills his wife for snooping in his kid killing dungeon in the basement.  That “accident” is why they (the entire town, apparently) took his daughter away, and that injustice is Freddy’s real motivation for going after the children of Springwood.  The whole “being burned alive by an angry mob” thing was just ancillary.  

I usually don’t go into special features here, but I had to know more about how something this aggressively batshit came to be.  The short interviews on the Blu Ray amounted to apologies by the director, producers, and, appropriately insane, Clive Barker, who had nothing to do with the series.  I’m not sure he is even talking about this movie in his clip.  So, I dug deeper.  It seems that New Line cut almost 20 minutes out of Talalay’s final cut, which could explain why nothing in this movie makes any goddamn sense.  Plus, they deemed that the last act of the film—the big showdown—would be in 3D.  Filming in 3D at that time was notoriously touchy, so Talalay had to scale down all the action and stunts to make it work.  The resulting marriage of anticlimax and painfully hideous effects isn't what anyone was hoping for.  

And yet… I kind of like this movie. It has a very punk esthetic, railing against the establishment, doing whatever it wants.  Daring to be stupid.  That was a Weird Al Yankovic reference, but that kind of fits, too.

I dig the weird structure. Starting off with the ominous computer display, it seems like the entire future has gone to shit.  Every location is dirty, filled with trash and graffiti.  The Springwood scenes have a surreal, funhouse quality.  I also love that no one from Unnamed Town knows the infamous history of the ghost town that is, according to the signs, literally 2 miles down the road.

I really dig Talalay's refreshingly feminist spin on things.  The franchise is known for some fantastic female characters, especially for the slasher genre.  Maggie and Tracy can’t hold up to Nancy and Kristen (Patricia Arquette version), but they take charge and do not back down.  Tracy routinely kicks Freddy’s ass every time they meet, and she figures out how to escape the dream before he can turn the tables.  Plus, she doesn't die.  None of the women in the main cast die.  That by itself is something special.

And while they basically replay the “bring Freddy out of the dream” gimmick from the original (except with less booby traps and far more ninja throwing stars) the final daughter vs. daddy fight is so one sided that you feel sorry for Freddy.  Maggie absolutely destroys him, snapping his fingers, nailing him to the wall, snatching away his glove.  It is very cathartic.  Switching tactics, Freddy tries to seduce Maggie down his evil path, but she's not falling for any of his bullshit.  Daddy's girl guts him with his own finger knives and shoves a lit pipe bomb into his chest. There's no look back after the dust settles, no suggestive winks.  Maggie happily declares "Freddy's dead" and that's a wrap.  I wouldn't have been surprised if she looked straight into the camera and give it the finger.  Fuck you, goodnight!   

The movie was financially successful, thanks in no small part to an inventive marketing campaign.  So much so that it lead the way for Wes Craven's classy reinvention, A NEW NIGHTMARE, to render Freddy's final demise just as moot as all the previous films.  Talalay went on to make the equally daft, but slightly more coherent TANK GIRL, before becoming a prolific and still active television director.  Yes, FREDDY’S DEAD may be the runt of the NIGHTMARE litter, but Rachel Talalay took a tired franchise and created something risky, distinct, and anarchic.  What's more punk rock than that?

C Chaka

You Succubus - JENNIFER’S BODY

As Black History Month leads into Women’s History Month, Schizocinema revs up a March full of female directors!  We start off the month, slightly late, with Karyn Kusama.  The director shines in smaller, intimate movies like THE INITIATION, and her debut, GIRLFIGHT, but her big budget studio work is always a bit of a catastrophe.  Despite the studio interference, second guessing, and poor marketing there is still something about them that pulls me in.  Take her sci-fi epic, Æon Flux.  That movie is all over the place, but so uniquely bonkers that I kind of love it.  One woman has hands for feet.  People send liquid email.  A flower grows out of Frances McDormand’s mouth.  It’s great.  With that in mind, I braved a look at her next, unfavorably received feature, the 2009 high school horror, JENNIFER’S BODY.  Would the Kusama magic hold?  

The Capsule:

Needy’s (Amanda Seyfried) BFF is the worst.  She is vapid, rude, and obnoxious.  She constantly takes advantage of Needy, and tries to sabotage her relationship with her boyfriend, Chip (Johnny Simmons).  She has all the boys in town wrapped around her little finger.  And she occasionally eats them.  This latest development has Needy suspecting that her lifelong pal, Jennifer (Megan Fox), has become a Succubus. Demonically, not symbolically .  It all started the night Jennifer rode off with that terrible emo band, Low Shoulder, and came back drenched in blood.  Turns out they were a bunch of Satanists and their virgin sacrifice had unexpected results.  Jennifer’s transformation from high school bitch to hell bitch makes Needy seriously reappraise their friendship. When Jennifer sets her hungry eyes on Chip, Needy knows it's time for a permanent break up with her beastie bestie.  The only question is, who gets broken?

Between writer Diablo Cody’s post-JUNO backlash (which I didn’t understand) and Megan Fox’s post-TRANSFORMERS backlash (totally understood), JENNIFER’S BODY was heavily dumped on when it came out.  Not that I put much stock in word of mouth, but the trailer didn’t grab me, so I let the movie slip by.  I was a little leery even after realizing Kusama directed it, so this was my first watch.  And while it was not on the glorious mindfuck level of Æon Flux, I'm happy to say it has the Kusama magic touch. 

That goes for the Director’s Cut, at least, which is the only version I’ve seen.  Starting with the Director’s Cut or extended cut is not always a smart move, since theatrical cuts tend to be leaner and better paced.  In this case, though, I believe it was the right call.  From what I’ve heard, Kusama’s cut fleshes out Seyfried’s character a little more.  It starts with Needy in a mental institution, seemingly with good justification (she’s a K-I-C-K-E-R, just ask that poor nutritionist).  After she is thrown into solitary confinement, the movie flashes back to how she came to such an antisocial state.  Well, first there is a flashback to her peering in Jennifer’s window like a stalker (the beginning of the Theatrical cut), then we fully flashback to the beginning of her tale.   A little strange structurally, but effective.  The Kusama way.

Under all the blood and carnage, the heart of the story is about how abusive girls can be to each other under the veil of friendship.  Jennifer is clearly a horrible person even before becoming demonified.  She uses Needy as her non-threatening wingman (wingwoman? winglady?), a smaller gem to make the big one more impressive.  Needy lets Jennifer dictate how she dresses and where they go, insuring just the right level of shadow for her to remain in.  

Despite her name, Needy isn’t a complete doormat, though.  Kusama makes the relationship believable.  They casually trade insults and seem to enjoy each other’s company, as long as Jennifer is in the spotlight.  Needy puts up with Jennifer’s bullshit because she idolizes her friend, and vicariously enjoys the attention she isn’t confident enough to attract on her own.  She’s also got a secret crush on her, which Jennifer subtly (and later, not so subtly) uses as leverage.  Needy’s depth makes her easy to connect with, and gives her arc from pushover to ass kicker a sense of honesty as she realizes that Jennifer’s self-esteem hinged on her as much as, if not more than, the other way around.  

This isn’t directly related, but I came to a weird conclusion when watching this just now.   The accelerated pace of technology dates modern movies 1000x more than clothes or music, so much so that it messes with your perception of time.  A movie from the ‘90s doesn’t seem that old to me, but a movie from 2009 seems fucking ancient.  Jennifer talks about someone’s My Space page.  They use words like “texting” and “Wikipedia” like they are exotic.  One kid is listening to an iPod in the car, I swear, it looks like he has a defibrillator hooked up to the stereo.  No satellite radio? Was this made in the Stone Age?  

Not knowing much about the movie gave me a few good “oh, shit” moments with the cast.  It took me a few beats before realizing the square-chested blockhead Jennifer was leading on at the bar was pre-Parks and Recreations Chris Pratt!  The big dumb guy from Coach (Bill Fagerbakke, also the voice of Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants) shows up as a grieving father.  The best surprise is J.K. Simmons, playing a fuzzy haired, cry-out-your-feelings kind of teacher, Mr. Wroblewski.  These days, I think of Simmons as the sadistic music teacher from WHIPLASH, or the sadistic Nazi leader in Oz, or as the not sadistic but still very angry J. Jonah Jameson in Raimi’s SPIDER-MAN films, so it was hilarious to see him playing such a sensitive milquetoast.  My favorite thing about Wroblewski, though, is that he has a giant scar on his neck and a prosthetic hand.  I figured that meant he had survived an encounter with a Succubus years ago, and that he would provide Needy a clue as to how to defeat Jennifer.  Nope, they never mention it.  He’s just a dude with a hook hand.  I love that shit.

Another great, bizarre touch is that along with her powers of fast healing, levitating, and erupting a mouthful of shark teeth, Jennifer has an unsettling effect on animals.  While she is seducing a football jock deep in the woods, an adorable menagerie of raccoons, beavers, and other woodland creatures gather round, eager to watch the bloodletting.  She’s like an evil Snow White.  When the cops discover they jock’s body, a deer is munching on his intestines.  Not typical deer behavior, in my opinion.  Never comes up, though.

There are flaws.  Diablo Cody’s dialog can be hard to take at times, and this comes from someone who loves HEATHERS and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  On the other hand, the cringiest lines are all Jennifer’s, so perhaps it’s intentional.  Needy’s lines are better, and Jennifer gets off a few good ones when she goes full evil.  “Nice hardware, ace” made me smile.  

The bland emo soundtrack is terrible, but again, this might be intentional.  The most intolerable songs come from Low Shoulder, the band who starts the whole mess.  The bandmembers spontaneously break into a Tommy Tutones song before butchering Jennifer as an offering to Satan, so clearly you are supposed to hate these assholes.  It makes sense that their shitty music could only catch on with the help of supernatural intervention (I also like the insinuation that the guy from Maroon 5 did the same thing).  

Even without the consciously stylized dialogue, the movie owes a lot to HEATHERS and Buffy.  It’s humor and tone are very reminiscent of their “darkness lurking beneath a pretty suburban face” vibe.  Needy researching how to kill Succubi in the school library’s unusually well stocked Occult section was an especially Buffy moment.  That’s not a bad thing, by any means.  In fact, it makes a better Buffy movie than the real Buffy movie.  Can’t beat the TV series, though, sorry Karyn.  

Predictably then, my favorite part is the film’s bookend, back at the mental institution.  I guess it’s a [Spoiler] to reveal Needy is there for killing Jennifer, although I made that assumption from the very beginning (the “my best friend was a succubus” defense rarely pans out in court).  The bigger surprise is that Needy learns from experience that those bitten by a demon and survive gain some of the demon’s power.  This explains, but does not excuse, why she was such a dick to that nutritionist (poor demonic impulse control).  More importantly, it gives her the strength to escape and, in the best in-credit sequence since the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, bring much deserved vengeance to those Low Shoulder douchebags.

Oh, I should also mention that the person who gives her a ride after her escape is an uncredited LANCE HENRIKSEN!  He seemed a little pervy, so Needy probably killed him, but I’d like to think that they teamed up to hunt demons, occultists, and talentless boy bands across the country.  They could ride around in a bus with Mr. Wroblewski, who turns out to be a werewolf.  Come on Diablo, let’s start cranking out those sequel scripts!

C Chaka

Special Bonus:  throwing in a few extra screenshots because this movie is gorgeous (Cinematographer: M. David Mullen)