If you’re anything like me, you love an old-school, campy horror movie and Slumber Party Massacre is one of my favorites. The original Slumber Party Massacre tells the story of a high school-aged girl named Trish whose parents go out of town. So, she decides to have a slumber party with her girlfriends. Unbeknownst to them, there is a power drill-wielding murderer out of blood! The film has everything you’d expect of a horror movie in the 80s: comedy, titties, pillow fights, a super gory death scenes!

Fast forward to today and SyFy is bringing us an updated version of this classic, but does it live up to the original? In my opinion, yes and no. SyFy has brought us some of the best, low-budget, campy films way before Sharknado was even a blink in Ian Ziering’s eye. So, I felt they could absolutely nail this, especially if the film would air after 10 pm so that they were no longer restricted by daytime censorship rules.

SyFy’s Slumber Party Massacre does a great job trying to update the film, giving us major final girl energy, surprising twists, a creepy drill bit killer, and gruesome kills. However, where it falls flat also comes from some of the gender-bent moments and cringy anti-woke/woke dialogue.

I’m all for a film being self-aware, but when it comes to the jokes it feels like we’re watching 2 different movies and the actors didn’t get the tone memo. Which actually makes sense. When Slumber Party Massacre was originally pitched, the film was supposed to be a full-on campy horror movie like the original. However, somewhere down the line an executive changed their mind and wanted a serious horror film. This new version tried to follow suit, but unfortunately, the happy accident doesn’t work as well for this reboot. If SyFy’s version of Slumber Party Massacre had fully leaned one way or the other this would be a very different review. However, in the end, I was a little bored and let down by its potential.