This Cult Roger Corman Horror Movie Was Banned In The UK Until Just Recently

The cinematic influence of legendary B-movie producer and director Roger Corman cannot be overstated. The original "King of Cult" was a shrewd and thrifty operator who identified a gap in the market during the 1950s, namely among a young demographic of movie-goers who wanted cheap thrills when they went to their local fleapit or drive-in theater. And he gave them what they wanted in abundance, producing over 300 pictures and directing around 50 himself, often low-budget flicks full of sex, violence, rocket ships, monsters, hot rods, and plenty of rebellious attitude. The other side of Corman was a mogul of good taste, who distributed three Best Foreign Language Oscar-winners ("Amarcord," "Dersu Uzala," and "The Tin Drum") and brought the likes of Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, and Ingmar Bergman to wider U.S. audiences. Not only that, his films served as a launchpad for many future directors and actors such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, Robert De Niro, Sylvester Stallone, and Sandra Bullock.

But despite all that and making some pretty good films along the way, Corman will always be remembered most for his schlock. in that regard, he is probably best enjoyed from a distance unless you're really into bad movies because he did make an awful lot of crud — flicks like "Teenage Cave Man" and "Attack of the Crab Monsters" are only just about survivable with a riff track from the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" guys. But say what you want about the quality, Corman's low-budget films were clearly intended to offer fun and a few kicks without offending anyone too much. While there are some controversial titles in his filmography (such as "Humanoids from the Deep"), by and large, Corman wasn't in the business of scandalizing viewers unlike the grandfather of splatter, Herschell Gordon Lewis ("Two Thousand Maniacs!"), Russ Meyer ("Vixen!"), or the Pope of Trash, John Waters ("Pink Flamingos"). Yet one horror film he co-produced in the '80s fell foul of censors in the United Kingdom and remained on the naughty list until the year he passed away in 2024. That movie was Deborah Brock's "Slumber Party Massacre II" (1987), but what did it do to remain banned for so long?

Emerging from the deluge of '80s slasher movies that appeared in the shadow of Michael, Jason, and Freddy (of the hugely successful "Halloween," "Friday the 13th," and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" franchises), "Slumber Party Massacre II" follows on from the events of 1982's "The Slumber Party Massacre." Courtney Bates (Crystal Bernard), a survivor from the previous bloodbath, is now a high school senior troubled by nightmares about the maniac who terrorized her and her pals in the first film. Inexplicably, he has turned into a leather-clad rockabilly dude wielding an electric guitar/power drill combo played by Atanas Ilitch, heir to the Little Caesars Pizza empire.

Despite her traumatic previous experience, Courtney still heads out to an isolated house with her girlfriends to celebrate her birthday, where they are inevitably joined by a few horny teenage guys. As you might well expect, this scenario provides the set-up for a gory third act when the killer manifests himself and impales his victims one by one with his very phallic power tool.

The theatrical cut of "Slumber Party Massacre II" clocks in at just 75 minutes, and we don't get our first real kill until over 50 minutes into the movie. The bulk of that build-up is just the girls hanging out, playing in their garage band, dancing, and having a tipsy pillow fight. This might frustrate hardcore slasher addicts, but it does at least build up believable camaraderie between the girls before their dates and the supernatural murderer shows up.

Unfortunately, the kills aren't really worth the wait. It's pretty mild and repetitive compared to many other slashers of the period, as the Driller Killer pops up, drills someone to death, and occasionally breaks into a song before the next skewering. Clearly influenced by Freddy Krueger (albeit less scary and much better looking), he is still the highlight of the film and gets one truly show-stopping dance number in which he mimes, breakdances, pirouettes, and boogies his way towards his next victim. It's all very light-hearted and a little bit too jokey for its own good, and the weapon of choice is one of those audacious "only in the '80s" things. There was some serious thought behind the killer's guitar, however. According to writer-director Deborah Brock, it "[visualized] the violent sexuality of male rock 'n' roll and slasher films."

"Slumber Party Massacre II" is a horror-comedy musical with a little gore, a flash of gratuitous nudity, and no real scares of any note. Yet it was withheld for certification by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) until 2024 while more extreme material like "Cannibal Holocaust," "The Driller Killer," "The House by the Cemetery," "The Last House on the Left," and "SS Experiment Camp" were passed far earlier (albeit some with significant cuts).

All these lurid titles, and many more besides, contributed to the "Video Nasty" furore that erupted in Britain during the 1980s. The BBFC was first established as far back as 1912, but it faced its most challenging period in the early part of the '80s due to the influx of unregulated video releases clogging up home rental stores. Many of them hadn't received a theatrical release and therefore weren't certified, which meant the public had unfettered access to some of the cheapest, gnarliest, bloodiest, and most exploitative trash existing on the market.  Under pressure from the media and ever-vigilant moral crusaders like Mary Whitehouse, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) drew up its first list of problematic titles (dubbed "video nasties") in 1983, followed by the Video Recordings Act in the following year. 

With legislation in place, it was the responsibility of the BBFC to exclude the most offensive movies from cinema and home video release. Supplying unclassified tapes became a criminal offense, but the big problem was that censors didn't differentiate much between the really nasty stuff and movies with genuine merit as art and/or entertainment. As a result, films like "The Exorcist," "The Evil Dead," and Andrej Zulawski's "Possession" got caught in the crossfire. In some notorious cases, films as completely innocuous as "I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses" ended up on the list simply because someone filed a complaint.

As for "Slumber Party Massacre II," it is far less shocking than dozens of other '80s slashers, but it was still deemed unsuitable for classification by the BBFC in 1988 and withheld from release after the film's distributor refused to make cuts. The movie was belatedly passed with a 15 certificate (suitable for persons aged 15 or older) in 2024, which means that Brits who are still in high school can now revel in the leather-clad Driller Killer's dance moves.