A quick little history lesson for you. This film was written by one Rita Mae Brown as sort of a snarky send-up of the slasher movement. Unfortunately, the whole enterprise wound up back-firing on her, and the flick's producers filmed the thing as straight-up, insipid, sleazy exploitation.

As a horror movie, 'Slumber' just plain sucks. The killings are telegraphed, the direction is flat, and the plot is purposely crippled. However, it doesn’t really work as genre parody either. Perhaps the best thing that can be said about Ms. Brown's screenplay is that she had good intentions. (All the better to pave the road to Hell, of course.) However, even if this film had been produced as the farce it was intended to be, I just don't see it being all that watchable. As I have said before; If you’re going to mock someone else‘s work, you’d better damn well have the chops of your own to back it up. Like so many who set forth to write scathing send-ups of the genre, Ms. Brown bases her satire not so much on what slashers are, or even why people watch them. Instead, the film's apocryphal humor is based on what the writer perceives them to be. (And we've all heard about the legendary feminist sense of humor!) Broad aping of convention is easy, subtle wit is hard. Even sadder is when one is outdone by those one would mock. While 'Slumber' makes use of the usual slasher clichés (cats jump out of nowhere, cheap "guy sneaking up on girl is only her boyfriend" scenes, the characters decide to split up in order to face the menace) it cements its own pointlessness by telling us up front that the killer is an escaped mental patient. At least those other slashers usually offer some sad veneer of plot by keeping you guessing about the killer's true identity. Ironic title? No, the film's just about as highbrow as it sounds.

The gore effects are, for the most part, effective. And that’s the only positive thing I can bring myself to say about the fecal lump this movie turned out to be.