DVD Release
You’re Next 3: Pajama Party Massacre (2007)
R1 / NTSC DVD
NFTS Productions / 2008
Directed by Jason Stephenson
Written by Joe Knetter & Dustin LaValley
Cast: Elske McCain, Joe Knetter & Scarlet Salem
Review by James Garfield
Christine (Elske McCain) and Jennifer (Scarlet Salem) lounge around a house, eating ice cream and arguing. A masked killer (Joe Knetter), toting a long staff with two saw blades attached, breaks into the house and tauntingly pursues the two screaming women.
This cheerfully misogynistic short film (don’t worry if you’ve never heard of You’re Next 1 and 2; they’re even shorter test pieces, included on this DVD) distills the slasher genre to its essentials, missing only the past traumatic holiday experience that usually starts off such films. (The filmmakers are contemplating expanding this short into a full-length feature, so that omission may be rectified.) The two women have a moderate amount of profane, sex-centered dialogue, and one of them goes off to bathe and snort cocaine. Cult actress Elske McCain gives her all for this role. (In an apparent parody of the slasher convention of showing comely females cleaning up, the opening of the film shows the chubby killer in the shower; the film has its cake and eats it too.) So we have a maximum amount of exploitative elements in a minimum amount of time, and some tongue-in-cheek humor, making this an entertaining effort.
Shot on video on a micro-budget, “Pajama Party Massacre” compensates for the stingy running time with a generous load of extras, some of them (the behind-the-scenes footage) enjoyable enough. Obviously, you’ll need expectations lowered from those you would have for a full-length feature, but “PPM” demonstrates that there may be enough talent to make a feature worth looking forward to.
