(**1/2 out of *****)
This is the only movie in the slasher-slashes-girls-in-their-nighties series -- which includes the "Slumber Party Massacre" movies and Jim Wynorski's "Hard to Die" (he also directed the sequel to this one) -- that stands on its own. It has nothing to do with the others, and, storywise, it's better. Angela O'Neill plays a traumatized college girl who has sleeping and waking nightmares about a madman who murdered his family, except for one sister (guess who it is), twelve years ago in the house that is now O'Neill's sorority house. When she and three of her sorority sisters are left alone for the weekend, her dreams come true when the same nutcase escapes from the mental hospital and comes back home to finish the job. I'm not gonna lie to you -- this is far from great -- but, it is surprisingly suspenseful in parts, the characters are fairly likable, and, unlike most of these other movies, the script does a believably good job of keeping the girls trapped in the house. There is a silly dress-up montage (including the obligatory topless scenes), the obligatory false-scare climax (including a totally unnecessary final murder that ticked me off), and lots of scenes of knives going into stomachs and backs. Otherwise, the T&A is not as rampant as in the other nightie slashers, but the story is (slightly) more rewarding.
HIGHLIGHT: One sorority chic and her boyfriend are fooling around in a tent in the backyard when the killer ruins all their fun by slashing up the tent and stabbing the girl right between the -- well, not the eyes -- and her boyfriend ditches her and runs, screaming and buck-naked, back into the house.