Sleepover: Review By B. Alan Orange

(Note: Be weary of my star rating for this one. It’s defiantly worth four for fighting teenage girls and their accompanying mothers. But for boys of all ages it’s worth about one and a half, if that. Sleepover refuses to recognize the Y chromosome…)

Hell Mission Statement #40365: Sleepover

“For 10 and 11 year old girls, this thing is going to be the main staple of their collective film-watching diet.”

“Oh, it’s defiantly for tweeners.”

I need to stop listening to critics before I head into any given movie. I should see it untainted. Still, certain words have seeped into my conscience without my will or consent. Words that I despise…

“Tweeners.”

That’s my current most hate-able word. For two Christs and a Biscuit, that one single-syllable utterance is causing my ears to bleed. Yet, I’ve been forced to use it at certain revolving intervals. I abhor myself for stooping so low, but sometimes it’s the only clear way to describe this particular, obtainable audience. I think the term “tweener” is a pompous marketing tool. Its soul purpose is to illustrate and portray a thatch of tiny miscreants that have yet to develop a clear, concise cinematic taste glad. I.E., it’s easy to manipulate them and the enormous weight of their seat-time.

When I was 10, the tweener film didn’t really exist. Maybe, in small doses, but the word itself surely didn’t. We, as preteens, were not the sole focus of this trampling beast known as the studio system. Our age bracket was never fully catered to. Not like it is here, in the 04s. Sure, there was the occasional Disney toss-off. And a small drip of undistinguishable meat that leveled itself out at unfiltered absurdity (even They Call Me Bruce had T*ts in it). For the most part, our movies were also our parents’ movies. Mom loved it. Dad loved it. Older Sister loved it. We were thrown stuff that could be enjoyed on many different levels.

Today, the “tweener” film has become its own genre. (And they said the moc*mentary was the last real palpable shelf category. Not true.) From now on, I refuse to use that whorable word. It will never pass my cracked, hemorrhaging lips ever again. Instead, I will forever refer to these allowance wielding ticket buyers as “little sh*ts.” That said; Sleepover is defiantly a slideshow for the kids. It’s got “awesome for little sh*ts” written all over it. And those tiny c*nts will probably love the thing.

I can just tell. The audience I saw it with went mad for this sugar-flavored saliva. It was as if we were watching the second coming of Davey Jones. The little sh*ts in attendance, made-up almost exclusively of young girls and their mothers, whooped and hollered with unabashed glee at just about every clever turning point. The end kiss received more applause than anything seen in Spider-Man 2. This is the teen girl film of the summer. They’re going to love it. I know for a fact, because I damn near hated it. This isn’t like New York Minute. This doesn’t hold the arm of the thirty-year old male like Mean Girls, or even Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen did; carrying them into the lobby with a smile. It doesn’t care about any other given demographic.

Sleepover knows its intended audience almost too well. And that audience is all it seems to want to please. Which, all things considered, is a very good thing…

Giant close-ups of toes being painted nearly threw me into the isle. It was icky, like attending an elementary school co-ed gym class. And there are long stretches of screen time given to girly-girls, playing and acting their actually age instead of being sexed up for the older males who might accidentally find themselves in attendance, dancing around in wigs and caked-on make-up. It’s kinda gross and uncomfortable to watch. It made me feel like a really dirty old man.

I pretty much didn’t want to be there, especially after that opening act of gratuitous dress-up…

Nothing worthwhile ever really happens in Sleepover. It borrows heavily from Ferris Bueller (completely stealing the end of that film) and the Corey-Corey opus License to Drive (a personal favorite of mine). More than anything, it uses two great films as its template: Scavenger Hunt and Midnight Madness. I love those movies with an unabridged passion. When I heard this was of the same cannon, I had hope in my heart that it would rule the Sunday morning set. Sadly, Sleepover never reaches the scatty, adventurous spirit of those two older films. There’s no grandeur to these proceedings. It fails to run the race. It just doesn’t want to go to the lengths that either one of those films did. This is both good and bad…

It’s bad because, well, it doesn’t surpass something that is already perfect in its own right. If I’m going to watch a Scavenger Hunt remake, it’s going to have to outdo its predecessor. Either a toilet is going to have to be smashed alongside the highway, or Michael J. Fox is going to have to come in at the last moment and save the day. Hell, I’d even settle for a cameo appearance by Stephen Furst. Nope, not this time around.

At the same time, this is good. I highly doubt that any intended Sleepover audience member has ever seen Scavenger Hunt or Midnight Madness. Those piss-high kids aren’t privy to the capable joys of Scatman Crothers falling over in a suit of armor. All of the goals set forth in this new film are obtainable. After watching these on-screen girls do their laundry list of business, all the little sh*ts can easily head out of the theater and go do the exact same thing on their own. It’s interactive in that way. It’s honest, and realistic. It doesn’t lie to the kids. It doesn’t set up some great, unaccomplishable task. Everything seen on screen can easily be reenacted in real-time.

Teenage girls seem to like that concept. They enjoy a little thing called “reality”. I don’t. I want fantasy. I want something different and new. When I watch a movie, I want to see something that doesn’t happen in real life. All I’m asking for is a little bit of effort on the filmmaker’s part…

That’s why I “pay” to see Spider-Man 2 or Anchorman. No. I would never pay to see Sleepover. I wouldn’t buy the bootleg. I’d probably turn it off if it came on TV…But my twelve-year-old niece wouldn’t. She’d probably buy two copies, keeping one in her locker at school.

I do like this cast. All the girls are great. Every single one of them. I especially like Mika Boorem. I think she’s going to be a huge star. Mostly, though, I dig Alexa Vega’s older on-screen brother, played by Sam Huntington. He’s the only reason any male, of any age, would actually want to watch this. I’ve liked Sam ever since Detroit Rock City, and also thought he was awesome in Not Another Teen Movie. He has nice chemistry with a dog in this one, and their pizza eating scene is a classic. Still, I wouldn’t go out of my way to partake in its glory. That would be stupid…

Yes. This is a great movie. If you’re eleven and you own your own vagina. Me? I found it excruciating. As I should.

It simply wasn’t made with me, or you, in mind. And that’s okay…

Actually, no it’s not. F*ckers!

F*ck this movie. I want my precious seat-time back…

Ah, never mind. I wasn’t going to do anything with it, anyway…