People ask me about cheap entertainment pretty often, and I have a go to list. But this week, I was able to fit in one of my favorites. The sleepover.
Our Sleepover
My friend, Isabelle, and I share a love for bad horror films, specifically creature features. Think shark movies, mutant alligators, mysterious monsters, and things like that. But Mr. BFS and most of our close friends aren’t fans, so we usually do group stuff that we can all agree on.
Well, this past week has been emotionally draining for me and super busy for Isabelle, so she came up with a fantastic suggestion. Bad movie night sleepover!!! Whoo-hoo! And it was everything we could have imagined. 
She headed over after work on Tuesday, picked up our Chinese, and I was put in charge of creature features.
Movie Marathon
Do you know about Netflix (ever been online in the last 5 years, lol)? It has a streaming option where you pay about $8 and get access to a big database of movies and tv shows. They don’t have a complete database of everything you can think of, but it is pretty awesome if you’d like to browse and be surprised. We use our Wii to stream from Netflix to our tv. We cancelled our membership a few months ago since we weren’t using it regularly, but this just seemed to fit perfectly. So I did invest about $8.50 into our movie night right off the bat…totally worth it.
We ended up eating Chinese, sharing a bottle of Red Moscato, and watching some movies. Here was our lineup from 9pm to 3am Tuesday night:
- Shark Attack in the Mediterranean – SOOOOO BAD that it was HILARIOUS!!! Really, it was a German “Jaws” that was voiced over in monotone English and it was just sooooooo fun. We pulled a Mystery Science Theater on it the whole time, hehehe.
- Mega Piranha – Pretty bad but we laughed when we could predict what was going to happen every few minutes. Just picture piranha so big that they jump out of the ocean to attack Florida hotels, lol.
- The Relic – This one actually had some real actors, but pretty much sucked since it was so dark all of the time. It almost put us asleep at 1am and that was not the plan…
- Leviathan – Think Alien underseas. It was actually pretty good, creepy, and kept us interested. Even Mr. BFS stayed downstairs to watch this one.
At about 3am, we decided to call it a night. But we hung out more on Wednesday from 9am to the afternoon and really made the most of Isabelle’s day off. It was a really great break!!!
My Suggestions
If you too need a little, cheap break, I highly suggest finding a friend, clearing a day off, picking a theme, and having a movie-marathon sleepover. Really. And you can keep it nearly free if you need to. Just use DVD’s that you already own and stick to cheap food like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It’s not about the money, it’s about cutting loose. Everyone needs to just have some fun once in a while.
What do you do to let of steam? What’s your idea of a cheap break?
This reminds me of when I was a kid and use to have sleepovers. I never thought of doing a sleepover movie night now. Great idea! It would be so much fun to get my friends together to do this. I think I would have 3 or 4 friends come over and watch Eddie Murphy movies all night. Coming To America is my all time favorite.
I LOVE this idea! I, too, love terrible horror movies (and good horror movies and mediocre horror movies), but my husband is NOT a fan. I would love to have a girlfriend over for a scarefest with takeout and sleeping bags. What a great idea.
Just this past weekend, we were over at my aunts and uncles, and some of the cousins and I stayed up and played cards. That’s fun too. Nothing big, just Skip-Bo. Sounds like some really campy movies. I also cannot stand when things are filmed in the dark. Even TV shows that do it quickly lose my interest.
That sounds like fun! I love horror movies (not the just pure gore ones though…) and need to find someone around here who loves them as much as me. I love girls nights that are in the comfort of my or their houses!
I like bringing back childhood experiences. They’re cheap and bring you back to stress-free living times. It’s amazing how great I feel after a good peanut butter and FLUFF sandwich!
We go to the beach when we need a break but we are fortunate it is only 3 blocks away from out house! It can be a quick drive if you live near a coast though!
Although I doubt I could stay up till 3, I love having a friend(s) over for a dinner and a cheap movie. I use redbox or blockbuster express where I usually have some kind of discount code. That’s the only reason I do kind of wish I had a better TV, but oh well. It’s still fun.
This sounds like waaaay too much fun for an adult to be having? Are you sure this is legal?
I must be over the hill, this days a sleep over is more like, ugg I miss my bed and pillow, but an evening with friends, now that is priceless:)
Sounds like a fun night! I guess that is the good thing about three roommates, every night feels like a sleep over in some aspect.
I don’t get why you would want to watch terrible movies, I’d rather go to sleep. Redbox is too expensive if you don’t remember to put it back. I think it’s sleepover here every night since my wife likes to watch movies too.
A few years ago, I bought a 70 pack of “classic” horror from Best Buy for $30. 70 movies on about 2 dozen dvds.
I got the original Little Shop of Horrors and a bunch of old, indy horror flicks. One that sticks out seemed to be an excuse to get flat-chested French women to take off their shirts, lean against a wall, and scream into the shadows. I never figured out what they were scared of.
@Call Me, The Golden Child has to be in there too!
@Emily, you can totally do it! If you give me a year or so, I will have fun money again and can come visit.
Or dump the family and head over to my new house after October, lol. Isabelle can join us, right?
@Money Beagle, some of our most fun nights are the potlucks when we board game into the wee hours of the morning.
@BogofDebt, I can’t stand gore, so they have to either be really cheesy creature features or thrillers/suspense like Paranormal Activity or The Ring (totally scary but no gore).
@Nick, is that what they call a fluffer nutter? I see them on tv but that is foreign to me, lol.
@Lance, water and sun do not mix well for me…I burn faster than an albino, lol. But I can totally see the appeal.
@B&B, yeah, it’s the people that make it fun, not the tv quality.
@Greg, lol, totally legal. Although there should be laws against some of the bad acting, hahaha.
@Rob, HAHAHA, I like sleeping too. I just pushed it back a few hours.
@Jenna, I really do love that dorm-like feel…
@Aaron, they are more funny when they are awful. We mocked them openly and made dirty jokes and acted like kids. That’s why it’s awesome. Yeah, I am careful to only Redbox when I know I can return the movie in time. Netflix is a bit easier since you can cancel it in like 2 minutes online.
@Jason, they were screaming because creepy American dudes were staring at their boobs, hahaha.
I’ve done movie night before, too. And the can be fun.
By the way, I have no idea how you were able to wake up so early on Wednesday morning after a few hours of sleep!
My wife did this with a friend last week, though they didn’t watch movies. Instead, they bought girly magazines and took quizzes and so forth. They had a blast!
CUTE! Though your choice of movies are wildly different than mine! But I’m glad you were able to unwind mid-week!
All you needed was “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” and you would have been set. My greatest treat would be getting 8 straight hours of sleep, I probably couldn’t make it through one movie!
Don’t forget it’s shark week!
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