Make rubbish film, call it a 'homage' (some spoilers)

This is basically a mostly awful film lurking behind a "homage" status. House of the Devil is a homage in a very similar kind of vein and style, but is superb. I appreciate that slasher films in the 80s weren't renowned for performance or script, but when you look at Black Christmas (which is more or less what this film is trying to rip) it's like an oscar winner compared to this. To be fair, the effects in Sleeper are actually not too bad on the whole and fit nicely with the whole visual style, the acting is a bit horrible in places but never quite bad enough to be worse than the films it is trying to emulate. The real problem is just the script. Towards the end it all just tails off like someone just totally lost interest. What exactly happens to the cop? He's running around, discovers the girl is next and then all of a sudden he seems to have just fallen down a black hole. So what's the point of him? And also, I can suspend some disbelief as much as anyone, but why exactly does he tell the girl to "go and find a payphone" when there's not only could we "surmise" perfectly fully functioning phone in the house, but it's a pivotal plot device that actually has probably MORE screen time than the cop himself! Durrr!? And what's with the sleeper? Again, no need to really go into massive amounts of detail, but would be nice to have a little guess at why he's doing what he's doing. Anyhow, I actually enjoyed this film for what it was, but don't expect an amazing homage in so much as a mostly rubbish attempt at a horror film.