Sleepaway Camp is about a summer camp, full of preteens and young kids, that is being tormented by a mysterious killer seemingly exacting revenge on anyone that does wrong to the main character of Angela. Is Angela the killer? Is it her cousin Ricky? Is it crazy Mel the fish faced owner of the camp?! GASP! Who knows?! The genius of this movie, or accidental genius if you will, of it is that mystery is easy to solve, but not the full twist that blindsides you.
At the beginning of the movie we see a father and his son and daughter on a sailboat, the kids push him off and he tips the boat over. Soon they’re ran over by a speed boat and presumably killed. Flash foward to “current” day where Ricky and Angela are preparing for camp and goofy Aunt Martha is either the best actor in the movie or the worst, you decide! The two kids go to camp and crazy shit starts happening. It is obvious from the get go that one of two things is going on. Either Angela is killing everyone OR Ricky is killing everyone to protect Angela. What we get is something you’d never guess.
The acting isn’t anything amazing, but the characters are decent! Angela is the quiet shy girl that doesn’t say much so it is hard to gauge Felissa Rose’s performance. Felissa is awesome as a person, a real peach. She did a shout out for us for the podcast a couple years back and went above and beyond what we asked. We love you Felissa! Ricky is the hot headed cousin of Angela that is always down for a fight and never short of curse words. Judy, oh man Judy she is the bitch of the camp, just trying to stir the shit pot and start drama. Ronnie is the big buff guido that helps run the camp with the owner Mel, a frumpy old man with a fish face. I could go on and on with these characters so I’ll draw the line there. Well, maybe one last one! James Earl Jones’s dad is in this. Why? Robert Earl Jones plays one of the camp chefs, the one that isn’t a pedo. Imagine this, it is 1983 and James Earl Jones just did The Empire Strikes back and his dad did Sleepaway Camp for probably $500 and a sandwich lol.
Luke, I am your grandpa!
Kills wise? This movie has a nice variety. For being so low budget, $350K apparently, it has decent effects! The pedophile cook gets boiled by a large pot of water dumped on him, Kenny drowns, Meg gets stabbed in the back and slit down her spine. The boy taking a shit who’s name escapes me gets stung by tons of bees, Judy gets a curling iron jammed into her….ummm clown hole…yikes. Young kids get hacked up with a hatchet, bleak! Mel gets shot with an arrow, in a simple yet effective shot. Then there’s good old Paul, Ricky’s best friend, well Paul get’s more than he bargained for, again I’ll save that one.
Dialogue and inadvertent comedy. This movie has some pretty awkward scenes and dialogue in it. One that always makes me laugh, and no one really ever mentions much is a scene at a party at the camp. The boys want to go skinny dipping and Kenny asks Angela, of course she doesn’t respond and he drops a funny line of “Hey Angela, how come ya so fucked up!?” with a thick Jersey accent. There is an amazing scene where the cop shows up talking to Mel about Kenny’s death and he has a respectable mustache, later in the movie before the climax the cop returns and has a laughably fake stache. Apparently the actor who played the cop had a mustache, then when he thought his scenes were done he shaved it off, Hiltzik needed him to come back for another scene, and they had to put a fake stache on him for continuity haha. A random scene of the meathead with a heart of gold Ronnie, is lifting weights in the background of a conversation fish face Mel has with Ricky. Also bitch #2, Meg gets excited about having a date with Mel, the gross old man that owns the camp. Very odd because Meg is a looker and Mel, which we have covered already has a frumpy fish face! Just take a look to the right and see the odd pairing of Mad Mel and M-E-G Meg!
"Hey Angela, how come ya so fucked up?!"
SPOILER ALERT!
The ending. SPOILER ALERT! Do not read the rest of this blog if you haven’t seen this movie. The ending is truly astounding and should be seen with a clear mind. I have never met one person that has seen this movie for the first time, without researching it, that could guess what happens at the end.
Here we go. Angela invites Paul to “meet me at the waterfront after the social” he happy accepts. Once he arrives she tells him to take his clothes off and go for a swim. Quick cut back to the rest of the camp and the carnage that has happened. Young kids probably 8 or younger hacked up in their sleeping bags, Judy’s corpse, Meg’s corpse, Ricky beaten to a pulp by friggin Mel going apeshit lol. The counselors are looking for Angela, she’s the only one, along with Paul, that they can’t find. Ronnie happens across Angela, sitting naked on the beach cuddling Paul and humming. Angela stands up, Paul’s head rolls away, she whips around and standing there in her full glory is Angela, covered in blood with a knife and a dick between her legs. Cut to Aunt Martha talking to “Angela” about how excited she is to have a girl, they already have a boy (Ricky) and another will not do. Martha has forced the boy from the beginning to look, act and dress like a girl, now named Angela. Ronnie drops the obvious line of “she’s a boy?” and boom, cut to a weird green wash of the screen and music.
"She's a boy?!"
~Ronnie
This movie to me, is a comfort movie. Any time I watch this, I feel cozy and comfortable. It is almost cathartic in a way. The genuine interactions between the characters, the funny things you notice with repeat viewings and the inadvertant humor just makes me happy. I’m not sure Robert Hiltzik really knew fully what he was doing, and it made for a really entertaining movie. The fact that he dedicated a camp slasher movie with a transgender preteen killer whom kills kids to his mom, is interesting in itself. To mom, a doer. Indeed Mr. Hiltzik! Think about that, this is a slasher movie where the majority of the kills are preteen kids not truly full on teenagers. This movie has balls, pun intended. I can’t give this anything less than an A+ check it out!
A+
Thanks again Felissa, you rock and we love you!
