Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988)
Directed by Michael A. Simpson
I’m really not sure how I haven’t reviewed this movie yet. I fully enjoy the Sleepaway Camp series (part iv aside). The original is one of my favorite slasher movies and has an ending so shocking that no one sees it coming.
Sleepaway Camp II focuses around a new Camp, Camp Rolling Hills. A counselor tells the kids about the murders at Camp Arawak and recaps the original movie quickly. Angela is back now, she’s had a sex change so she’s fully a girl and is working at Rolling Hills as this by the book camp counselor. The rest of the movie is Angela weeding out all the kids that she deems as immoral and not good campers. We get a wide array of kills from decent to hilarious.
This movie casts Pamela Springsteen as Angela, Bruce Springsteen’s sister. She adds a comedic edge to Angela that was missing in the original and this movie as a whole is more of a horror comedy. The first film was a serious slasher film, while this one realizes what it is a cheap and fun flick. I really enjoy Pamela as Angela, she’s fun, quirky and cute but not a bombshell. She does a great job at being awkward and weird. The rest of the cast is rather forgettable aside from a few characters: the head counselor TC played by Brian Patrick Clarke, Molly the final girl played by Renee Estevez, and the slutty bad girl Ally played by Valerie Hartman. Ally is a great character, she walks around topless a lot, trying to hook up with the boys and asking a guy, post coital if he has AIDS lol. Something about her cracks me up and I’m sad to hear that she left acting because every role offered to her involved nudity, which she didn’t want to do.
"Listen, you don't have AIDS or anything, do you?"
~Ally
The aforementioned kills are all pretty fun. One girl gets her tongue cut out. We get a variety of stabbings and slashings but also we get a girl drowned in an out house and two girls burned to a crisp. All of these kills complete, with awesomely bad one-liners! This movie was shot back to back with Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland, which I also love. Part 3 is probably the worse aside from the “movie” part IV and the Return to Sleepaway Camp, which was a slog.
If you love the first Sleepaway Camp, then you may enjoy this. Just know that it is much more comedic and goofy, but thats the charm! I give Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers a solid B+. It is cheap, it is fun, even if it is a trash movie lol.
