“Sleepaway Camp” (1983)

Studio:
Starring: Mike Kellin, Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tierston, Paul Denagelo
Directed by: Robert Hiltzik
Rated: R
Running Time: 84 min.

Synopsis: Campers fear for their lives as a killer stalks them and many suspect a number of people at the camp.

This is a classic 80’s cheesy slasher film that’s so bad it’s so good. The film also goes where no other slasher film goes at that time with sleaze and taboo subjects like child molestation, homosexuality, incest, children murdered, and transgender. Sleepaway Camp opens with a simple but effective scene with a pan of the cabins with the haunting score playing underneath and a touch of voices from the campers cheering and laughing. We then go to a father and his two kids (a boy and girl) on a boat in the lake, which happens to be right across from a camp. There’s also another boat in the lake taking a girl water skiing that is whining and complaining. You also get the same from the driving and the passenger on the boat, so anything coming out of their mouths is bitching and moaning. The teenage kid driving the boat ends up letting the passenger drive it for a second, where she ends up running over the father and the two kids. One of the kids survives the accident and is sent to their aunt and cousin to live.

Eight years later, the aunt sends her son, Ricky and his cousin Angela (who survived the boat accident) to Camp Arawak. The aunt’s a real strange bird and a bad actress. Her own son can’t even stand her. Once at camp Ricky meets up with friend Paul who introduces him to his cousin. Angela, through out most of the movie doesn’t talk much and just gives people an evil stare. Another one staring is the head chef, who is checking out the kids coming into the camp and says, “Look all that young fresh chicken.” The camp is lead by Mel, played by veteran actor Mike Kellin, who has a thing with Meg, a teenage counselor. One thing about this movie is the kids in the camp are played by kids. Like in other camp slasher movies, the kids are played by adults most of the time. Even the counselors look very young as well. As all the campers get settled, Angela has a hard time fitting in. She has a run in with the head chef where he lures her in his back room. Luckily, Ricky finds her before the chef can harm her. Later on, someone takes out the chef when boiling water is poured all over him. It’s ruled an accident and Mel tries to hush everyone up in the kitchen for bad publicity doesn’t get out about the camp.

As the summer continues on, Angela comes out of her shell a little when she is befriended by Paul, but she is still harassed by other campers for being weird. Ricky is a hot head and takes on anyone who messes with his cousin. Also every profane word known to man comes out of this kid’s mouth. One of the boys who picked on Angela is found dead in the lake one morning. Mel rules it as an accidental drowning and refuses to believe there’s a killer out there. Another boy who messes with Angela and Ricky is killed when he’s trapped in a bathroom stall and a hive of bees is dropped on him. After this murder, most of the parents pull their kids out of camp and Mel thinks he’s finished. He also now believes there is a killer and suspects Ricky.

Paul’s relationship blossoms with Angela a bit, but she pushes Paul away whenever he tries to get closer. At one moment when they’re making out, Angela has a flashback to her childhood when her and her brother watch their father in bed with another man. It then goes to the two kids in their bed with the brother trying to touch his sister. At that moment Angela wakes from her flashback and pushes Paul away. Then on one night, the killer strikes again by attacking some campers and staff members. Some little kids are hacked up on a camping trip out in the woods, one girl is killed by curling iron in her cabin, and Meg the counselor is stabbed in the back through a shower wall. Mel goes looking for Meg to have a romantic dinner with her, but ends up finding her dead. In raged, he goes after Ricky, still thinking he’s responsible for the killings. He confronts him and almost beats him to death, but the real killer appears and kills Mel with an arrow to the neck.

The last moments of the film are the most shocking. Other staff members and the police find the other bodies and they also find Ricky close to death but alive. The others start looking for Paul and Angela. When walking along the lake they see the two sitting down by the water. Cut to another flashback from Angela (SPOILER ALERT here, just in case you haven’t seen the film) eight years early when she moves into her crazy aunt’s house, she talks about always wanting a little girl and since she has a boy all ready she doesn’t need another one. Turns out the real Angela died in the boat accident and the boy, Peter, survived, but the aunt dressed him up like a girl all these years. Out of the flashback and back to the action, Angela stands up as the decapitated head of Paul falls. Angela stands there, naked with a knife in hand. And as the camera tilts down the others notices that she is really a he.

Seeing this film back in the 80’s for the first time it was a shocking ending. Today, the film still is solid. Although it’s like other camp horror films in that day, it is also very unique and has a sleaziness to it and also an eeriness to it as well. Of course there were sequels made later in the 80’s that didn’t capture the essence of the original. Recently, the director to the original made the official sequel to film called, Return to Sleepaway Camp, but the film was terrible. Although it had original cast members in the film, the movie fell to many pitfalls that recent horror films do by using lots of comedy and one-liners and making uninteresting characters and lacking on mood. The original Sleepaway Camp will always be unique and be one of the most remediable horror films of the 1980’s.