Sleepaway Camp

>Eat shit and die, Ricky!
>Eat shit and live, Bill.

This movie is wrong in so many ways, one of those films that is so bad that it's good. Super low-budget, a look of a B movie. You'll have some of the worst and best dialogues of all time mixed up, it's really amazing. The killing scenes are inventive to a certain point, although some doesn't make much sense. There's some great special effects job after some kills. And what the hell are those clothes the characters wear?

The acting is pretty bad for most actors (wtf is Aunt Martha's actress doing!?). James Earl Jones's father plays a role in this movie, curiously. Beyond bad acting and illogical actions, like that kid that starts talking to himself under the canoe (why, dude?)[spoiler], the killing scenes show Ricky's arms and hands, and at some point you have Ricky wearing a wig (it does get some laughs, at least). I guess it was supposed to just appear his silhouette (imitating Angela) but the image is too bright, so you can clearly see that is Ricky. From what I looked up, Felissa Rose's parents didn't want her to perform murders, even fake ones, so they put Jonathan Tiersten to do the scenes. I love the "I'm going to murder your soul" stare by Angela.[/spoiler] There's even a very noticeable fake mustache worn by an officer, great!

The score is really good, I didn't expect this would be an aspect that this film would excel.

Now, let's talk about the ending, wow, one of the most astonishing and mind-blowing endings ever. There's no way to see it coming, especially the way and how it happens, this is one aspect that made this movie stood out from the rest of the slasher genre. [spoiler]Man, that face and expressions of Angela (aka Peter) are terrifying, the grotesque and animalistic sounds she makes, that insane look and the alternation between body and face shots is disturbing. I'll have nightmares for the rest of my life, so as my girlfriend — she watched it too and now wishes she had not seen it. Then, "Oh my god, she's a boy!", yep, that's the reaction from the bodybuilder character seeing Angela with a head chopped off in her arms and it rolling into ground. Amazing reaction, I'd probably have the same. The movie ends with the frozen frame of Angela's insane look. Brrr, creepy. The whole abuse and torment "Angela" suffered is shocking too, before and during the events of the film, all of that may not have been the one great cause to her going mad but it certainly took big part and led her/him to this extreme point. [/spoiler]

I feel like the whole movie was just an excuse so that the director could reach this specific scene he had in mind, that ending. Which if this is really what happened, I cannot complain, well done!

Rewatching this movie is fun. I have no idea how it received a R eating. The gore is absurd and the nudity is non-existent which makes sense given the age of the campers. This movie is one of the defining "campy" movies. Makes sense, right? By today's standards, this movie is very tame. I would have LOVED to see this in the theater and be 13 when it came out.

An 80s slasher called sleepaway camp. It doesn't sound anymore generic then that. In some ways it is, however, there is more beneath the surface. It's also very watchable as the characters are good and the slasher mystery works.
There is a big clue as to the killer near the end which gave it away for me a little. The ending I also predicted may happen (my twisted mind) but I disregarded it as I thought they wouldn't have the ...balls?... to pull it off. Well they did. I must admit I laughed quite a lot at the end. I imagine in its day it was creepy. What makes this better than most slashers is 1. the fact that you'll remember it. And 2 is.... thinking about the movie after. When I did this is went from a 6 to a 7 rating as the hidden plot gives the movie another layer and also a re-watch value that it otherwise wouldn't have had.

So what the hell happened? Well Angela is a boy who's father and sister died at the start. She goes to live with an aunt. During the movie Angela has a flashback of men having sex (her dad is one male) as she/he/Angela spies with her sister ..
Now Her Aunt. She wants a girls as she has a boy so makes Angela a girl. Weird. She did this to Angela just after the accident and when she was grieving. Was Angela also abused in the flashback? Not sure.
So the camp is too much pain for Angela with the bullying and the molesting head chef. Angela goes crazy. But wait.... more...
Is it me or did her aunt look a bit like a man? She dressed overly female and had exaggerated mannerism like transvestites sometimes do. Also wasn't that Ricky in the doorway wearing a wig about to kill Judy? He was! Was he born a girl? If the aunt is messed up to do it to Angela it's likely. In the flashback a boy and girl are pointing at each other as if to say they are the others gender. Maybe. Also did Mel know Ricky was one killer? He said he'd seen him around and was positive. Man this movie is real bizarre when you think about it.

One more odd thing.... If aunt Martha is a man.. she looks very simular to the man that slept with Angela's father.. but I'm sure the look is coincidence. Angela's father at the start mentions Ricky's father. We never see him?
This could be the sickest and strangest movie I've seen in a while .

Guarantee that this wouldn't be made in today's overly sensitive USA. It's honestly quite a prophetic movie, made even better if you tell yourself it takes place in the 2020s.

While some of the performances are actually painful to watch in my opinion, it is worth a watch.

Was it me or did that police guy wear a fake mustache?

Anyway this was my first time rewatching Sleepaway Camp and it is still enjoyable, even without the shock at the end. This time I watched it with the Joe Bob Briggs bits and Angela (Felissa Rose) was there too. Love all those little tidbits about the film. Like how the director payed a random dude 250 to show his penis and wear a little girl mask. I don't think stuff like that will happen these days.

I also forgot that most kills are off-screen and we only see the results, the only one I truly remembered was the first one with that creepy cook. Some of the lines were still pretty great like when Meg says: "Why do you kiss so wet?" or when Judy says to Angela: "She's a real carpenter's dream: flat as a board and needs a screw!" So awesome.

So yeah, this was quite the enjoyable rewatch and still a film I think everyone with a tiny bit of love for horror should watch!

So bad it's good.

So bad it turned good, hilarious stuff and thhat ending oof.

Most know Sleepaway Camp for the reveal at the end, but it has more going for it than that. There's something about the mood and how it's told that sets it apart from other slasher from the early 80s. Sure...all the slasher ingredients are there, but still...it's different. Even though that makes it an interesting watch no matter how many times I watch it, it's also what makes me think it lacks a bit of direction to be truly great. Well worth a watch, though. Especially if you haven't watched it.

This starts out as a _Friday the 13th_ knockoff, and not a very good one at that. The murders are unoriginal and little boring. The movie plods along, and right when you're thinking, "Well this was a waste of time", it springs it's ending on you, an ending that I didn't see coming and makes the viewer reexamine everything up to this point. It's fantastic, and turns what would have been a run-of-the-mill slasher film into something demented and special.

Me before the movie: Another Friday the 13th-like slasher? Oh, give me a break.

After the movie: WHAT THE FUCK!? Damn that was...disgusting and took me by surprise.

Also, this is the worst summer camp ever. The camp is like Lord of the Files but with the grown-ups around. I find it funny how kids keep dying on this camp but rather than evacuate the area, everyone passes it off as an unfortunate accident and move on with their lives. Nobody cares lol. Like, what the hell? Some people have just died and there might be a murderer in the area, but the campers are like "Well, better tell their parents the kid is dead, I guess, I don't know anymore".