Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Film: Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Stars: Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tiersten, Karen Fields, Christopher Collet, Mike Kellin, Katherine Kamhi

Director: Robert Hiltzik

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

All October long, The Many Rantings of John is running a marathon dedicated to the Horror classics of the 1960's-00's that I'm seeing for the first time this month.  If you want to take a look at past titles from previous horror marathons (both this and other seasons) check out the links at the bottom of this article.

There were a lot of imitators that came in the wake of the successes of Halloween and Friday the 13th, with serial killers popping up in every horror movie you could imagine, slashing everyone in sight in hopes of equalling the gargantuan box office receipts of those two pictures.  One film that tried this was Sleepaway Camp.  Though it was a hit (nowhere near as big as the other two, but it made 30x its budget...most companies would be happy with such things), the film's critical reputation has shifted quite a bit through the years.  At the time, it was dismissed by critics, but years later it has developed something of a cult following, the way these types of horror movies do (go on Letterboxd-there is no more ardently-devoted fanbase on the site than those who devote their cinephile existence to scary pictures).  I was curious, therefore, where I'd land-was this a jewel that was eventually saved by future generations, or were contemporary critics correct to toss it in the garbage?

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie starts with John and his boyfriend Lenny taking John's children Angela and Peter out on a lake.  A freak accident involving the single stupidest blonde woman in the history of cinema causes both John & Peter to die, and Angela (Rose) is forced to live with her Aunt Martha.  Martha sends both Angela and her son Ricky (Tiersten) to a sleepaway camp, where Ricky tries to protect Angela but she is still ostracized for being prudish.  The other girls, led by Judy (Fields) and Meg (Kamhi), want her to be more sexual and think she's not as grown-up as her, while the other boys mock her for not being as pretty as the girls like Judy & Meg.  The film continues with all of the people who have been mean to Angela being killed.  Initially Ricky is suspected, but in a big twist at the end, it turns out that the killer is Angela herself...except she isn't Angela at all.  A demented Aunt Martha has raised Peter to be Angela, not wanting another son, and so she is instead forced into a type of gender transition that she didn't seem to want.  The final scene is her, with a boy's severed head on the ground near her, fully naked (with a visible penis) screaming and growling at the other campers.

I want to say before I get into it that I understand why this has been rescued by certain film fans.  Despite an insanely small budget, there's something here.  The bullying as metaphor, the hyper-sexualization of teens (and in this case, most of the actors are cast age appropriate unlike, say, Neve Campbell at 23 playing a high schooler in Scream) is really disturbing, and feels sometimes like meta-commentary about how horror movies treat young people as disposable.  But with the ending, the movie feels so gross that I couldn't move past it.

Even in 1983, it's very clear that Angela is meant to be seen as a killer/monster for what she is, and while the phrase "transphobic" didn't exist in 1983, that doesn't mean that isn't what this movie is.  The film either needs to flesh out more what happened to Angela, driving her mad, because as it is it just makes it seem like the reason she's insane is because she was inevitably going to be that way given what happened to her, and it's really wrong.  Coupled with the homophobia of the beginning (looking at the way they try to hide her gay father as a secret shame), this was gross to me, and I don't know if any amount of skill with the crafting of the script can change my mind on that.

I also want to say-the beginning of this movie, even for a cheesy horror movie, is so poorly acted you'd think it was a middle school production.  If the blonde girl so much as touches the steering wheel given what's happening, she would've saved both the original Angela and her father's lives...she for almost 100 feet acts as if there's no way to save him, but given the size of the boat and the time elapsed, there's literally no excuse other than she's a homicidal monster (as is the guy she's in the boat with) that she lets these people die.  I honestly couldn't get over this the entire movie...all of this was not only preventable, but it was preventable by literally anyone who has so much as heard of a steering wheel.

1920's: The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera

1930's: The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Dracula's Daughter, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Invisible Man, Mad Love, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Raven, Son of Frankenstein, Werewolf of London

1940's: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Cat People, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Dracula, The House of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Invisible Man's Revenge, The Invisible Woman, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Invisible Agent, The Mummy's Curse, The Mummy's Ghost, The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Tomb, Phantom of the Opera, She-Wolf of London, Son of Dracula, The Uninvited, The Wolf Man

1950's: Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, The Blob, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Creature Walks Among Us, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, It Came from Outer Space, Revenge of the Creature

1960's: The Devil Rides Out, The Innocents, The Masque of the Red Death, Night of the Living Dead,Village of the Damned

1970's: The Amityville Horror, Black Christmas, Carrie, Dawn of the Dead, Don't Look Now, Halloween, The Hills Have Eyes, The Omen, Phantom of the Paradise, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, When a Stranger Calls, The Wicker Man

1980's: Altered States, An American Werewolf in London, The Changeling, Child's Play, The Evil Dead, The Fly, The Fog, Friday the 13th, Gremlins, Hellraiser, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist, The Thing

1990's-Present: Arachnophobia, The Blair Witch Project, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Candyman, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Paranormal Activity, Scary Movie, Scream