Sleepaway Camp

Template:Short description Template:About Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox film Sleepaway Camp is a 1983 American slasher film written and directed by Robert Hiltzik, and starring Mike Kellin (in his last on-screen appearance), Katherine Kamhi, and Paul DeAngelo alongside Jonathan Tiersten, Felissa Rose, Christopher Collet (in his film debut), and Karen Fields. The original entry in the Sleepaway Camp film series, it focuses on serial killings which occur at a summer camp for teenagers.

Filmed in upstate New York in the fall of 1982, Sleepaway Camp was released the following year by United Film Distributors. It earned approximately $11 million at the box office, but was met by largely unfavorable reviews from critics, many of whom deemed it exploitative and derivative of such films as Friday the 13th (1980).

In the years since its release, Sleepaway Camp has gone on to develop a cult following, a more positive reappraisal from critics, as well as garnering notoriety for its twist ending, which has been named as one of the most shocking and unforgettable in cinematic history. <ref name=kumar>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=cotter>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=yahoo>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=digest/><ref name=stolworthy/>

It was followed by four sequels: Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988), Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1989), Return to Sleepaway Camp (2008) and Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor (2012).

Plot

In 1975, John Baker and his boyfriend, Lenny, take John’s children, Angela and Peter, on a boating trip. After the boat capsizes, John and the children try to swim to shore, but they swim into the path of a reckless motorboat and are struck. John and one of the children are killed.

Eight years later, Angela, the surviving child, is traumatized and lives with her eccentric aunt, Dr. Martha Thomas, and cousin Ricky Thomas. Angela and Ricky are sent to Camp Arawak. Angela’s introverted nature makes her a target for bullying by fellow camper Judy and camp counselor Meg. The head cook, Artie, attempts to sexually assault her, but Ricky intervenes. Later, an unseen figure causes Artie to be severely scalded by boiling water. Artie is rushed to the hospital, and camp owner Mel Kostic dismisses the incident as accidental.

Campers Kenny and Mike mock Angela, prompting Ricky and his friend Paul to confront them. Paul befriends Angela. Later, after Kenny is out at night on the lake and capsizes his canoe, an unseen figure confronts Kenny. Kenny is found the next morning, drowned, and Mel again rules the death an accident. Paul asks Angela to go to the movies with him and kisses her. Campers Billy and Jimmy throw a water balloon at Angela, then Billy is killed when someone traps him in a public toilet with a beehive, exploiting his allergy. Mel begins to suspect a killer is at the camp.

Tensions rise as Angela and Paul’s relationship becomes strained. When Paul kisses her again, she has a flashback to witnessing her father with Lenny. Judy seduces Paul, and Angela finds them kissing. Paul tries to explain, but Judy goads Meg into carrying Angela to the pier and dumping Angela into the water. Mel stops Ricky from helping by holding him by the arms while accusing Ricky of harming campers to protect Angela; Ronnie intervenes. While Ricky helps Angela out of the water and back to the beach, four small children throw sand at Angela. Ricky comforts her, swearing revenge. Right after dinner, Meg is killed during her shower in one of the vacated cabins.

During the camp social, Paul apologizes to Angela, and she tells him to meet her by the water. Meanwhile, Mel discovers Meg’s body, and camp counselor Eddie finds the bodies of the four children who threw sand at Angela, brutally murdered in their sleeping bags. Soon after, Judy is killed by being vaginally penetrated with a hot electric curling iron. Panic spreads through the camp. Believing Ricky is the killer, Mel beats him unconscious, then runs into the woods, encountering the real assailant. Horrified, Mel recognizes the attacker before being killed by an arrow to the throat. Police begin searching for missing campers. Paul is at the beach with Angela, who suggests they go for a swim, while Officer Frank Breton finds Ricky alive but unconscious.

Camp counselors Ronnie, Angelo, and Susie discover a naked Angela humming and clutching a hunting knife alongside Paul’s severed head. They are shocked to realise that “Angela” is actually a boy. It turns out Angela is actually Peter, Angela's thought-to-be-dead brother. The real Angela had died in the boating accident, and Peter survived. After Martha gains custody of him, she decides to raise Peter as “Angela”; the girl she has always wanted. It is implied that Peter was mentally affected by being forced into the identity of his dead sister. The nude, blood-covered Angela/Peter stands before the horrified Susie and Ronnie, hissing and growling.

Production

The filming of Sleepaway Camp took place in Argyle, New York near Summit Lake at a camp formerly known as Camp Algonquin.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In interviews, screenwriter and director, Robert Hiltzik, has said that he attended that camp as a child.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The movie was filmed in five weeks starting in September 1982 and ending in October on a budget of $350,000. The film had been storyboarded but after the first day of filming, the film was already behind schedule. The storyboards could not be used and were thrown out.<ref name="SCtrivia"/> The trees, with their leaves turning, belie the summer setting of the film.

Unlike many of its contemporaries, which had adults portraying youth, the cast of Sleepaway Camp was primarily made up of adolescent actors.Template:Sfn

Release

Box office

Sleepaway Camp premiered in New York City on November 18, 1983.<ref name=afi/> It had its premiere in Los Angeles the following spring on May 25, 1984, screening in fifteen theaters and earning $90,000 during its opening weekend.<ref name=afi>Template:Cite web</ref> On June 10, the film ranked among the top-twenty highest grossing films at the U.S. box office that week.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> By the end of its theatrical run, it had gone on to gross a total of $11 million.Template:Sfn

Critical response

Contemporary

Upon its original release, the film was frequently compared to Friday the 13th due to their shared settings and whodunit plot structure.<ref name=bdrev>Template:Cite web</ref> A review in The Courier-Journal characterized the film as a "low-budget slasher in the Friday the 13th mold, with teen-age mayhem at a summer camp",<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> while Rick Lyman of The Philadelphia Inquirer uniformly lambasted the film, criticizing its performances, writing, and twist ending.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Linda Gross of the Los Angeles Times felt the film was derivative and gruesome, but conceded that its pacing was adept and that director Hiltzik portrayed the often cruel and abusive behavior of teenagers towards another young person.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In the Chula Vista Star-NewsTemplate:'s review, the film was deemed "a tasteless picture about mysterious murders at a summer youth camp that obscenely blends beheadings, stabbings, pubescent impulses, homosexuality, and transvestism" with a cast of junior-high-school actors.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> George Williams of The Sacramento Bee made similar criticisms of the acting, and described the film as "mindless" and "dirty".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Paul Willistein of The Morning Call described the film as "simply horrible", writing that its campy sensibility is unsuccessful as it is "intended to be a bonafide horror film".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The News-Press gave it a favorable review, calling it "a shockingly good slasher film, if you use the relatively fine, first Friday the 13th as a measuring stick... it's just another crazed killer stalking nubile summer campers. But, this time, there are some truly creative killings and interesting plot twists".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Modern assessment

In the years since its release, Sleepaway Camp has developed a cult following and garnered critical reappraisal. Its twist ending has been distinguished by audiences and critics as one of the most shocking in the slasher genre's history,<ref name=kumar/><ref name=cotter/><ref name=yahoo/><ref name=harrington>Template:Cite news Template:Closed access</ref> as well as in cinema history in general.<ref name=digest>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=stolworthy>Template:Cite web</ref>

Template:Rotten Tomatoes prose<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On Metacritic, the film was reviewed by four critics and got a rank of 58 out of a 100, which indicates "mixed or average reviews".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The website Bloody Disgusting gave the film a positive review, praising Felissa Rose's performance and the film's twist ending calling it "one of the most shocking seen since, possibly, Hitchcock's Psycho".<ref name=bdrev/> AllMovie wrote in its review on the film: "While most of the gender-bending story's sexual confusion is ultimately half-baked... Sleepaway Camp is distinctive enough to warrant required viewing for genre enthusiasts".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Film scholar Bartłomiej Paszylk called the film "an exceptionally bad movie but a very good slasher".Template:Sfn Commenting on the performances in the film, film scholar Thomas Sipos wrote that "[the film] feels odd due to its contrasting acting styles. Most of the cast performs in a naturalistic manner, whereas Desiree Gould's performance as Aunt Martha is strikingly stylistic: broadly overplayed to the point of caricature".Template:Sfn

In his book The Pleasure and Pain of Cult Horror Films: A Historical Survey (2009), Paszylk characterized Sleepaway Camp as "elevat[ing] the kids to the position of the movie's mass protagonist and becomes a tricky metaphor of the unspeakable pains and anxieties of growing up".Template:Sfn He further commented on the film's conclusion: "The epiphanous ending brings Sleepaway Camp further away from the likes of Friday the 13th and closer to such 1980s 'slashers with a twist' as Happy Birthday to Me (1981) and April Fool's Day (1986), but Hiltzik's movie goes even further than that: in this case the denouement doesn't just add a new dimension to everything we saw up to this point, but it pushes its way deep into our minds and stays with us forever".Template:Sfn

The film was featured on episode 48 of the podcast How Did This Get Made? where hosts Paul Scheer, Jason Mantzoukas, June Diane Raphael, and guest host Zack Pearlman struggled to decipher the film's opening moments, due to the ambiguous relationships established at the beginning of the film. Scheer later recalled that it had been the most fan-requested film "by a landslide".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Criticism

Sleepaway Camp has garnered contemporary criticism for its representation of a transgender villain.<ref name=abley/><ref name="Maclay 2015">Template:Cite web</ref> Willow Maclay, a transgender writer for Cléo magazine, criticized the film for its "equation of mental instability with having grown up in a gender role not concurrent with your identity. Nearly every single transgender person grows up being raised in a gender role that does not fit, and that doesn't mean that they are mentally ill or seriously violent".<ref name="Maclay 2015" /> BJ Colangelo, in an editorial for Dread Central, similarly felt the film had transphobic and homophobic implications due to its representation of Angela (Rose) and Angela's gay father John Baker (Dan Tursi), but conceded that the film has metaphorical merit for showing the unfavorable and violent consequences for a character who is forced into gender roles that do not align with their identity.<ref name="Colangelo 2019">Template:Cite web</ref>

Transgender activist Calpernia Addams argues that the character of Angela is not actually transgender, but has been forced to live as a girl despite being designated as a male.

Calpernia Addams, a transgender author and activist, commented in a 2021 interview with Fangoria that the character of Angela "is not even really trans...  This whole situation with Angela is a child who was forced into this quote-unquote transition".<ref name=abley/> She compared the character to David Reimer, a Canadian man who, as a child, was forced by his parents to live as a girl following a botched circumcision.<ref name=abley/> Addams further stated that the film should be assessed in the context of the period in which it was made: "I would just say that I enjoy Sleepaway Camp for what it is, which is schlocky '80s horror with a unique twist ending. And I think it's the worst possible portrayal of a supposedly trans storyline, à la Buffalo Bill, or Dressed to Kill, or any of those types of films. But at the same time, I don't want it censored or canceled. And if you just sit back and let yourself, it can be an enjoyable watch".<ref name=abley>Template:Cite web</ref>

Transgender writer Alice Collins of Bloody Disgusting said that Sleepaway Camp "is steeped in queerness, especially when compared to its contemporaries. In its day it took a deeper look into the subject matter than that of other films. Angela and Peter's dad is a closeted gay man, there's forced gender bending (which is abuse rather than queer but people will see it as such), and the majority of the scantily clad people in the film are men with all those very short shorts that leave little to the imagination while there is little skin shown of the feminine variety".<ref name="Collins 2020">Template:Cite web</ref> Collins argues that Angela is a transgender girl, noting that, in the film's sequels, Angela is presented as a woman who uses feminine pronouns: "So despite Aunt Martha being insane, she just happened to stumble upon a person who was already a girl; and it was an accident that her brainwashing worked".<ref name="Collins 2020" />

Actress Felissa Rose defended the film in a 2023 interview: "I absolutely don't feel like it's transphobic. I feel as though Angela was a typical adolescent trying to find her gender identification and sexual orientation and I thought that was extremely exciting for 1982. It was ahead of its time. You can see with her father and his lover as well as her relationship with Paul [her camp crush], who she was trying to understand her relationship with, I feel like it was an adolescent story of a young person coming of age".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Home media

In the United Kingdom, the film was released on VHS by CBS/Fox Video under the alternative title Nightmare Vacation in the spring of 1984.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In the United States, Anchor Bay Entertainment released Sleepaway Camp on DVD on August 8, 2000.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Anchor Bay reissued this disc as part of a four-disc set titled the Sleepaway Camp Survival Kit on August 20, 2002, which also contained the film's two sequels, as well as a bonus disc featuring footage from the unfinished third sequel.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This boxed set, which featured a medical red cross on the front cover, was discontinued in late 2002 after the Red Cross filed a complaint against Anchor Bay, which subsequently redesigned the box art to remove the cross logo.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2005, the Canadian-based Legacy Entertainment released a region-free budget DVD release of the film.<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref> Unlike the original VHS release, this release contains numerous edits to the film to either shorten violence or certain moments like dialogue.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Scream Factory released the film in a collector's edition Blu-ray set on May 27, 2014.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This release contains a 2K scan of the original camera negative, and this release also has the film in its original uncut version, unlike the DVD released by Anchor Bay.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Other media

Sequels

In the late 1980s, Hiltzik sold the rights to the successive Sleepaway Camp films, after which Michael A. Simpson directed two sequels, Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988) and Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1989).Template:Sfn In them, Angela (now played by Bruce Springsteen's younger sister, Pamela Springsteen) resurfaces at a nearby summer camp, but this time masquerading as a counselor after a sex reassignment surgery.Template:Sfn Much like at the previous camp, she gleefully tortures and kills anyone who misbehaves or annoys her. These films had more of a satirical comic tone than the original.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Another sequel, Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor, directed by Jim Markovic, was partially filmed in the early 1990s but left incomplete.Template:Sfn In 2002, the unfinished footage was released and made available as an exclusive fourth disc in Anchor Bay/Starz Entertainment's Sleepaway Camp DVD boxed set. In 2012, the film was completed using archival footage from the first three films and released on DVD and Amazon Video on Demand.

A fifth film, Return to Sleepaway Camp, was completed in 2003 and initially struggled to have its visual effects completed. It was directed by Robert Hiltzik, the director of the original 1983 film. According to Fangoria, the digital effects were redone from 2006 to 2008. The film was released in 2008.Template:Sfn

The purportedly final film in the Sleepaway Camp series, titled Sleepaway Camp Reunion, was also announced to be in the works. Distribution had been arranged via Magnolia Pictures. Creator Robert Hiltzik, who recovered the rights to the franchise, has stated that he would make the film if his budget was met. However, Hiltzik and Return To Sleepaway Camp producer Jeff Hayes later announced themselves as having started work on a reboot that would retain the key characters and elements of the original film with additional storyline elements and a dose of modernizing. As of Summer 2014, Hiltzik was reportedly tweaking the script. In addition, Michael Simpson, the director of Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers and Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland, wrote a script for an additional film called Sleepaway Camp: Berserk.

Karen Fields reprised her role of Judy from Sleepaway Camp in the 2014 short film Judy, although it wasn't technically a sequel. The Jeff Hayes-directed film was included in the collector's edition Blu-ray release of the original Sleepaway Camp.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

By December 2020, another Sleepaway Camp installment was announced to be in development, starring Felissa Rose.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In September 2025, it was announced that Kenan Thompson's production company Artists for Artists (AFA) has acquired the rights to remake Sleepaway Camp with original writer/director Robert Hiltzik.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Sources

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External links

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