Sleepaway Camp

Plot

In 1975, John Baker and his lover, Lenny, take Johns children Angela and Peter on a boating trip. After the boat capsizes, John and the children attempt to swim ashore where Lenny is waiting for them, but they swim into the path of a reckless motorboat driver and are struck. John and Peter are killed.

Eight years later, in the summer of 1983, Angela is now living with her eccentric aunt, Dr. Martha Thomas, and her cousin Ricky Thomas. Angela and Ricky are sent to Camp Arawak. Martha gives them their physicals and tells them not to let anyone know where they got them as she believes they wouldnt approve at all. Due to her introverted nature, Angela is bullied, her main tormentors being fellow camper Judy and camp counselor Meg. The head cook, Artie attempts to molest Angela until Ricky interrupts, and the two children flee. While Artie is boiling water for corn, an unseen figure pulls the chair out from under him and hes severely scalded by the boiling water. Ben eventually enters the kitchen, to the sound of Arties terror-filled screaming. He is shocked by the chaos created. Arties incident is deemed accidental by camp owner Mel Costic, who pays Ben and other kitchen employees to keep the accident quiet.

Campers Kenny and Mike begin to mock Angela, prompting Ricky and his friend Paul to get into a fight with them. After the brawl is broken up by Gene, Ricky and the rest of the boys involved in the fight leave, while Paul stays behind and befriends Angela. Later, Kenny is drowned by an unseen figure, his body found the next day and his death also ruled accidental by Mel. Paul asks Angela to attend the movie with him and kisses her afterwards outside her bunkhouse. Campers Billy and Jimmy also pick on Angela, pelting her with water balloons. Billy is then killed when a mysterious assailant locks him in a bathroom stall and drops a beehive inside it, leaving him to be stung to death. Mel expresses to Ronnie that he thinks there is a killer in the camp.

The relationship between Angela and Paul grows strained when Paul kisses her on the beach, causing Angela to have a flashback to her youth when she and her brother witnessed their father in bed with Lenny. Paul is then seduced by Judy, who lures him into the woods and the two are found kissing by Angela and Ricky. Guilty, Paul attempts to explain himself to Angela while on the beach. As Paul talks to Angela, he is shooed away by Judy and Meg, who throw Angela into the water. After being taken out of the lake by lifeguard Hal and having sand flung at her by several small children, a clearly disturbed Angela is comforted by Ricky, who swears revenge on her aggressors. After the affair at the beach, Meg prepares for a date with Mel. During her shower, she is killed by the unseen killer, who slices down her back through the shower stall with a hunting knife.

A camp social is held. At the event, Paul apologizes to Angela again and she tells him to meet her at the waterfront after the social. Mel goes looking for Meg and finds her body in the cabin, then he vows that he wont let her killer get away. The six children who threw sand at Angela are taken out to go camping with counselor Eddie. When two of them ask to go back, Eddie takes them back to his car and drives back to the camp. The other four children are found hacked to bits with Eddies axe when he returns. Soon after, Judy is killed by being raped with a lit curling iron. The camp is thrown into a panic when Ronnie hears of the childrens deaths. Mel grabs Ricky and beats him mercilessly, before stumbling into the camp archery range, where he is shot in the throat with an arrow by the killer and dies.

Police arrive and begin searching the camp for missing campers (Angela, Judy, Ricky, and Paul). Paul is at the beach waiting for Angela, who arrives and suggests they go for a swim. The policeman and Gene discover Ricky, unconscious, beaten but alive. Ronnie and Susie find a naked Angela humming to herself and clutching both a large knife and Pauls severed head in her hands. They are shocked to discover that "Angela" is actually Peter, her thought-to-be-dead brother. It is revealed that the real Angela died in the accident and Peter survived. After Martha gained custody of him, she decided to raise Peter as the girl she always wanted, already having a son and coming to the conclusion that another boy "simply would not do." Its also implied that Peter was mentally affected by seeing his father sharing a homosexual embrace with another man. The film suddenly ends with the nude and blood-covered "Angela", male genitalia in full view, standing before the shocked Susie and Ronnie, letting out an animalistic hissing sound. Peters face turns green.

Production

Filming began in Sept. 1982 for six weeks near Summit Lake

Release

The film was released theatrically on a limited basis by United Film Distribution Company on November 18, 1983. On its opening weekend it grossed a total of $430,000. When it opened, it was the top grossing film in New York, beating out its horror competition by taking in almost double the gross of Amityville 3-D. The film attained a modest success during its initial run.

Reception

Sleepaway Camp received positive reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 82% based on 17 reviews.

AllMovie wrote, "While most of the gender-bending storys sexual confusion is ultimately half-baked", "Sleepaway Camp is distinctive enough to warrant required viewing for genre enthusiasts."

Sequels

In the late 1980s, Michael A. Simpson directed two sequels, Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988) and Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1989). In them, Angela (now played by Bruce Springsteens younger sister, Pamela Springsteen) resurfaces at a nearby summer camp, but this time masquerading as a counselor after a sex change that made her entirely female. Much like at the previous camp, she gleefully tortures and kills anyone who misbehaves or annoys her. These films had more of a comic tone than the original.

Another rogue sequel, Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor, directed by Jim Markovic, was partially filmed in the early 1990s but never completed. In 2002 the unfinished footage was released and made available as an exclusive fourth disc in Anchor Bay/Starz Entertainments Sleepaway Camp DVD boxed set. In 2012 the film was completed and released on DVD and Amazon Video on Demand.

A new film, Return to Sleepaway Camp, was completed in 2003 and initially struggled to complete visual effects. It was directed by Robert Hiltzik, the director of the original 1983 film. He decided that this chapter will ignore the story lines of the previous sequels, stating that he wanted to pick up from where the original film ended. According to Fangoria.com the digital effects were redone from 2006 to 2008. The film found distribution, and was released November 4, 2008, by Magnolia/Magnet Pictures. Review copies of the film had been sent out, and the movies screener had already been leaked prior to the release, ruining the surprise ending.

The purportedly final film in Hiltziks Sleepaway Camp trilogy, titled Sleepaway Camp Reunion, was also announced to be in the works. Distribution had been arranged via Magnolia Pictures. Creator Robert Hiltzik stated that he would make the film if his budget was met. However, Hiltzik and "Return To Sleepaway Camp" producer Jeff Hayes have since started working on a reboot/remake 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. Although he had no rights to the film series, Michael Simpson, the director of Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers and Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland, wrote a script for his series of Sleepaway Camp movies as well, titled Sleepaway Camp: Berserk.

Reboot

Series creator Robert Hiltzik now owns the rights to the Sleepaway Camp franchise, which, as of 2013, is to be rebooted.

Resurrection and legacy

In the late 1990s, Jeff Hayes brought the fan base of Sleepaway Camp into the open, with the first official Sleepaway Camp web site. In 2000, Hayes arranged an audio commentary for Sleepaway Camp with director Robert Hiltzik and star Felissa Rose on the Anchor Bay Entertainment DVD.In 2014, Hayes arranged a "Sleepaway Camp" retrospective featurette for the films Blu-ray Disc release through Scream Factory for which he shot interviews with cast and crew in NYC. Hayes also organized a new, more technical, commentary with director Robert Hiltzik for the Blu-ray release where he prods Hiltzik to explain more about the creation, creative elements, and ideas behind the film. The new commentary was recorded in March 2014 and the Blu-ray disc was released in June 2014 to a great critical response and highly positive fan reception.

The film has been referenced several times in pop culture, such as: