.jpg)
Sleepaway Camp (1983)
Pure Camp Classic
Directed By: Robert Hiltzik
Starring: Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tiersten, & Karen Fields
MPAA Rating: “R”
Starring: Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tiersten, & Karen Fields
MPAA Rating: “R”
If you haven’t seen Sleepaway Camp, then make sure that you don’t know about its ending...though, more than twenty years later, that is probably impossible. Sleepaway Camp (1983) is one of the many films to take its inspiration (read: entire plot) from Friday the 13th, which was made three years earlier. Like its predecessor, which had a rather shocking twist at the ending (You mean...it wasn’t Jason?), Sleepaway Camp also features a twist, except it is evening more surprising. In other words, you won’t see it coming and it takes the film to a whole new level of shock. A cult classic nowadays, Sleepaway Camp deserves praise for its gloomy atmosphere, creative death scenes, and for its ability to tackle relationships in a realistic fashion. Oh yes, and for the fact that the killer is...just kidding, I won’t spoil it.
Angela (Rose) was just a young girl when her father and brother were killed in a boating accident near a local summer camp. Eight years later, she is living with her crazy aunt and loving cousin, Ricky (Tiersten). She and Ricky head off to spend the summer at Camp Arawak. Angela, a silent recluse who is often ridiculed, finds the camp to be a very unfriendly place. Nearly everyone, especially the token slut Judy (Fields), verbally assaults her and attempts to humiliate her whenever they have a chance. Fortunately for the shy girl, someone has taken an instant disliking to everyone who messes with her and he or she begins to kill them off one-by-one in very gruesome and creative ways. Could Angela possibly be the one responsible? Or perhaps it is Ricky who is so desperate to protect her? Or, maybe, it is someone else entirely.
Sleepaway Camp is not the kind of slasher flick that relies solely on offing a bunch of teenagers in as many different ways as possible, though that is certainly present as well. It focuses on Angela and her relationships with the people around her. We spend much of the movie following her in various encounters with a multitude of fellow campers and camp counselors. From these encounters, we can figure out who will live and who will die. Angela is played with conviction by the vulnerable Felissa Rose who brings plenty of sympathy to the character. We rarely feel sorry for any of the victims, because they are all just truly bad people. Instead, we connect with Angela and this makes the film become even more intriguing when we come to the realization that she may very well be the killer.
Sleepaway Camp stumbles a few times by slowing down its rocket-fast pace in order to give us a number of useless scenes that don’t really do anything. One such instance is the baseball game between Ricky’s cabin and the other cabin filled with jerks. It just didn’t do anything for me and seemed to be thrown in at random. It also ended way too abruptly, given the big reveal. I wanted to know more, but was left woefully uninformed. It seemed off to me that the film rarely showed its death scenes. Most were just implied and I really wanted to see what was going on, especially in the infamous hair curler scene. However, all of this didn’t really annoy me too much when compared to the fun I was having the rest of the time. It is one of the few movies that left me with my mouth hanging open in shock. Pack your bags and let’s go to camp!
Angela (Rose) was just a young girl when her father and brother were killed in a boating accident near a local summer camp. Eight years later, she is living with her crazy aunt and loving cousin, Ricky (Tiersten). She and Ricky head off to spend the summer at Camp Arawak. Angela, a silent recluse who is often ridiculed, finds the camp to be a very unfriendly place. Nearly everyone, especially the token slut Judy (Fields), verbally assaults her and attempts to humiliate her whenever they have a chance. Fortunately for the shy girl, someone has taken an instant disliking to everyone who messes with her and he or she begins to kill them off one-by-one in very gruesome and creative ways. Could Angela possibly be the one responsible? Or perhaps it is Ricky who is so desperate to protect her? Or, maybe, it is someone else entirely.
Sleepaway Camp is not the kind of slasher flick that relies solely on offing a bunch of teenagers in as many different ways as possible, though that is certainly present as well. It focuses on Angela and her relationships with the people around her. We spend much of the movie following her in various encounters with a multitude of fellow campers and camp counselors. From these encounters, we can figure out who will live and who will die. Angela is played with conviction by the vulnerable Felissa Rose who brings plenty of sympathy to the character. We rarely feel sorry for any of the victims, because they are all just truly bad people. Instead, we connect with Angela and this makes the film become even more intriguing when we come to the realization that she may very well be the killer.
Sleepaway Camp stumbles a few times by slowing down its rocket-fast pace in order to give us a number of useless scenes that don’t really do anything. One such instance is the baseball game between Ricky’s cabin and the other cabin filled with jerks. It just didn’t do anything for me and seemed to be thrown in at random. It also ended way too abruptly, given the big reveal. I wanted to know more, but was left woefully uninformed. It seemed off to me that the film rarely showed its death scenes. Most were just implied and I really wanted to see what was going on, especially in the infamous hair curler scene. However, all of this didn’t really annoy me too much when compared to the fun I was having the rest of the time. It is one of the few movies that left me with my mouth hanging open in shock. Pack your bags and let’s go to camp!
0 comments:
Post a Comment