Sleepaway Camp shouldn't have worked as much as it did for me but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's 80's cheese at its best and because all of the cast are actually played by teenagers instead of people in their twenties pretending to be teenagers as is the case with a lot of slasher movies it has an authenticity to it.
Felissa Rose as the lead Angela Baker for most of the film has a Carrie like quality to her, she's deathly quiet and has a slightly unnerving intensity to her performance while being endearing at the same time. Much like Carrie she's a ticking time bomb created by trauma. Angela is the sole survivor of a boating accident that killed her father eight years ago, the film focuses on her time at Sleepaway camp with her cousin where she is mercilessly bullied and made to feel like an outcast.
The kills in this movie are surprisingly good given the time period and the budget it was on and there is one reveal right at the end that is genuinely extremely chilling, seriously the way a particular character looks and sounds is straight up nightmare fuel.
For reasons I won't disclose as it is a spoiler, given the political climate today its story would be seen as extremely problematic but it really works for the ending. I'll talk around the ending a little without giving too much away, you can look at the ending in two ways, the first is that its an extremely bigoted view of a particular demographic of people and you wouldn't be wrong, it may very well be that.
However I don't think that's completely in the story, the way the character in question is depicted doesn't actually make them belong to that demographic, if you stop and think about it.
Yes the imagery is used for shock value but it also narratively makes perfect sense. It really depends where you personally draw the line, for me I think everything is fair game in fiction and absolutely everything is fair game in horror, full stop. If it shocked you, if it offended you, it did its job, it's a horror film not blues clues.
One final thing to add is that while you may look at the ending as being representative of a more archaic time in our culture, you also have to look at it literally, regardless of what message it may be sending and ask yourself could this happen?, if the specific circumstances shown in the movie were to actually take place could the end result be violent and disastrous and the answer is ultimately yes, if those exact circumstances occurred in real life it absolutely could happen.
Even though Sleepaway Camp is as melodramatic and cheesy as they come and the acting is over the top and flat out bizarre at times all of that adds to the charm and in fact it disarms you for when the ending arrives, which controversial as it is today, completely and utterly works. no matter what you think its message is, it's a pretty strong and unique 80's slasher.
ps. I thought I'd end by giving you a link to an analysis on the film's ending from someone belonging to the community that it is allegedly demonising. I think they make a really good point about the movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zM-wD4ITgI&feature=youtu.be
Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers would have worked a lot better if it wasn't a Sleepaway Camp sequel. From the end of the first film it's pretty unbelievable that Angela Baker would be allowed to be anywhere near a summer camp let alone work at one and the mental state she is in by the end of the first film just doesn't lend itself to a fun slasher sequel.
Sleepaway Camp 2's biggest issue is with its anti-trans messaging which I would say is even more prevalent here than it is in the first film as it is undeniably a core part of the entire premise. Angela is essentially killing the campers because of her jealousy of their womanhood and sexuality. While I will defend the first film because it was able to produce an image I genuinely found quite disturbing, that had nothing to do with the reveal that Angela is in fact a boy named Peter who was forced by his aunt to become a girl and I stand by what I said that I do think you can make a case for the decision to include that in the script without palming the film off as being anti-trans.
The final scene of the original was disturbing because it was all to do with the unnerving use of sound and the haunting image of the feral look in her eyes as she lets out what can only be described as a blood curdling howl after decapitating her boyfriends head from his body, and the implication of how horrific forcing a young boy to identify as a girl is and the effect it would have on his mental state. That's what's scary about the original, controversial and bigoted messaging aside.
Here the film isn't as graphic but the anti-trans subtext is a lot more pronounced because now Angela has accepted her identity as a woman. Well that negates any defense you can have of this film, because this isn't someone being forced to identify as a different gender and losing their mind as a result. It's someone who is comfortable with their gender identity being depicted as a slasher villain, with that acting as the basis for their actions and those are two completely different things and it is absolutely demonizing an underrepresented group of people in horror cinema.
That said the movie is not without its merits Pamela Springsteen is so fun to watch in the role as the adult Angela that the film is pretty entertaining for the most part. She has a manic, wild eyed energy to her and a chatty, wholesome camp counselor demeanor even when committing horrendous acts of mass murder.
I really wish that this was a separate movie without the trans backstory, it would have been far better for it. That's not to say you can't have a trans-villain in a story as true inclusivity means that trans-characters can be both heroes and villains, but you can't make their motivations centered around and defined by their gender identity, that's just plain wrong and unnecessary.
I don't think its fair to say she didn't do a good job with the material given, it only so happens that the material was a product of far more prejudiced times than ours. It's a real shame because Angela in this film is an iconic slasher villain and that's all down to Pamela Springsteen's performance.
Overall it's a passable film with one extremely fun performance and some really undeniably negative messaging.
Sleepaway Camp III is the best of the entire franchise, It's been an interesting series to watch because you can see how attitudes towards the LGBTQ community have changed since the original through the way Angela is represented in this film compared to the two previous entries and honestly I fucking love this character.
I think that director Michael A. Stimpson realized his mistake in this second movie, he had a great character on his hands but some poor transphobic writing choices brought his film down a little. Here Angela's gender identity is mentioned only in passing and that's how it should be, sure her background adds something to her character being that she's literally the only slasher villain from an underrepresented group but now the filmmakers are not defining her by that in a negative way anymore.
In fact I think its really nice that Angela started off as a bit of a nasty representation of trans-women only to surpass that and become a full blown horror icon undefined by her gender identity.
She is just a great, great character.
Pamela Springsteen is excellent in this movie, she has all the manic unhinged energy that made her stand out in part two, only now her victims are people who more or less get whats coming to them, at least in her eyes.
I like that instead of making Angela kill young women out of jealously and spite, she is killing because she has incredibly high standards for what she considers a good person to be, and if you don't fit them, you die. It's a fitting end to the series and I'm glad that the last entry was the best of the three.
Really solid movie and Angela definitely deserves to be up there with Freddy and Jason in the slasher hall of fame.
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