Sleepaway Camp
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| Sleepaway Camp | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Robert Hiltzik |
| Produced by | Robert Hiltzik Jack Grossberg Jerry Silva Michele Tatosian |
| Written by | Robert Hiltzik Marshall Brikman |
| Starring | Mike Kellin Jonathan Tiersten Karen Fields Christopher Collet Paul De Angelo |
| Music by | Edward Bilous |
| Cinematography | Benjamin Davis David M. Walsh |
| Editing by | Ron Kalish Ralph Rosenblum Sharyn Ross |
| Distributed by | American Eagle Films United Film Distribution |
| Release date(s) | 1983 |
| Running time | 88 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Followed by | Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
- This page is about Sleepaway Camp, the horror movie. For the summer activity, see Summer camp.
Sleepaway Camp was a 1983 horror movie written and directed by Robert Hiltzik—who also served as executive producer—about murders at a summer camp, and it is considered by many viewers to have the most disturbing ending of all horror films.[citation needed] The film bears many similarities to the Friday the 13 movies.
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[edit] Plot
The main character, Angela Baker (Felissa Rose), and her cousin Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten), are sent to summer camp one summer. Angela had come to live with Ricky and her Aunt Martha eight years earlier, after her father and her brother Peter were killed in a boating accident. Angela, a painfully shy 14-year-old, is bullied severely by most of the other campgoers and counselors at Camp Arawak. Her main foil is Judy (Karen Fields), a vain girl once friendly with Ricky but now snubbing him in favor of the older boys.
Soon people are being killed in bizarre ways, such as a youth being stung to death by bees from a hive thrown into a bathroom. In a nod to Psycho, a female counselor is stabbed in a shower stall. The murderer turns out to be Angela; however, it is later revealed that Angela was actually her brother Peter. The real Angela had died in the boating accident eight years ago, and Peter assumed her identity afterward. This was because Aunt Martha wanted a girl and chose to raise Peter as a girl, treating him as if he was Angela. Angela is, therefore, transgendered. Angela-Peter is last seen standing on the beach naked with the decapitated head of another camper at his/her feet.
In the commentary on the DVD, Hiltzik and Rose tease that perhaps Angela isn't the sole killer in the movie. In fact, the only real continuity error in the film involves the killing of campers at a tent site far enough away from the main camp that they took a car to get there in the same night that four other people were murdered.
[edit] Sequels
Over the years, the Sleepaway Camp films gained a loyal cult following. 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 Springsteen's baby sister, Pamela Springsteen) resurfaces at a nearby summer camp, but this time masquerading as a counselor after getting a sex-change operation that made her entirely female. Much like at the previous camp, she gleefully tortures and kills everyone on whom she can get her hands. Since then, Angela has yet to make another Sleepaway Camp appearance.
Another unsanctioned sequel, Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor, directed by Jim Markovic, was partially filmed but never completed. In 2002 the unfinished footage was released and made available as an exclusive 4th disc in Anchor Bay/Starz Entertainment's Sleepaway Camp DVD boxed set.
A new film, Return to Sleepaway Camp is now in production. It is being directed by the original auteur, Robert Hiltzik. He has decided that this newest chapter would ignore the story lines of the other sequels, stating that he wants to pick up from where the original film had ended. The production was halted for quite some time, but according to Fangoria.com, the digital FX are being redone and the film will most likely be released direct-to-video possibly in the fall of 2007.
The final film in the Hiltzik SC trilogy is also in the making. It is currently titled Sleepaway Camp Reunion.
Michael Simpson, the director of Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers and Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland, recently wrote a script for his series of Sleepaway Camp movies as well, titled Sleepaway Camp: Berserk
[edit] Resurrection of the legacy
In the late 1990's, Jeff Hayes and Australian Web master John Klyza brought the fan base of Sleepaway Camp into the open, with the first official Sleepaway Camp Web site. Today, both Klyza and Hayes have their own SC sites, with Hayes running the official SC1 and RTSC sites and Klyza running the official sequels site. Hayes did audio commentary for the first Sleepaway Camp on DVD, while Klyza provided commentary for SC2 and SC3. Hayes is expected to do commentary for the upcoming Return to Sleepaway Camp. There is also the Sleepaway Camp Films Forums, which is a regular message board for SC fans.
[edit] Other information
In 2005, the animated variety show Robot Chicken had a movie plot twist sketch where the twist to Sleepaway Camp was mentioned. Sleepaway Camp is referenced in the comic series "Nightmare World" in the 8th issue, "Knee Deep in Dead."
