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In the early 80′s you could throw a brick without hitting a slasher flick. Throw another and it would probably land in Camp by a lake, such was the trend at the time.
Friday the 13th and The Burning were too examples of this genre. Both were low budget and gory as hell. The story was secondary, basic revenge flicks, nothing more than that but they did rake in the bucks.
Sleepaway Camp is another entry to this over populated scene. A movie that’s reputation is probably far better than is deserved. I did watch the 84 minute DVD which does have a 4 minute shorter running time than the full version, although I can’t imagine that this would help it out at all.
Sleepaway Camp begins with a tragic boating accident that leaves just one survivor, a young girl named Angela.
Scoot forward 8 years and Angela and her cousin Ricky, with whom she now lives, are off to Camp Arawak for the summer.
Ricky has been before and soon meets up with an old friend as well as a girl named Judy, who doesn’t want anything to do with him. Angela however, is a very quiet girl and keeps very much to herself. She doesn’t join in on any of the activities and soon finds herself the target of bullies.
Her cousin does his best to jump in and help as much as he can, but he needn’t bother really, as anyone who hassles Angela soon ends up dead or seriously injured.
Nothing new there then. Not a lot else happens, the camp owner does try to keep the deaths quiet, fearing the bad press would close down his camp. There is also the usual camp shenanigans, just not enough.
Slasher flicks are simple beasts. You have a little story, then a death. This gets repeated until the killer is finally caught and/or killed. Not here though. The story is just too damn slow and the deaths are few and far between.
Like I said though, there maybe a little more in the 88 minute version but this was just, and I hate to use this word, boring.
The death scenes, whilst quite original and well thought out, were predictable and relatively bloodless. The boiling water and shower scene being possibly the highlights.
The acting? Don’t get me started on that. As soon as I saw Angela’s aunt near the beginning I knew that I was in for a monumental lack of talent. Shocking would be an understatement. I can forgive crap acting if I’m either riveted by the action or stunned by the horror. Neither really happened here forcing me to focus on the lack of ability on display.
An obvious cash-in on the slasher craze of the time that fails to get the juices flowing.
Sleepaway Camp’s only saving grace is the final 5 minutes which actually impressed the hell out of me, even if I did know what was coming. If they could have started the movie on this tone and retained it throughout we could have had a classic. Alas all we get is an average horror movie. Crap movies can be fun, and we all love a good movie, but average? Who the hell wants average?
This particular version only comes accompanied by a commentary that if I’m honest I didn’t watch. I can only hope that it is more fun than the movie.
My suggestion is to either find a cheap as you like used copy or to buy the boxed set that contains part 2 (which I enjoyed a lot more) and part 3.
The potential was there, but then again every movie has potential. Watch this movie back to back with Friday the 13th and the difference in quality is plain to see. Hell, watch it back to back with The Burning, just watch that movie first otherwise you may be asleep before you get to the good stuff.
