Sleepaway Camp
Director: Robert Hiltzik

Anchor Bay 1983


Tight shorts everywhere, Sleepaway Camp does summer fashion justice-as for a murderstery, maybe not. Horny kids cursing are what these campers are all about. Kids this young don’t really squeal awkward metaphors anymore. My favorite is "chickenshit." Only because what does that really look like? It does sound pretty scathing. This is more than entertaining with skinny-dipping and hiker slashing but nothing beyond pimply face value. There's a reason why no one really remembers it.

Operation of elimination slims down the possible suspects. Except, this line-up was obvious enough from the beginning, especially literally seeing the recent box-set, qualitative to Kruger's gracing all of his seven tapes. Watching numerous deranged movies lately helped pinpoint events. This is a killing spree that seems funny to watch now because the role of horror has been pushed along to the side, a senile great-uncle of film, for the trendier psychological dramas, which aren't always as scary but more fulfilling.

The dialogue in the movie wanes in and out of realistic chat and believable spats to clichéd taunts and grandeur theatrics which don't translate so well on camera. Bad ‘80s acting is always worth wasting life for. Everyone has had a friend or knew a girl like Angela in school, that shy JAP-looking girl. Definitely remember an annoying one at my high school.

It's weird how Angela (the killer) doesn't blink sometimes. You have to love "Angela's Theme" though; it’s like the short-shorts in the beginning constricted all that testosterone then leaked it to the band. Oh, and this movie is littered with Repunzel-length sideways-ponytails and bangs crispy enough they’re picked up by boom mics. Awful hair is like the AOL disk that comes with a bad attitude.

Judy the bully is funny to watch as she develops (swear she must be like a 40-year-old playing 15-maybe it was how bitchy she looked) and vomits out insults to steal Angela's boy (perky breasts help). Did Tromeo and Juliet get their idea of using a curling iron as a sex-toy from this film? Actually, this one was plugged in.

Sleepaway Camp, oh so predictable is the murder plot until the sci-fi freak-out ending, which makes zero, I mean, zero sense. Are you going crazy? No, it’s the ending. I think the “Xena” series finale made more sense than this movie, but Sleepaway Camp wins on a shapely body-count. No matter how great the special effects were or were not, I don't think anyone understands it. The skinny dipping, Guido wear, the "eat shit and live" scene, and the uncomfortable pedophilic comments-all twice-licked stamps of approval. And the fifth camping season-it’s due next year.

- Sticky Rice


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