IMDB lists this as a horror/comedy, but the poster makes it look scarier than it is and I chuckled more than laughed while watching it. Don’t let that description scare you off though, it’s not a bad movie. I actually wound up really liking it. The film starts off slow, but really kicks into high gear in the second half.
It’s a vampire movie made at a time when vampires had fallen out of public favour. Roddy McDowall’s character even says they’re less popular than “demented madmen running around in ski masks hacking up young virgins”, and this movie feels a lot like a love letter to the older vampire movies. McDowall’s character (and can I just say how fantastic he is in this movie?) is even named Peter Vincent, which I assume is an homage to actors Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.
I said in the intro post to this series that I wondered if older movies would hold up today. In this case, I would say yes, absolutely. Only the hair and clothing really date it, the special effects and make up hold up really well, there’s a wolf-to-man transformation scene that was clearly inspired by An American Werewolf in London (should I watch that one this month? I feel like I should) that looks better than a lot of today’s CGI.
Kind of a short review, I know, but I don’t have a lot of nitpicks for this movie, and I don’t want to spoil anything. I enjoyed it. I couldn’t find anywhere you could stream this one for free (in Canada at least) but most every online service seems to have it for rent. If you remember this hidden gem or are suddenly inspired to give it a watch, let me know what you think
Messy. While watching this movie, my first reaction was ‘disappointing’, but after thinking on it for some time, I think messy is a better description.
This article was difficult to start, my thoughts are kind of all over the place, but so is this movie. I think it lacked focus, it COULD have gone in a bunch of different directions, but didn’t. As a horror movie, it wasn’t very scary, there was no suspense, no shock, as a slasher movie, there was very little blood or gore and the kills were mostly unimaginative. There were times when I thought it was going to be a parody of ’80s horror movies, but it never quite seemed to lean fully in that direction either, and it wasn’t funny. I would have said it felt rushed or underfunded, if there hadn’t been a 5 year gap between the original film and this one and the budget weren’t almost double.
The absolute biggest problem, in my opinion, is on the audio side. I forget if it was in an interview, an article or director’s commentary, but I remember learning that the original Halloween movie by John Carpenter tested very poorly with audiences until he went back and added that now iconic musical score. Sleepaway Camp II proves just how important the soundscape is to the feel of a movie, because it doesn’t have one. There are a few rock songs peppered around the place, but the majority of the 80 minute runtime is devoid of atmosphere, except for one solitary chase scene towards the end that has a low key, almost too quiet background track that doesn’t add much to the suspense. Remember how I liked the first movie because it felt like a real living camp? That’s gone. This one has a good number of extras and background people (though not as many as the first) but you don’t hear them. In crowd scenes, you don’t have that hum of human activity that would naturally be present. You hear bugs though. All of the forest and nighttime scenes had normal, natural environmental noise, but anything with people didn’t.
Fixing all that would have helped with the feel of the movie, but that probably would have only elevated it to mediocre. To be at least a more memorable experience, all they needed to do was pick a lane and stick to it. Since they weren’t going for mystery (they show who the killer is within the first five minutes) they could have focused on Angela’s backstory, shown her experiences after the first film, why she was obsessed enough with camp to murder anyone she thought didn’t belong. They could have made one of the campers or other counsellors the lead and done a Columbo style story where the audiences know who the perp is, but the protagonist slowly pieces the clues together, or they could have really set themselves apart from the other movies of the time by doing a full send-up of the kings of this genre. When Angela is walking around the cabin trying to figure out the best thing to murder Demi with, I thought that’s where they were going, but as a comedy, the jokes just didn’t land.
I paid attention to the credits. There was a stunt coordinator, but no stunt performers. They took mostly inexperienced actors and had them do their own stunts and it shows. The action is boring, the single chase scene of the film is at low speed and you even have a fall that literally just cuts from the actress stepping off a rock to her lying on the ground.
This part may just be me nitpicking, but the ages of the “campers” skewed way too high. In the first movie a lot of the cast were believable as teen summer camp attendees. If you need adult actors because you’ve decided to crank the nudity dial up to eleven, then at least make them counsellors. Sorry, I’m not buying these 18-20 somethings as kids spending their holidays there because their parents made them.
Do I need to talk about the ending? There wasn’t one, the movie just… ends. Was that a cliffhanger? Are they forcing me to watch the third movie? No, I’m not going to and they can’t make me. If you want to, then be my guest, this movie, the first and the third are all available to stream for free with ads on Tubi, or without if you have an Amazon Prime sub.
When I worked at the video store (after walking 40 miles uphill in the snow to get there, fighting off dinosaurs all the way) I remember passing by the box for this movie in the horror section a lot. I dismissed it as a cheap knock off trying to cash in on the success of Friday the 13th. I shouldn’t have. It’s better than I thought it would be.
Like the first movie in the franchise that made Jason more famous than a Golden Fleece could, Sleepaway Camp is a mystery/horror. The antagonist is not known, the murders are all shown in shadow, off camera or from the killers point of view, so you don’t find out who’s doing it until the end and there is more suspense than gore. Unlike Friday the 13th, this felt like a real camp. There are a lot of extras of all ages giving the camp itself a life that Crystal Lake didn’t have.
The acting is a little uneven, some performers are great, others over the top. Side note, Felissa Rose’s blank stare is fantastic. Given that their budget was $200,000 LESS than Friday’s, It’s a surprisingly well made film and the handful of makeup shots were excellent, except for that cops moustache, it looks super fake in high definition. Hats off to Ed French who eventually went on to get an Oscar nomination for his work on Star Trek VI.
If you want to watch the movie yourself before being spoiled, it is (at the moment) streaming for free (in Canada at least) on Tubi, or commercial free if you subscribe to Amazon Prime
SPOILERS BELOW
I watched an excellent documentary a few years ago about the history and representation of trans people in film and television called Disclosure. One of the things that stuck with me was when they pointed out how often being trans was used as a twist when exposing the villain, like in Ace Ventura or Soap Dish, so with the reveal at the end of Angela being the killer and actually a boy… it seems like another example of a trans character being used as a “shocking twist!”, except Angela isn’t trans, he’s Peter, forced to live as “Angela” by a batshit crazy aunt. You could say that being forced to present as a gender that is not who you really are is unfortunately a too common experience for trans people, but it doesn’t turn them into serial killers.
I guess you can tell, I’m not a fan of the ending and not just for the villain-is-a-trans-person-shock-twist but what was with that weird banshee scream at the end? And did they rip that kids head off? I didn’t see any weapons, so that’s what it looked like. All the other kills were done with mundane items, but suddenly the killer (a young teen) is strong enough to decapitate someone with their bare hands? And then it just ends?
Maybe the sequel explains things a little better. I’ll find out tomorrow.
Late to the party, as usual 