Sleepaway Camp
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| Sleepaway Camp | |
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| Directed by | Robert Hiltzik |
| Produced by | Robert Hiltzik Jack Grossberg Jerry Silva Michele Tatosian |
| Written by | Robert Hiltzik Marshall Brikman |
| Starring | Felissa Rose 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 |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
- This page is about the horror movie. For the summer activity, see Summer camp.
Sleepaway Camp is a 1983 horror movie written and directed by Robert Hiltzik—who also served as executive producer. The film is about murders at a summer camp. The film came at a time when slasher films were in their heyday.
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[edit] Plot Summary
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 begin to die in bizarre ways, such as a youth being stung to death by bees from a hive thrown into a bathroom. 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 was forced to assume her identity afterward because deranged Aunt Martha chose to raise Peter as a girl, treating him as if he were Angela. The film also implies that Angela/Peter's confused sexual identity occurred because she/he found out her/his father was in a homosexual relationship; a young Angela and Peter witnessed this behaviour and were seen giggling surruptitiously at them, then were later shown sitting on a bed in an experiment of their own, presumably "transferring" sexual identities to each other. Angela-Peter is last seen standing on the beach naked (male genitalia in full view) with the decapitated head of Paul (Christopher Collet) in her/his one hand while holding a knife in the other, the rest of his body 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] Stars
- Mike Kellin as Mel
- Katherine Kamhi as Meg
- Paul DeAngelo as Ronnie
- Jonathan Tiersten as Ricky
- Felissa Rose as Angela
- Karen Fields as Judy
- Christopher Collet as Paul
- Desiree Gould as Aunt Martha
- Owen Hughes as Artie
- Robert Earl Jones as Ben
- Susan Glaze as Susie
- Frank Trent Saladino as Gene
- Rick Edrich as Jeff
- Allen Breton as Frank the Cop
- Dan Tursi as John
- James Paradise as Lenny
- Tom Van Dell as Mike
- Loris Sallahian as Billy
- John E. Dunn as Kenny
- Willy Kuskin as Mozart
- Michael C. Mahon as Hal
- Fred Greene as Eddie
[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 a sex change that made her entirely female. Much like at the previous camp, she gleefully tortures and kills everyone upon whom she can get her hands on. Since then, Angela has yet to make another Sleepaway Camp appearance.
Another rogue 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 fourth disc in Anchor Bay/Starz Entertainment's Sleepaway Camp DVD boxed set.
A new film, Return to Sleepaway Camp, has been completed and the producers are looking for a distributor. It was directed by Robert Hiltzik, the director of the original 1983 film. He has decided that this chapter will ignore the storylines of the previous sequels, stating that he wants to pick up from where the original film ended. Production was halted for quite some time, but according to Fangoria.com the digital effects are being redone and the film will most likely be released in the fall of 2008.
The purportedly final film in the Hiltzik SC trilogy is also in the making. Its working title is 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, entitled Sleepaway Camp: Berserk.
[edit] Resurrection of the legacy
In the late 1990s, 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.
[edit] References in pop culture
- Art punk band The Blood Brothers borrowed the title of their song "Meet Me at the Waterfront After the Social" verbatim from a line spoken by Angela.
- Metal band Frightmare wrote a song about the film, simply titled "Angela."
- Senses Fail named a song after Angela Baker, titled "Angela Baker and My Obsession With Fire."
- Robot Chicken aired a sketch about the movie, which included a horrified Robert Hiltzik exclaiming that "somebody" remembered the movie and wrote a comedy sketch about it.
- The band (and movie features) CKY (Camp Kill Yourself) is named in reference to the movie.
