Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers

March 25, 2005

A campy film about summer camp. I’ve always been strangely intrigued by summer camps films, probably because I never went.

Except for the more serious first one, the Sleepaway Camp films fall somewhere halfway between Meatballs and Friday the 13th. Plenty of killings, but they’re so ridiculous, that you can’t stop laughing. This installment gets extra points for having a different structure than most horror flicks. The viewer knows right off who the killer is – the “transgendered” Angela from the first film. (And let me just say that I was VERY disappointed that the audience did not get an eyeful of the final result of Angela’s sex change operation – what a rip!) At first, Angela kills the bad campers – those that indulge in drugs, sex and all-around loose morals. But after Angela gets fired, she decides “fuck it” and kills every last person in the camp. All of them.

Angela is played by Pamela Springsteen – yes, sister of The Boss. Weird.

I have to give extra points to one of the more creative deaths in horror movie history. Angela lures the slutty bitch, Ally, out to a deserted cabin and drowns her in an outhouse full of leeches. Seriously, Ally’s head keep popping up out of the hole and Angela keeps poking her down into the poo with a stick, telling her, “You’ve been a really shitty camper.” Ha! It doesn’t measure up to the curling iron(!) from the first film, but it’s pretty damn close.

The two peeping tom kids are named Charlie and Emilio, which I thought was a nod to the movie’s heroine, played by Renee Estevez. After looking up the movie on the IMDB, I realized that it was part of a bigger joke – every single camper is named after a star of 80s teen films. Molly, Mare, Ally, Demi, Rob, Michael, Judd – I can’t believe I missed that.

Not as good as the first or third one, but a good laugh.