Sleepaway Camp (1983)

As with most eighties slashers, “Sleepaway Camp” opens up with the classic “traumatic flashback” scene which, as we slasher connoisseurs know all to well, typically centers on a young child bearing the full brunt of some type of fucked up tragedy. This one’s no exception as the story opens up with a brother and sister enjoying a nice little lakeside swim with their old man. The good times end when a pair of dippy teenagers runs over the little family in their boat, with young Angela as the only survivor. Flash ahead about eight years as thirteen-year-old Angela and her protective cousin Ricky are shuttled off to Camp Arawak for the summer. Once at camp Angela becomes the butt of every joke since she is rather undeveloped in both the female body and language departments. Angela doesn’t talk throughout the entire first half of the film, she just sits there staring doe-eyed at whoever happens to be picking on her at the moment. Her protective cousin Ricky always tries to come to her aid, but someone seems to be going a step farther than the Rickster, as whoever torments Angela ends up biting the big one.

So amidst all of the terrible acting, short shorts (from the guys…eek!) and terribly unimaginable kills, you’ve got yourself a little “who’s the killer” vibe which really should not be to shocking for anyone with half a sense of slasher history in their noggins. The murders here are all extremely lame and poorly shot, if I remember correctly there’s a shower stabbing (of course), a drowning, death by bee nest while sitting on the shitter, arrow through throat, death by boiling water, and possibly one or two others. Director Robert Hiltzik is no Dario Argento, his murder scenes are so poorly filmed it’s actually laughable, most notably the “death by bee nest” sequence. Terrible. The gore level here is surprisingly low and what f/x we do see is rather sub-par and uneventful. What’s even more shocking than the lack of gore is the zero level of tits and ass on display. I mean, this is an eighties slasher flick right? Jeez. This one has gained a rather substantial cult following over the years thanks to not being a good film, cus’ it ain’t, but from the “shocker” ending which is hardly surprising, but still comes across as, well, “shocking. It’s almost worth seeing just for the ending alone, but to get the full effect you would have to sit through 90 minutes of pure crap. The choice is yours.