Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Director: Robert Hiltzik

Starring: Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tiersten, Karen Fields

Angela Baker, a shy, traumatized young girl, is sent to summer camp with her cousin. Shortly after her arrival, anyone with sinister or less than honorable intentions gets their comeuppance.

‘Sleepaway Camp’ is actually a very bad film, yet it still has a sort of charm to it. Weird…

At first, I thought this would be in the vein of ‘Friday the 13th’ – a mindless slasher film with a bunch of hot and horny teens ready for the kill. Well, there certainly was a fair share of hot and horny teens, but it wasn’t all that mindless. In fact, the murders were few and far between, and not gruesome at all. Most of the killings were rather silly, actually, to be honest.

The film dishes up a good dose of eye candy, what with all those muscles and short shorts! That compensated for where the story lacked. Speaking of lacking, boy was the acting bad!! It was actually so bad that it turned out to be entertaining! The story itself was rather boring, though – most of which revolved around Angela – a girl traumatized after a freak accident 8 years ago. There’s no suspense here, no scares, very few jump scares….This is not what I expected. It turned out to be a drama with a killing here and there. The film also got much worse as it progressed. And I’ll say it again: such bad acting!!

The twist ending is just preposterous. It explains nothing… There honestly was nothing special about this film. Not really memorable…

It’s hard to believe this film spawned four sequels, with the latest being released in 2012.

Would I watch it again? No.