I finally got to check this out thanks to the excellent Anchor Bay, and I have to say that whilst I knew all about the film including the shock ending, it still had a great effect on me.
When little Angela Baker’s family are wiped out in an accident, she is sent to live with her eccentric aunt and cousin Ricky. Years after the accident Angela attends sleepaway camp for the first time and finds it hard to fit in with the other campers.
Not realising that Angela had been traumatised at a young age, they belittle her for being shy, day dreaming and for her reluctance to go in the water.
Someone however, doesn’t like it when the bullies and bitchy girls taunt Angela, and decides to take matters into their own hands by offing the staff and campers. Who could it be? Is it Angela’s overprotective cousin Ricky? It would appear so.
The film could easily be mistaken for a ‘Friday the 13th’ rip-off but is actually very different. I liked the fact that the film shows summer camp from the point of view of the kids, after all when you think about it, you are afraid of being away from home and having to deal with bullies, and being forced to go swimming etc so it made perfect sense to show how awful camp can be as opposed to showing what the naughty counsellors get up to after hours.
The film’s only flaw is that it spends too much time on character development and not enough time scaring the audience. On the plus side, I loved the game of guess who the killer is that unfolds in front of the audience and the conclusion did actually freak me out.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Sleepaway Camp deserves its cult following, and hopefully with the new movie coming out and the excellent Anchor Bay re-release of the film, it will find a new and much larger audience.
