Sleepaway Camp

In 1975, John Baker and his partner Lenny take John's children Angela and Peter on a boating trip near Camp Arawak. Angela and Peter prank their father by capsizing their boat. They attempt to swim ashore where Lenny is waiting for them, but camp counselor Mary Anna recklessly strikes John and one of his children with her speedboat, leaving just one of John's children alive.

Eight years later, Angela now lives with her eccentric aunt, Dr. Martha Thomas, and Martha's son Ricky. Aunt Martha sends Angela to Camp Arawak for the first time, along with Ricky, who had attended the camp before. Angela's introverted nature makes her a target for ridicule and bullying, mostly from her bunkmate Judy and their counselor Meg. Angela's other counselor Susie and the camp's head counselor Ronnie do what they can to help.

A cook, Artie, attempts to molest Angela, but Ricky catches him, and Ricky and Angela run out. Later, an unseen figure causes Artie to knock over a pot of boiling water and scald himself. Camp owner Mel Costic calls it an accident.

When campers Kenny and Mike mock Angela, Ricky and his friend Paul fight them. Paul befriends Angela. When Kenny drowns, his death is ruled accidental at Mel's insistence, although Ronnie and police officer Frank express doubt. Paul asks Angela to attend a film with him. After campers Billy and Mike throw water balloons at Angela, Billy is stung to death when someone traps him in a bathroom stall and drops a hive of wasps in it. Mel suspects a killer is in the camp.

Angela and Paul's relationship is strained when Paul kisses her. Angela has a flashback to when she and her sibling witnessed their father in bed with Lenny. The flashback goes further showing both one the siblings pointing to another whilst in bed. At this point, Angela wakes up from the flashback and recoils from Paul's advances and runs away. Judy seduces Paul and Angela finds them kissing. Paul attempts to explain himself to Angela at the lake, but Judy and Meg shoo him away and throw Angela into the water. After Ricky rescues Angela, children fling sand at them. Ricky comforts Angela and swears revenge on her aggressors.

Meg is stabbed to death in the shower while getting ready to meet Mel. At that night’s social, Paul apologizes to Angela and she asks him to meet her at the waterfront later. Mel finds Meg's body and is convinced that Ricky is the killer. The children who threw sand at Angela and Ricky are camping in the woods with their counselor Eddie when two of them ask him to take them back to the main camp. He returns to find the four remaining children hacked to death with his hatchet. Back at the camp, the killer enters Judy's cabin and murders her, raping her with a hot curling iron while smothering her with a pillow. The camp is thrown into a panic. Thinking Ricky is the killer, Mel beats him mercilessly, only to be shot in the throat with an arrow by the real killer.

Frank is called and searches with the counselors for the missing campers. Paul is at the beach with Angela, who suggests they go skinny dipping. Frank discovers Ricky unconscious but alive. Ronnie and Susie find Angela sitting on the beach and humming, with Paul, whose head appears to be resting on her lap as she strokes his hair.

A flashback shows Aunt Martha welcoming the survivor of the boat accident into her home. It is revealed that Angela died in the accident, Aunt Martha took custody of Peter, and she raised him as a girl. Back in the present, "Angela" leaps to their feet holding a hunting knife, allowing Paul's severed head to fall on the ground. "Angela" stands nude and blood-covered before the horrified Susie and Ronnie and growls like an animal.

The filming of Sleepaway Camp took place in Argyle, New York near Summit Lake at a camp formerly known as Camp Algonquin.[8] In interviews, screenwriter and director, Robert Hiltzik, has said that he attended that camp as a child.[9] The movie was filmed in 5 weeks starting in September 1982 and ending in October of that year on a budget of $350,000. The film had been storyboarded but after the first day of filming, the movie was already behind schedule. So, the storyboards could not be used and were thrown out.[3] The trees, with their leaves turning, belie the summer setting of the movie.

Unlike many of its contemporaries, which had adults portraying youth, the cast of Sleepaway Camp was primarily made up of adolescent actors.[10]

Sleepaway Camp had a limited regional release on November 18, 1983.[2] According to the American Film Institute, it had its premiere in Los Angeles the following spring on May 25, 1984. The August 1984 Box review reported that the first week box-office gross at fifteen Los Angeles, California theaters was $90,000.[1]

Anchor Bay Entertainment released Sleepaway Camp on DVD on August 8, 2000.[20] Anchor Bay reissued this disc as part of a four-disc set titled the Sleepaway Camp Survival Kit on August 20, 2002, which also contained the film's two sequels, as well as a bonus disc featuring footage from the unfinished third sequel.[21] This boxed set, which featured a medical red cross on the front cover, was discontinued in late 2002 after the Red Cross filed a complaint against Anchor Bay, which subsequently redesigned the box art to remove the cross logo.[22] In 2005, the Canadian-based Legacy Entertainment released a region-free budget DVD release of the film.[23] However, unlike the original VHS release, this release contains numerous edits to the film to either shorten violence or certain moments like dialogue.[24]

Scream Factory released the film in a collector's edition Blu-ray set on May 27, 2014.[25] This release contains a 2K scan of the original camera negative, and this release also has the film in its original uncut version, unlike the DVD released by Anchor Bay.[26]

In the late 1980s, Hiltzik sold the rights to the successive Sleepaway Camp films, after which Michael A. Simpson directed two sequels, Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988) and Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1989).[18] In them, Angela (now played by Bruce Springsteen's younger sister, Pamela Springsteen) resurfaces at a nearby summer camp, but this time masquerading as a counselor after a sex reassignment surgery.[27] Much like at the previous camp, she gleefully tortures and kills anyone who misbehaves or annoys her. These films had more of a satirical comic tone than the original.[28][29]

Another sequel, Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor, directed by Jim Markovic, was partially filmed in the early 1990s but left incompleted.[18] 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. In 2012 the film was completed using archival footage from the first three films and released on DVD and Amazon Video on Demand.

A fifth film, Return to Sleepaway Camp, was completed in 2003 and initially struggled to have its visual effects completed. It was directed by Robert Hiltzik, the director of the original 1983 film. According to Fangoria, the digital effects were redone from 2006 to 2008. The film was released in 2008.[18]

The purportedly final film in the Sleepaway Camp series, titled Sleepaway Camp Reunion, was also announced to be in the works. Distribution had been arranged via Magnolia Pictures. Creator Robert Hiltzik, who recovered the rights to the franchise, has stated that he would make the film if his budget was met. However, Hiltzik and Return To Sleepaway Camp producer Jeff Hayes later announced themselves as having started work on a reboot that would retain the key characters and elements of the original film with additional storyline elements and a dose of modernizing. As of Summer 2014, Hiltzik was reportedly tweaking the script. In addition, Michael Simpson, the director of Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers and Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland, wrote a script for a further film called Sleepaway Camp: Berserk.

A documentary film on the series, entitled Angela: The Official Sleepaway Camp Documentary, is currently in pre-production, with Felissa Rose as executive producer.

• Harper, Jim (2004). Legacy of Blood: A Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movies. Manchester: Critical Vision. ISBN 978-1-900-48639-2. OCLC 475680187.
• Paszylk, Bartłomiej (2009). The Pleasure and Pain of Cult Horror Films: An Historical Survey. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-786-43695-8. OCLC 956654338.
• Sipos, Thomas M. (2010). Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear. Jefferson, North Carolina. ISBN 978-0-786-45834-9. OCLC 607320273.
• Stine, Scott Aaron (2003). The Gorehound's Guide to Splatter Films of the 1980s. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 978-1-476-61132-7. OCLC 606990002.
• Sumner, Don (2010). Horror Movie Freak. Iola, Wisconsin: Krause Publications. ISBN 978-1-440-21563-6. OCLC 775361341.

• Official Sleepaway Camp Site
• Sleepaway Camp at IMDb
• Sleepaway Camp at AllMovie
• Sleepaway Camp at Rotten Tomatoes