Troy Gardner - Examining Sleepaway Camp

An Unauthorized Dissection of the Cult Horror Series

by

Copyright 2012 by Troy H. Gardner

All rights reserved

The author make no claim to the intellectual rights of any of the Sleepaway Camp films, including but not limited to characters, dialogue, and story. None of the rights holders have aided, contributed, or sanctioned any aspect of this book. The analyses are created under the Fair Use exception of United States copyright laws for entertainment purposes only.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage retrieval system, without written permission.

Book layout and cover design by Troy H. Gardner

First eBook Edition November, 2012

For the fan who watches a slasher flick Saturday nightand spends Sunday afternoon rationalizing the plot holes.

Contents

1. Preface

2. Camp History

3. Anatomy of Sleepaway Camp A Close Reading

4. The Camp BogeymanAngelas Place in the Slasher Pantheon

5. Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

6. Mad as HellA Character Study of Ricky

7. Venus and MarsGendered Roles

8. The Bitch in the MirrorA Look at Judy

9. Why Camp?

10. Hidden and Dueling Final Girls

11. The Horredy Trend

12. Adult Munsters

13. Surviving Camp

14. Angela on the CouchArmchair Psychology

15. The Fool at Camp

16. Who to Root For?

17. Camp Chameleon

18. Works Cited

This collection of essays is borne out of my love for the Sleepaway Camp series. The essays are completely unauthorized by any rights holders or creative entities behind any of the movies. As will be apparent reading these collections, I have always been an avid horror film enthusiast. I also hold a BA in English/Communications with a dual concentration in film and writing from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

My first novel, co-written by Erin Callahan and entitled Wakefield , was published by MuseItUp Publishing in October, 2012. Wakefield is intended for a young adult audience and chronicles the lives of teenagers in a facility for adolescents with mental and behavioral problems. In addition, I have contracted short stories for release in 2013.

For the purposes of these essays, I will assume that the Angela from the first and last films, as portrayed by Felissa Rose, and the Angela from the middle sequels, as portrayed by Pamela Springsteen, are the same character. Some fans theorize that they are not, due to different actresses and shifts in tone and personality. While this is a valid theory (creator Robert Hiltzik ignores the middle sequels and director Michael A. Simpson proposed a sequel in which the two Angelas ended up battling [Unproduced Sequels]), it would only serve to complicate matters. Even if the second Angela is some imposter, she truly believes herself to be Angela Baker, which is just as important in a character study.

I subscribe to the school of thought that film is highly representational and deeper meanings are found due to associations of real-world constructs. Thus, these essays come from a film theory perspective.

Film theory is a theory developed to explain the nature of motion pictures and how they produce emotional and mental effects on the audience. Film theory recognizes the cinema as a distinct art form (Film Theory).

These essays are meant to be a fun look at the series and to continue a dialogue about the themes and characters. Even if you dont agree with all of my assessments, I hope it gives you a new perspective on a set of movies youve probably seen several times.

Enjoy.

Sleepaway Camp is the brainchild of writer/director Robert Hiltzik. While a graduate film student at New York University, Hiltzik decided that working his way up the corporate ladder wasnt for him and instead he set out to create his own film, one that he would be in control of. He decided that the horror genre was marketable, and set out to create an original movie since he wanted to create murders that hadnt been seen before and play with the characters and psychological motivation.

Drawing from his own childhood for inspiration, Hiltzik set the film in a summer camp (the same camp he would shoot the film at as the fictitious Camp Arawak), as he believed summer camp had a great sub-text of adolescent freedom and gave a realistic reason for teenagers to run around wild (Kirst).

Hiltzik created the film with roughly a mere $350,000 and it was released on November 18, 1983, in eighty five theaters. The opening weekend alone the movie grossed an impressive $430,000 (IMDB.com). In total, the film would go on to earn $11,000,000 worldwide. By todays standards, that would be $27,342,857 (Anderson). To put that success in comparison, A Nightmare on Elm Street came out the following November, had a budget 5.14 times as much and its gross was just 2.3 times higher (IMDB.com).

The official blurb for the film, found on the back of VHS and DVD copies, states:

Welcome to Camp Arawak, where teenage boys and girls learn to experience the joys of nature, as well as each other. But when these happy campers begin to die in a series of horrible accidents, they discover that someoneor somethinghas turned their summer of fun into a vacation to dismember. Has a dark secret returned from the camps past... or will an unspeakable horror end the season forever?

The big reveal is that the main character, Angela Baker, is not only the killer, but also secretly a boy. The final seconds of the movie; in which the supposed female Angela stands fully nude, penis visible, and moans directly at the camera; proved a real shock to audiences and cemented the movie in horror cinema history.

The film never quite latched onto mainstream consciousness, but there has been a resurgence in recent years, with it routinely appearing in best of lists (such as About.com, Movie Mavericks, HorrorNews.net, etc.) or appearing in pop culture references (such as a spoof on Robot Chicken , a song by the Blood Brothers, homages in Caesar and Ottos Summer Camp Massacre , etc.).

As with most horror films that do well, producers decided to cash in on the first film and turn Sleepaway Camp into a franchise by shooting two sequels back-to-back and releasing them in 1988 and 1989 directly to video. Hiltzik wrote his own sequel which would have been a dark film set at another camp without any connections to the first film. Producer Jerry Silva wanted to take the series in a new direction, so he optioned the rights from Hiltzik and hired a new writer, Fritz Gordon, to pen the two sequels. Gordon did read Hiltziks unproduced screenplay, which possibly influenced a few characters and death scenes (Mysterious Mr. Hiltzik).

Michael A. Simpson was brought on board to direct the films and take the series in a more light-hearted, campier direction. Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers follows a recast Angela (now female thanks to an operation) as she takes center stage once more trying to fit in at summer campthis time as a counselor. She quickly reverts to her old habits and kills everyone she considers to be bad or who gets in her way. In Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland , Angela disguises herself as a New York delinquent to sneak back into camp, where she again commits a murder spree. The sequels were successful with VHS sales both domestically and internationally (where the series was retitled Nightmare Vacation ).

A third sequel, Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor , started production in 1992, and would have taken the series in a more Euro-centric sexy thriller vein, but production was halted due to financial difficulties (Interview w/ Jim Markovic).