10/27/17 – day twenty-seven of thirty-one days of horror!
Summer camp seems to be on my mind this Halloween, so it
seems only natural that I bring the sleaziest of all summer camp horror movies
into the mix, Robert Hitzlik’s incomparable Sleepaway Camp. Now Hitzlik isn’t
exactly a household name, and as a director the guy is no great shakes, but one
thing he really does right is capture what it was like to attend an overnight
summer camp in early 80s New Jersey; the laughable fashions are spot-on, the
causally cruel dynamic between campers and counselors is perfectly captured and
the whole presentation just feels totally authentic. The “story” is a flimsy
whodunnit centered around Angela, a shy new camp-goer and the gruesome – but well-deserved
– deaths that befall those who creep on her, and there sure does seem to be a
lot of creeps at ol’ Camp Arawak. The ick factor here – like the Burning – is pretty
heavy, but it’s at least in the service of setting up bloody vengeance, that is
if you don’t take into account the not-exactly-progressive psychology that
drives the shock ending. But man, that ending! It’s virtually impossible to
walk away from Sleepaway Camp without having those final frames seared into
your brain forever, and for that reason alone it deserves a spot on your
Halloween – or scary summer camp – watch list.
