SLEEPAWAY CAMP Review On "Violent Maniac's Cage"

SLEEPAWAY CAMP

(1983, USA)

DIRECTED BY: Robert Hiltzik.

So, one night, Rob and I enter the video store and I turn to him and say, "Rob, tonight, let's rent the movie with the cheesiest cover we can find." He readily agreed and we embarked on our search for the ultimate in video-box cheese. Before long, we came across our winner, SLEEPAWAY CAMP. On this box, there is no description of a movie, but instead a handwritten letter from a kid to his parents, describing camp and the fact that there is a killer on the loose...of course the kid doesn't get a chance to findish the letter since the camp-killer found him first...On Wisconsin! We have cheese!

Our hope was that the movie would live up to it's box. In some respects it did, in some respects it didn't. Well, first to the plot: The film starts out with a brother and a sister swimming in a lake with their dad. A speedboat comes along, and in this massive lake, manages to head straight for two out of the three swimmers...how convenient! Anyways, fast-forward a bunch of years. Apparently the sister survived the boating incident and lives with her aunt and her son somewhere in surbansville. She and her cousin then go off to camp together.

O.K., first of all this girl, named Angela, is totally a shy geek who everyone makes fun of at the camp. Her cousin tries to protect her from their brutal insults, but to no avail. Oddly enough, anyone who messes with her ends up dead (although, in the film's concerted effort to create mystery, we don't know for sure if nerdette is responsible for the killings...I'll give it away, it's her). The murders are reasonably gory, but not that gory.

As the film continues, nerdette gets a boyfriend, confronts a 90210-type bitch (who gets speared with a curling iron!), and has a series of weird flashbacks about her dad in bed with another man (?!). O.K., as you might guess, this film has no strong narrative base, which means it really doesn't go anywhere. Also, its budget is so amazingly low that I found myself trying to remember if there was a guy with a camera walking around my summer camp when I was a kid.

On the plus side, it is precisely its low-budget nature that gives for some good laughs. The acting is atrocious and there is even a muscular camp counselor guy who walks around in tank tops tucked into the tightest shorts you could imagine (not much of his genitalia is left to your imagination). You know that Marco guy who does all those exercise shows on the beach?! It looks like him. So, with this Lou Ferrigno-wannabe walking around, piss-poor child actors, and some reasonable amounts of gore, can I honestly recommend SLEEPAWAY CAMP?

Actually, yes. The reason is its ending. The finale of this film is genuinely surprising and is truly quite creepy...in fact, it's probably too good an ending for such a shoddy production. Still, with all its uneven qualities, SLEEPAWAY CAMP is entertaining enough to merit a recommendation.

Rating: ** and a half (out of a possible four).

Review by: Dan Sachar

Email: webdaddy@smackem.com

SLEEPAWAY CAMP

(1983, USA)

DIRECTED BY: Robert Hiltzik.

Another eighties slasher film entry not needed by any means but standing out from the bunch due to some different elements used.

Its about a young boy named Ricky and his quiet cousin Angela who go to camp Arawak where people who cross the two are murdered. Another important sub-plot has the death of a man and one of his children in a boating accident.

The film has a very disturbing and sleazy quality to it. It does not have a giant maniac roaming around in the woods killing off the cast, something which most slasher films rely on. The storyline is very different for this type of film, it has homosexual overtones and even a pedophile camp cook who is literally burned for his deviant sexual preference.

What drags the film down are the routine murders, absolutely horrible acting and some generally bad performances. A couple of murders are particularly gruesome including the one with the bee hive and the hot water scalding. Unfortunately, not everything is different, like most slasher fare there are kind and caring characters as well as mean and snotty characters, the latter being those who are butchered.

A lot of people see the film as a another boring slasher but I think it has some very disturbing stuff in it, not gore wise but just in general. I'm not saying its a classic, because its anything but that but it is a bit different. The ending is amazing and one hell of a surprise.

Rating: 2 ½ Skulls

Review by: Richard J. Taylor

Email: rtaylor@roadrunner.nf.net

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