The Hotel California of summer camps...
"Dear Mom and Dad, I've been at Sleepaway Camp for almost three weeks... and I'm getting very scared."
— Opening line of the trailer
Sleepaway Camp is a film directed by Robert Hiltzik, and it was released in 1983 during the heyday of Slasher Movies.
The plot follows two cousins, Angela and Ricky, who are attending a summer camp. Shortly after their arrival, people start to die. Especially those who pick on Angela...
The film became notorious for its Twist Ending and amassed a cult following over the years, mostly for its odd yet endearing mix of '80s slasher movie thrills, wistful summer nostalgia, and ridiculous '80s fashion.
Several sequels also followed: The comedic Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers and Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland, the troubled Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor and the return-to-form Return to Sleepaway Camp. There is also a short film spinoff Judy, focusing on the character of the same name.
Sleepaway Camp provides examples of:
- '80s Hair: A big part of this movie's campy charm is the incredibly dated early '80s fashion on display. Ronnie's mullet is a terrific example.
- Abusive Parents: After the death of her father and brother, Angela is cared for by her Aunt Martha. However, the plot twist reveals the original Angela was the one who died, while her brother survived the boating accident. Aunt Martha raised Peter as the daughter she always wanted.
- Adults Are Useless:
- The rest of the kitchen staff know Artie, the head cook, is a pedophile and don't seem to care. The head of the camp is more concerned with the bad publicity and possible lawsuits that might arise from homicides than the fact that there's a potential murderer on the grounds that are filled with kids.
- Aunt Martha. Not only does she not try to console her nephew Peter after his father and sister's deaths, but she forces him to take on the identity and gender of his sister.
- "All Grown Up" Remark: Played With. Paul, in an admittedly juvenile manner, points out to Ricky that Judy's hit puberty since last they met. However, she doesn't think Ricky's any good for her now that she's "more mature" and Ricky takes an instant disliking to her newfound personality.
- Alpha Bitch:
- Judy. She seemingly goes out of her way to be bitchy and hostile toward Angela.
- Arguably worse than Judy is Meg, one of the counselors, who is extremely nasty and aggressive towards Angela in a way that would get her fired if anybody else but Mel had been running that camp.
- Ambiguously Gay / Ambiguously Bi: If one considers Angela to truly be Peter, driven to violence by the trauma of being forced to live as a girl, then his attraction to Paul would make him this.
- Asshole Victim: The majority of them. Most notably Artie the cook, who really likes children (yes, in that way). Ironically, he's also the only victim who doesn't die, though if he survived his grave injuries, it's likely a Fate Worse than Death, considering he's horribly disfigured and even possibly blind by the time he's rolled off to the hospital.
- Some of the victims are selected for very petty reasons, however, namely the young children who are murdered for being bratty and kicking sand at Angela.note
- Ax-Crazy: The killer has a lot of pent-up aggression, as seen by how brutal the kills are.
- Barrier-Busting Blow: Meg dies when the killer stabs her through a shower wall. Also counts as Absurdly Sharp Blade.
- Bee-Bee Gun: Billy is stung to death when a beehive is dropped into his bathroom stall.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: The reason why Angela spares Ricky, Ronnie, and Susie. Even in the Return to Sleepaway Camp sequel.
- Big Brother Instinct: Ricky is very protective of Angela throughout the movie. His behavior is the reason why camp owner Mel suspects him of killing the kids that picked on Angela. (Whether he knows the truth about Angela is left unknown.)
- Butt-Monkey: Mozart, who is on the receiving end of several pranks in the boys' cabin, to the point that this trope applies literally in one case.
- Chekhov's Gun: Aunt Martha gives Ricky and Angela signed physical examination forms so they can go to camp. Obviously, she wouldn't want another doctor taking a look at Angela...
- Cloudcuckoolander: Aunt Martha is a particularly egregious example who ends up being responsible for the whole mess.
- Cradling Your Kill: Angela holds Paul's severed head in her lap during the ending.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Judy has... something done to her with a curling iron.
- Dead All Along: The real Angela Baker, as Peter was forced to take on Angela's identity after their father was killed.
- Death of a Child: The opening has a child dying in a boating accident along with the father. Angela also kills a group of younger camp children for throwing water and sand on her.
- Dies Wide Open: Kenny is shown with his eyes open when his body is found under an overturned canoe.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Angela kills a group of young children for throwing water and sand on her. Even the director later regretted this.
- Don't Go in the Woods: Several kids take a trip to a camp near the woods, and never return.
- Drone of Dread: The movie's theme
is a succession of prolonged off-key notes, particularly the horn parts. - The Ending Changes Everything: The last scene reveals Angela actually died in the boating accident as a child, and Aunt Martha instead raised Peter as the daughter she never had.
- Ethnic Menial Labor: All of the campers are white and presumably middle-class, with the only people of colour in the film being the lower-ranking kitchen staff. When Mel offers them all raises in pay if they keep quiet about what happened to Artie, you get the sense that they really could use the money.
- Failed a Spot Check: A weird one with Kenny. After overturning the canoe, he apparently sees Leslie swim back to shore. Then he swims back under the upside-down boat and loudly asks Leslie where she's gone.
- Fan Disservice:
- Meg takes a shower... and gets stabbed through the back.
- Paul is shirtless towards the end when he strips... and then his decapitated head rolls out of Angela/Peter's lap.
- Final Girl: Inverted with Angela, for multiple reasons. Suzie would be a straighter example of this trope if she were a more main character.
- Flipping the Bird: Ricky delivers one to Judy after she makes out with Paul just to hurt Angela.
- Foreshadowing: There are clues hidden throughout the film that allude to both Angela's real identity and the fact that she's the killer. For example:
- Angela refuses to swim in the lake with the other campers, and at one point, Judy asks why she always showers alone.
- Aunt Martha reminds the children not to tell anyone where they got their physicals.
- During the boating accident scene, the audience doesn't get a good look at the kid who dies, although we do clearly see Peter treading water. The scene is early enough in the film, and so confused by the shouting of other characters, that most viewers will assume that they simply misunderstood what was going on as the movie progresses.
- Everyone who's mean to Angela dies or is severely injured.
- Freudian Excuse: Peter's family died in a boating accident and his aunt forced him to dress in girl's clothing and otherwise pretend to be his own dead sister, since Aunt Martha thought it would be nicer to have a boy and a girl rather than two boys.
- From Cousin to Honorary Sibling: It is established early on that Angela and Ricky are cousins. After she was taken in by her aunt after losing her father and brother in a boating accident years earlier, Ricky grew to be very protective of her and spends much of the film verbally and physically defending her from the many bullies at camp.
- Full-Frontal Assault: The final scene. The counselors stumble upon a nude Angela, her male genitalia on display, with a bloody hatchet in hand and a decapitated Paul on the ground.
- Groin Attack: Happens to Judy. With a curling iron to boot. However, whilst the scene indicates the possibility, it never explicitly shows what happened. Instead, interviews with the cast and crew revealed what it was intended to be.
- Harmful to Minors: Angela witnessing the death of her family, and Aunt Martha's subsequent abuse.
- Insult Backfire: During a baseball game, Bill and Ricky trade insults with each other, leading to the famous exchange:Bill: Eat shit and die, Ricky!Ricky: Eat shit and live, Bill.
- It's All About Me:
- Judy is incredibly self-centered, insecure and jealous. Her ego is so massive that she becomes envious of Paul and Angela despite having several other men fawn over her constantly. Apparently, the idea of a girl who isn't like her, who also has a man's attention, just rubs her the wrong way. Interestingly, it's implied that before she hit puberty, she wasn't such a jerkass with a high opinion of herself.
- Aunt Martha is a variant. She wants to raise a little girl. Instead of having one, or adopting one, she decides to force the boy she gains custody of to live under his dead sister's identity.
- Jerkass: Most of the killer's victims are at least somewhat deserving of their fates.
- Karma Houdini:
- Aunt Martha. Although there is a Freeze-Frame Bonus in Return to Sleepaway Camp that shows a newspaper clipping about what Aunt Martha did to Peter and mentioning that she is in police custody. So presumably, she did face the consequences of her actions, albeit offscreen.
- The killer themselves. Not only does Angela get away, she continues killing for several more sequels.
- Mike is notable in that, of the various bullies in the film, he goes completely unharmed.
- Kids Are Cruel: The little kids who kick sand at Angela and throw water on her. Not that they deserved what happened to them.
- Kitchen Warfare: Artie the camp cook (and resident sexual predator) is attacked by the killer while standing over a large pot of boiling water. The pot falls on top of him, scalding his face and hands and leaving him covered in blisters. He's last seen being taken away by paramedics, suggesting the killer didn't finish the job despite Artie being by far the most deserving victim.
- Knife Nut: Mozart reacts to a prank by producing a hunting knife and threatening to kill the other kids. Bafflingly, this is treated as a bit of fun and nobody ever suggests that he might be the murderer.
- Kubrick Stare: Angela pulls this off frequently, although it's unclear whether she's zoned out or simply has a habit of staring at people.
- Large Ham:
- Mel, whenever he starts flipping out.
- Aunt Martha speaks in an exaggerated manner in every scene she’s in.
- Love Dodecahedron: Bordering on All Love Is Unrequited. Ricky and Judy dated the summer before, but Judy isn't interested in him anymore now that she's "more mature." Instead, she's interested in Paul, who seems attracted to her but is more interested in Angela, who returns his feelings but freaks out anytime they get too close. By the end, Judy and Paul are both dead, rendering the whole thing moot. However, it's pretty clear that Judy isn't even that attracted to Paul; she just likes being able to take him away from Angela.
- Male Frontal Nudity: Angela/Peter at the end, revealing his(?) penis.
- May–December Romance: Mel is in his late fifties/early sixties at the youngest and is in a relationship with the late teens/early twenties Meg, though it's portrayed as sleazy instead of romantic.
- My Beloved Smother: Aunt Martha to Angela.
- Nerd Glasses: Mozart is the sole character wearing glasses, which makes him the "loser nerd" of the cast.
- Nightmare Face: The final shot of the film is Angela staring at Susie and Ronnie with an extremely unsettling expression, wide-eyed and mouth gaping. It's worth noting that this face isn't accompanied by a scream, but a quiet rasping noise.
- Nothing Is Scarier:
- Judy's death is disturbing because we're not shown what happens when she is killed with the curling iron.
- Same thing with the kids Angela hacked up and Paul. All are killed offscreen, and we don't know the events that lead to them.
- Off with His Head!: Paul is decapitated offscreen with a hatchet.
- Orifice Evacuation: When Kenny's body is found, a snake slithers out of his mouth.
- Peek-a-Boo Corpse: Several victims are discovered this way, one beneath a boat and another corpse falling from behind a shower curtain.
- Psychosexual Horror: A true classic of the medium. The audience is led to believe that Peter died, and Angela was the surviving child. In reality, the original Angela was killed, and Peter was raised by Aunt Martha as Angela. Whether Angela is a boy or a girl, and the resulting sexual confusion, leads to the violence seen in the movie.
- Raised as the Opposite Gender: The case with Angela, who was originally Peter, but was raised as a girl by Aunt Martha. Whether the character in question is to be read as a literal trans girl (which the sequels run with), or as a metaphorically trans person (having been forced to live with gender dysphoria) is a matter of interpretation.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Ronnie, the buff, muscle shirt-wearing counselor, really does care about the kids and their safety in the face of the killings, far more so than the selfish owner of the camp. He gets a Pet the Dog moment early on when he notices that Angela isn't eating her lunch and gently offers to take her into the kitchen to find something she'll like.
- Another counselor, Susie, also counts. She's always kind to Angela, and even slaps Judy in the face when the latter won't stop her nasty verbal abuse towards her.
- Red Herring: Hints that Ricky is the killer. While Angela seems like a far more likely candidate, it later works in the film's favor, as The Reveal is more terrifying. There's a twist, just not of the nature you thought you were getting. This is all made more confusing by the fact that Ricky's actor
did all the kill scenes. - Right for the Wrong Reasons: Inverted. Mel correctly connects the dots as to why the victims are being targeted. They have all wronged Angela. But then blames the wrong person. He suspects Ricky is murdering people out of some twisted desire to protect Angela, when in reality, Angela is actually killing them personally.
- Judy teases Angela about never showering with the others, assuming that it's out of shame for not having developed yet. Angela is in fact hiding her body from the other girls, but for completely different reasons.
- Shadow Discretion Shot: Judy's death. We don't explicitly see what the killer does, only that it involves a curling iron and an awful lot of pain.
- Shrinking Violet: Angela. Until it turns out that she is a psychotic killer.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: Judy makes fun of Paul and Angela for being this. They sort of are until the end.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Aunt Martha only appears in two scenes, but her decision to raise Peter as his dead sister shapes the plot in a huge way. The actress' truly eccentric performance likewise has a big impact on the viewing experience.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The ending credits of a slasher horror movie are set to "Angela's Theme", a synth-driven love song towards the character.
- 'Stache of Duty: The police officer who takes away Kenny's body has a moustache. He returns toward the end of the movie, but his moustache has been replaced with a fake one.
- Summer Campy: Particularly for how the counselors behave with the kids, throwing them in the lake and whatnot.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Angela. Many of the kills were somewhat deserving, and the treatment she underwent at the hands of Aunt Martha would harm anyone's psyche.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: Angela◊, much to the discomfort of her bunkmates.
- Trans Relationship Troubles: Every time Angela is about to get closer to her male admirer, Paul, she freezes up and pushes him away before snapping and killing him in the end. And considering her secret that she was really Peter, she likely murdered Paul because of how he reacted when she finally showed him.
- Twist Ending: One of the most infamous ones, perhaps because it has multiple twists. Sweet little Angela is the killer. And wait, she's not even the original Angela. She's Angela's brother Peter, as the real Angela died with the rest of his family, but Peter's crazy Aunt Martha forced him to adopt Angela's identity.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Used for the infamous twist ending where Ronnie and Susie discover that the killer is not only Angela, but Angela is actually Peter, and the camera is panned out to show his male genitalia. It's also implied that this is what led to Paul's demise at the hands of Angela/Peter.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
- Craig and Mary-Ann, the two teens in the opening who accidentally cause the boating accident that kills most of the Baker family and kicks off the entire franchise.
- A less innocent example would be Aunt Martha. True, her forcing Peter to adopt the identity of his dead sister was horrifying and abusive, but she probably didn't expect it to escalate to serial murder.
- The Voiceless: Initially Angela, though she soon upgrades to The Quiet One thanks to Paul.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Eddie upon discovering the bodies of butchered camp children.
- Wham Line:Aunt Martha: Angela. Such a lovely name. Why I believe it means "angel"! Why, yes, I'm sure it does! I know you're going to like that name, won't you, Peter?
- Ronnie drops one as well in the twist ending:
Ronnie: My God, she's a boy! - What Happened to the Mouse?:
- The movie ends on Ronnie and Susie discovering Angela's secret, leaving their fates unknown. However, Ronnie winds up returning in one of the later films.
- Lenny, the boyfriend of Angela and Peter's dad, only appears in flashbacks. It's unclear what happened to him after the boating accident.
- When She Smiles: Angela's expressionless Thousand-Yard Stare is often unnerving to those around her. When not being abused by bullies and talking to Ricky and Paul, she comes out of her shell a little and starts smiling, which makes her look adorable.
- Would Hurt a Child:
- Mel beats Ricky to a near pulp. Granted, it's because he thought he was the killer, but still. He thankfully gets his just desserts from the real killer with an arrow to the neck.
- Artie, the camp cook who tries to rape Angela, attacks Ricky when found and threatens to kill him.
- Not to mention Angela, the movie's killer, who butchers multiple children in the woods.
