Sleepaway Camp is Accidental Camp

The 1983 Sleepaway Camp, written, directed and produced by Robert Hiltzik, is as tied to the period of time that it was released, if not more so, than a number of other films.

Beginning with an explanation of Angela and her cousin Ricky’s living situation, the death of the girl’s father is explained. A boating accident took his life with a very young Angela there in the water watching. There’s not another flashback until much later in the film, but the homosexual embrace that it displays effectively explains Angela’s reticence at forging a physical relationship with a boy - kinda. Either way, she’s a troubled pre-teen girl. At least she has Ricky to protect her as the two are sent off to, yes, sleepaway camp.

Characters in the film are all between 12 and the latter teenage years, which marks Sleepaway Camp as something that couldn’t, probably, be produced today. There’re scenes of kids making out and generally just being awful people that wouldn’t get play in today’s bigger theaters. That being said, there are some odd and shocking things going on here, which has led to a transgender exploration of the film by other writers.

Not mentioned specifically elsewhere, a scene where a cabin of boys heads down to the lake for an assumed evening of skinny dipping with the accompanying girls cabin is laid to waste. The ladies don’t want to get in the water. So instead of calling it a night, the boys clamor to get their clothes off and hop in the water. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that transpiring, just surprising given the stated plans for the evening.

Apart from that one scene, a bit later in the arch of the film is a brief dispute when all of the boys are congregated in a cabin for the evening. After a joke gets on someone’s nerves, there’s an inexplicable pile up on someone’s bed. Yeah, it’s a ‘play fight,’ but still odd that it’s included here.

The vast majority of the film, though, is given over to Angela being tormented by a variety of different characters. Unfortunately for her detractors, each winds up dead after causing a problem. Camera angles preclude the audience from seeing who the culprit is, but it comes down to either Angela or Nick.  

As the deaths become more and more troublesome to the camp’s director, he begins to suspect Nick as a result of witnessing a vicious outburst subsequent to Angela being hit by a water balloon. The remainder of the film is dedicated to the director trying to figure out if he’s right in his assumption or not. He eventually beats Nick to death in the woods, though. And as the director realizes that his transgression warrants an escape, he high tails it out of there.

[SPOILER]

Angela, though, turns out to be the murderer. And as the camp’s counselors find her stroking the head of a dead body in the woods, she stands, unlooses a scream, remains completely nude and is apparently a dude. Is she a vampire? A transgendered zombie? Who knows? It’s accidental camp.