6.5
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Sleepaway Camp 2 - Unhappy Campers
DVD/APPROX. 79 MINS/1988/USA R18+
DVD/APPROX. 79 MINS/1988/USA R18+
Anyone that sat all the way through Sleepaway Camp will forever remember the unnerving, psychotic ending. While the movie wasn’t the
greatest horror flick to hit the screen since Norman Bates sneaks into cabin number one, it was way better than average for 80s teen horror. It
tried to realistically capture life at a summer camp, including several camp shenanigans, and did try to give the characters some dimension. It’s
also one of the few horror movies where the ending caught me completely off guard, but who the fuck would be expecting what happened? Any
fan of the first movie was no doubt saddened when the sequel ignored its predecessor’s disturbing climax and reduced itself to intentional ‘camp’
humour.
Angela, played by Bruce Springsteen’s niece Pamela, is back. The movie was made 5 years after Sleepaway Camp, but for some reason, Angela
has aged an extra couple of years. She’s now a councillor at a summer camp. She’s sex-changed and taking the idea of murder parenting (the
killing of youngsters engaged in immoral acts) to new extremes. Angela is a bigger goodie two shoes than that really good cousin from The Patty
Duke Show. Take drugs? You die. Mouth off? You die. Have sex…well, Angela is very, very worried about campers having sex, so must put a stop
to it. Maybe she doesn’t realize that not every hereto sex act results in death because the girl’s secretly a guy.
Anytime Angela catches the girls she’s in charge of misbehaving, she kills them then tells the other campers they’ve been sent home. The girls get
killed for doing anything that violates Angela’s strict code of ethics. But Angela doesn’t do shit to any of the male campers, many of whom are
doing the same things as the girls, until they come directly after her. Maybe her double standard comes from her being a guy first?
The script is not good, though the writer did manage to include plenty of situations for female nudity, especially from the Ally character. The
scripter also wrote a scene with some guys making props to scare Angela with. Okay, but what kind of idiot sets that scene out in the open where
all can see? If everyone sees them making the shit, they aren’t going to be scared when the guys pop out from behind a log, you fuckin’ moron.
Anyway, Angela easily takes care of these faux screen baddies, made up as Freddy and Jason. I guess the idea is that Angela’s scarier? Nah,
even Friday the 13th VII is better than this. All the other characters do dumb things, but Angela is Queen Stupid. Her completely disconnected
villain one liners, like quipping ‘Say no to drugs’ while burning someone up, really make Sleepaway Camp II seem like a pastiche, not a straight
horror movie. Too bad it’s not clever, just awful.
Not that anyone will be expecting quality after the first scene, which includes the first murder. After a girl is hit with a log, she holds her
forehead…but most of the blood flow comes from her temple. This is followed with the worst tongue removal ever. Angela just holds her hand in
front of the girl’s mouth, obscuring it, and pretends to cut out the fake tongue she was already holding in her hand. There’s blood on the girl’s
chin, but not in her mouth where her tongue would normally reside as many people in France can attest to. In another murder, a girl who’s on fire
holds stiller than one of those enflamen protesting monks.
The film is filled with bad acting (including that of Ms. Springsteen), and bad FX. Fortunately it’s fast paced enough to be amusing when viewed
with an Mystery Science Theater 3000 mentality. The film does slow down and lose momentum in the final half hour, but for fans of bad 80s
horror, it doesn’t get much funnier than this. Gotta love that 80s hair!
Sleepaway Camp II, along with it’s shot simultaneously sequel, tried to get in many video stores across the world by being pioneers in the
straight to sell through horror category. Well, that sure worked. I’d never even seen a copy of II until a friend found it for me a few years back.
What seemed to happen in my area was all the stores figured II was an older title since there was already a sequel. Then they just picked up III,
which looked to be a new release.
The DVD comes with the film’s trailer, as well as a teaser trailer for the sequel. Three smallish still galleries are included, as is 13 minutes of behind
the scenes footage/outtakes with some commentary by director Michael Simpson. It’s a pretty dull feature. There are some extra peeks at the
gore, but the gore isn’t that good, anyway. The main extra on the disc is the commentary featuring Simpson, writer Fritz Gordon, and John Klyza
from the Sleepaway fansite. They offer up a few amusing tid bits of information, but are way too nice to the film and make too many bad jokes.
The DVD presents Sleepaway Camp II at 1.85:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. The film is still grainy, and sports blemishes, but is a low budget movie
from the 80s. The audio is a bit rough, particularly in the ‘s’ hiss department, but presumably this is the way the film sounds on the original audio
material.
greatest horror flick to hit the screen since Norman Bates sneaks into cabin number one, it was way better than average for 80s teen horror. It
tried to realistically capture life at a summer camp, including several camp shenanigans, and did try to give the characters some dimension. It’s
also one of the few horror movies where the ending caught me completely off guard, but who the fuck would be expecting what happened? Any
fan of the first movie was no doubt saddened when the sequel ignored its predecessor’s disturbing climax and reduced itself to intentional ‘camp’
humour.
Angela, played by Bruce Springsteen’s niece Pamela, is back. The movie was made 5 years after Sleepaway Camp, but for some reason, Angela
has aged an extra couple of years. She’s now a councillor at a summer camp. She’s sex-changed and taking the idea of murder parenting (the
killing of youngsters engaged in immoral acts) to new extremes. Angela is a bigger goodie two shoes than that really good cousin from The Patty
Duke Show. Take drugs? You die. Mouth off? You die. Have sex…well, Angela is very, very worried about campers having sex, so must put a stop
to it. Maybe she doesn’t realize that not every hereto sex act results in death because the girl’s secretly a guy.
Anytime Angela catches the girls she’s in charge of misbehaving, she kills them then tells the other campers they’ve been sent home. The girls get
killed for doing anything that violates Angela’s strict code of ethics. But Angela doesn’t do shit to any of the male campers, many of whom are
doing the same things as the girls, until they come directly after her. Maybe her double standard comes from her being a guy first?
The script is not good, though the writer did manage to include plenty of situations for female nudity, especially from the Ally character. The
scripter also wrote a scene with some guys making props to scare Angela with. Okay, but what kind of idiot sets that scene out in the open where
all can see? If everyone sees them making the shit, they aren’t going to be scared when the guys pop out from behind a log, you fuckin’ moron.
Anyway, Angela easily takes care of these faux screen baddies, made up as Freddy and Jason. I guess the idea is that Angela’s scarier? Nah,
even Friday the 13th VII is better than this. All the other characters do dumb things, but Angela is Queen Stupid. Her completely disconnected
villain one liners, like quipping ‘Say no to drugs’ while burning someone up, really make Sleepaway Camp II seem like a pastiche, not a straight
horror movie. Too bad it’s not clever, just awful.
Not that anyone will be expecting quality after the first scene, which includes the first murder. After a girl is hit with a log, she holds her
forehead…but most of the blood flow comes from her temple. This is followed with the worst tongue removal ever. Angela just holds her hand in
front of the girl’s mouth, obscuring it, and pretends to cut out the fake tongue she was already holding in her hand. There’s blood on the girl’s
chin, but not in her mouth where her tongue would normally reside as many people in France can attest to. In another murder, a girl who’s on fire
holds stiller than one of those enflamen protesting monks.
The film is filled with bad acting (including that of Ms. Springsteen), and bad FX. Fortunately it’s fast paced enough to be amusing when viewed
with an Mystery Science Theater 3000 mentality. The film does slow down and lose momentum in the final half hour, but for fans of bad 80s
horror, it doesn’t get much funnier than this. Gotta love that 80s hair!
Sleepaway Camp II, along with it’s shot simultaneously sequel, tried to get in many video stores across the world by being pioneers in the
straight to sell through horror category. Well, that sure worked. I’d never even seen a copy of II until a friend found it for me a few years back.
What seemed to happen in my area was all the stores figured II was an older title since there was already a sequel. Then they just picked up III,
which looked to be a new release.
The DVD comes with the film’s trailer, as well as a teaser trailer for the sequel. Three smallish still galleries are included, as is 13 minutes of behind
the scenes footage/outtakes with some commentary by director Michael Simpson. It’s a pretty dull feature. There are some extra peeks at the
gore, but the gore isn’t that good, anyway. The main extra on the disc is the commentary featuring Simpson, writer Fritz Gordon, and John Klyza
from the Sleepaway fansite. They offer up a few amusing tid bits of information, but are way too nice to the film and make too many bad jokes.
The DVD presents Sleepaway Camp II at 1.85:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. The film is still grainy, and sports blemishes, but is a low budget movie
from the 80s. The audio is a bit rough, particularly in the ‘s’ hiss department, but presumably this is the way the film sounds on the original audio
material.
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