Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers (

1988

)

In the 1980s, if you had a successful horror film you were a damn fool if you didn't try and spin it into some kind of annual franchise. Audiences were so hungry for horror films that Friday the 13th (1981) and its sequels remained profitable for no less than 9 installments, most of them utter crap. Low effort trash flooded the cinemas trying to start new intellectual properties that could run for a dozen installments or more, while the great films of the last couple decades found themselves flanked by inferior follow-ups (Halloween 2 (1981), Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), Psycho 2 (1983) were all members of this trend). There's an obvious problem with this though because few of the original films being spun off into franchises were ever designed to supply unlimited yearly installments. Sure, films like A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), whose killers were immortal/incorporeal could always dream up an excuse to bring them back for another outing, but more realistic horror films were at a distinct disadvantage. This is why Jason Voorhees had to transform from a deranged retard with a bag on his head into a cursed revenant, impervious to all physical harm, and why Michael Meyers was gradually revealed to have been cursed by an ancient druidic cult. Sleepaway Camp (1983), was an especially absurd choice for the 1980s horror franchise treatment, since its main villain was not only not superhuman but not even an adult. Angela was just a deeply troubled little boy, who probably could have returned to society had he been given proper treatment and therapy for his unique upbringing. Moreover, Angela killed not out of any desire to avenge herself upon the world or punish the wicked sinners that dwell therein nor even to slack some unending blood lust, but rather to protect his secret and settle personal grievances. Indeed, the original film only worked because we were left wondering throughout the proceedings who was committing these crimes and for what reason. Angela was presented to us as a final girl, only to be revealed as the killer at the final scene (though most viewers probably guessed both the killer's identity and Angela's secret well in advance of that). To become a horror franchise though, Angela would have to change, and boy does he ever.

For starters, Angela is now a transsexual for real, as opposed to a boy being forced to live as a girl, so henceforth I'll drop the male pronoun and use the female one instead. After the end of Sleepaway Camp (1983) she was taken into custody, given extensive therapy, years of electroshock treatment, and a sex change operation (one would think this would be the last thing that Angela would need given the circumstances). She's also become a camp counselor who is obsessed to the point of absurdity with making sure that her charges are “happy campers” despite having no frame of reference (save maybe stories told to her by her cousin Ricky) of positive experiences at camp. At least the film remembers that she can't swim because of the traumatic boating accident that robbed her of her father and sister, but this only raises further questions, like what lakeside camp would hire a counselor that can't even manage a doggy-paddle? Also, she's now a moral puritan who kills “fornicators” and “degenerates” thanks to lessons she learned from her aunt (the one who dressed her up as a girl and probably had a better claim to the term degenerate than anyone Angela actually kills in this movie, as they are all just your run-of-the-mill teenage dirt-bags). It's impossible to square this out-going and proactively homicidal Angela with the shy and reactive character from the first film. For all intents and purposes, she is a completely different character. This is an unfortunate necessity in making a sequel to Sleepaway Camp (1983), as the character that we knew from the first film could not be effectively slotted into the role of a horror franchise murderer. This new Angela is better suited for the task at hand, though she's consequently a much less interesting, and well-rounded character.

Angela has gotten a job at Camp Rolling Hills, a newly opened Summer camp built right next to the ruins of Camp Arawak. She's been placed in charge of a cabin of girls consisting of designated final girl Molly, mega-bitch Ally, slut Mare, token black girl Demi, non-entities Lea and Phoebe, and twin party-girls Jodie and Brooke Shote (the shit sisters as they are charmingly nick-named). In the original film, most of the plot focused on the mystery of who was committing all the murders at camp Arawak, but since the cat is already out of the bag there's no point in rehashing that plot-line. To its credit, Sleepaway Camp 2 doesn't dick around much at the start, after a brief synopsis of the previous film in the form of a campfire spooky story, Angela launches right into her killing spree. The first victim is Phoebe, ostensibly because she had the audacity to sneak off to the boy's bonfire, but really because the filmmakers don't trust their audience to stay awake without bare-breasts and/or murder in the first ten minutes. Angela covers up the murder by telling Uncle John, the camp administrator, that she had to send Phoebe home for disobeying the rules. John has a soft spot for Angela, so he lets her go this once, but warns her to consult him next time before she sends any more of the camper's home. Angela promptly ignores him and goes back to murdering the girls in her cabin for falling short of her lofty moral standards.

This is all fine in a mediocre, Friday the 13th (1980) knock-off sort of way, but it sure seems like Angela's standards for who is worthy of murder are all over the place. I understand when she barbecues the Shit Sisters for the crimes of screwing boys/smoking weed/drinking booze, but then she ignores Ally for most of the movie despite the fact that she is engaging in more or less the same type of delinquency albeit with less regularity. Male campers are also less likely to draw Angela's wrath, as even after launching a panty raid on the girls' cabin Angela doesn't kill so much as a single one of them, instead, she chooses to kill Mare for daring to flash her boobs during a retaliatory jockstrap raid on the boy's cabin. Tellingly, when Angela catches two younger male campers with Polaroid photos they've taken of the girls changing, including one of her, she doesn't do a damn thing to them because they are favorites of Uncle John. She didn't give a damn about Uncle John's orders not to send any more campers home without consulting him first, so I find it hard to believe that she wouldn't murder the two aspiring Federal Booby Inspectors. Maybe the film is trying to keep Angela's character consistent and remember that she was victimized much more by the girls in Sleepaway Camp (1983) than by the boys, but frankly, I don't really think that the filmmakers here have given the question that much though considering how little this Angela resembles the original film's protagonist. It's honestly one of the few 1980s slashers I've seen where the women are treated considerably worse than the men (despite the oft-repeated false claim that horror films disproportionately victimize women). Indeed, combine that with the killer's stated desire to punish all teenage misdeeds with disproportionate violence and you have a film that looks a lot like the slasher academics describe in their papers on the topic. I'm glad to finally see the film that all these scholars were talking about, too bad it sucks.

The film is at its most annoying when it's trying to reference other, better horror movies (which unfortunately for Sleepaway Camp, includes just about every horror movie). In one particularly dreadful scene, a couple of the boy campers decide to dress up as Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees respectively to scare Angela (no effort is made incidentally to explain where they got the gear for this operation, a machete and hockey mask are not exactly exotic items, but who the hell has a razor gauntlet just laying around?). Angela gets wind of this plot and decides to ambush the ambushers, dressed as Leatherface, naturally. Now, paying homage to 3 of the most influential horror series of the 70s and 80s is a fine thing to do on paper, but Sleepaway Camp only references them on the very surface level. A few characters don the costumes of horror movie villains out of nowhere and then kill each other for what feels like no reason. There's no purpose to it and precious little humor to be derived from the sequence. The whole scene feels like a waste of time and only serves to remind me of the other, better horror movies that I could be watching instead (always a danger when you're playing the reference game).

In the original Sleepaway Camp (1983), I much appreciated the commitment to realism both in terms of how the characters behaved around each other and the logistics of a camp that was beset by a rash of horrific murders. When boys were alone they behaved differently than when they were interacting with girls, likewise, the girls had their own para society which male eyes were never supposed to see. This is not maintained in the sequel, unsurprisingly since the goals of this film are considerably less lofty than those of its precursor. We are trying to watch a bunch of annoying teen stereotypes be butchered here, not probe the disturbed psyche of a boy who has been forced to live as a girl. However, the sequel has also abandoned the originals' concern with the logistics of a Summer camp massacre. People are not concerned when scores of campers go missing, I'm willing to believe that Angela can cover up the disappearances from her own cabin by claiming she sent the girls home but how has nobody noticed that some of the boys that have gone missing? The script tries to hand-wave it away by claiming that the authorities think the boys have just gone on a beer run, but that is too absurd to dignify with any serious consideration. Summer camps are accountable to the parents of their young charges, and if they just up and disappear, then they are looking at a potential lawsuit if nothing else.

It feels like everything that made Sleepaway Camp (1983) an exemplar of the Summer Camp Massacre sub-genre has been stripped away here, leaving only a hollow copy-cat of Friday the 13th (1980). Even the innovative murders of the original have been largely forgotten, as most of the victims in this movie are just shot or stabbed. Only one incident, when Angela traps a girl in an outhouse rises to a glimmer of the original's creativity. It's not funny, or fun to watch and about the only good thing I can say about this film is that it occasionally gives you some topless women to look at. Other than that it's a desolate waste of 80 minutes.