Review of Return to Sleepaway Camp (2008) by Adam M — 03 Feb 2011

Sleepaway Camp was "camp" in two ways. Large parts of it were crafted to be tacky, as carefully as the gliding final shot that delivered the audience a horror that went far beyond camp.

This sequel by the original director uses two decent DPs, and is faithful to the spirit of the original in being outright aggressive to the audience, who like the series because its editing popped with crudities and blissful nonchalance about murdering people with as much gruesome creativity as you could learn during Arts&Crafts hour.

But it's stentorian, in the action and the editing. And the actors (ex. Pastore, Hayes) play it loud and caustic, usually effectively.

However, it has a focal character, Alan, who is like Private Pyle from Full Metal Jacket if Pyle was just as likely to pummel the other cadets with bars of soap for a belly laugh. Everyone on the production has encouraged this poor young actor to give what we might call a career-destroying performance. That way, whatever violence happens can go around him, and if their build-up fails to scare, they can point to Alan and say they weren't taking this whole horror thing seriously anyway.

The best thing you can say about Return to Sleepaway Camp is that it's not boring and moves as fast as hell. Makes it hard to get over-annoyed at any one thing -- except Alan. It's also interesting in that the writer-director populates the scene with campers that have 1 or 2 lines who we only see twice, which suggests a real camp more than a smaller cast, and more than the weird fact that this camp draws older men to continually work with adolescents -- older men which include Ronnie, from the first movie, who still wears his heart on his sleeve and muscle shirts with no sleeves. In fact, the movie is populated with realistically attractive starlets (who don't get naked or hook up with anyone). A lesson to movie makers who want every young actress to look like an almost-supermodel postgraduate.