Review of Sleepaway Camp (1983) by Billy B — 07 Jul 2010

At a teenage summer camp, people start getting butchered one-by-one while nobody seems to notice.

Cool. As far as campy teenage horror goes, this is average. The ending is an absolute shocker, amazingly effective in keeping you gobsmacked for quite a while afterwoods. A dissapointing part of the flick was the fact that it took quite a while to get into the real good stuff, delving deep in the depths of character building (to mediocre likeability). The death scenes were definately memorable too, some probably the best from the 80's.

In vein of Friday The 13th, the flick is much more uncomfortable (much younger victims), and wass even banned in my homeland (Australia) for a while. It's similarities to F13th include the viewer seeing the killings through the murderer's eyes, the camp setting, and fornicating. As a cheap knock-off of the film, it has stood the test of time to become a little cult classic.

The acting was average. 'Felissa Rose' was surprisingly good as 'Angela', the young lead character who only talks to people that are nice to her. She builds tension and anxiusness within the plot, and successfully manages to pursuade opinions.

Overall "Sleepaway Camp" is one of the better rip-offs of Friday the 13th, with awesome deaths and an ending you wont forget anytime soon. My rating is 3/5.