Review of Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988) by Carfax A — 05 Jul 2015

Everything that was great about the first movie is lost. Now we get adults in their twenties playing kids in their teens. There are a lot of boobs. That is basically 90% of the movie is nudity. The killings are ramped up and shown in full bloody glory (this movie may have one of the highest body counts of any slasher movie). And there is lots of heavy metal in the soundtrack (like a lot of slashers from the mid-to-late 80s.

The movie, while a decent slasher, completely ruins the Sleepaway Camp franchise off the bat. Normally, I love the stuff this movie offers. It has a fun villain who you kind of cheer for to kill her victims and there's plenty of blood. The problem is that that's all way too familiar and it doesn't have what made Sleepaway Camp unique. Child actors would have helped solve some of that problem, but then they wouldn't be able to fill this movie with tits and it likely would have cost more money. It's easier to get cheap actors to show up on a set and take off their tops than to round up a bunch of kids for a movie.

This movie is also REALLY stupid and kind of offensive. Yeah, it was dated and less knowing of gay issues and transgender issues, and it is just a slasher. However, the first Sleepaway Camp handled all of that material very well. It never came across offensive. Sleepaway Camp 2 is offensive because it offhandedly makes fun of homosexuality and it portrays its transgender main character as a lunatic because she has gender issues. In the first movie, Angela goes whacko because of returning to the place her father died and her impending sexuality and issues with her body. In this movie, she's supposed to be a psycho because she used to be a boy, and so every other character makes fun of her for being transgender. It's kind of insulting.

Still, Pamela Springsteen is kind of a lot of fun and does add a lot to the character, even though the script is a bit asinine. It's not a very good movie, and like I said it is kind of offensive (especially if you loved the first movie), but it does have a few things going for it. I would give it a mild recommendation.