LogFAQs > #979821919

Evillordexdeath - Is this supposed to be some kind of so bad it's good B-movie cult classic? The acting is next-level awful and there are a few points that are so cheesy and dumb it's a little funny, but not that funny, definitely not funny enough to justify sitting through an hour and 20 minutes of this shit. This is a fairly by the numbers slasher very ineptly executed although some of the kills are slightly more interesting than certain other slasher movies set in a summer camp one could mention. While in older slashers the notion that the victims kind of deserve to be killed is subtext and they're really just annoying, this film makes it very clear that the victims are all targeted as a form of revenge for either bullying or in one case sexual predation. This doesn't make it remotely more interesting. I just thought I'd make that observation about the themes. The one thing I did like was that although most people at the camp are over-the-top assholes there are certain characters who are shown to really care, and the most enjoyable scenes for me were the ones where specific people were nice enough to ultra-shy main character Angela to earn her trust and get her to talk to them.

Lightning - Eat shit and die, Ricky! / Eat shit and live, Bill.

What an absolutely bonkers film this is. Overall this is a super campy, exciting film with some great dialogue, absurd performances and memorable kills that seems like the kind of film that Friday the 13th should have been. Until of course it takes an unfortunate turn at the very end.

The film starts with an odd, almost stereotypical depiction of a tragic accident then goes into a bizarre scene with one of the most absurd performances I have ever seen from the aunt. It is absolutely wild that she is acting this way and delivering lines like that, and as we see at the end, this is absolutely intentional. Then we get to see a definitely super safe summer camp populated largely by paedophiles, then we start to see some of the very nasty kids and adults meet even nastier ends. The kills here are great, and truly use the camp setting to its full advantage rather than just people getting stabbed. This film also isnt afraid to get nasty, even killing its child characters. The film for almost its entire runtime is an entertaining, simply bizarre slasher film.

Unfortunately, for me this is spoiled by its ending which I found to be transphobic, using the trans serial killer trope as well as the transphobic conspiracy theory of forcing kids to be trans, as well as homophobic with the linking of exposure to a same sex relationships with being psychologically disturbed. Now, this movie does have many more charitable readings from queer viewers and I will not force my interpretation on anyone else, that is the beauty of art, it is inherently subjective. Apparently the sequels may mollify it a bit also. However, for me this just left a bad taste in my mouth and took me out of the movie, which is a shame because it was a lot of fun until then. If it doesnt bother you that is okay, but it bothered me. Great last shot however.

Bitto - Rating: F

This could have been a C- movie. It's entertaining, even if all the characters are pretty flat and the villains are comically evil, or at least, as evil as you could get in a mundane teenager story. The pacing is good. The dialogue kinda reminds me of 2019 IT where all these pre-teens and teens are aggressively acting like they're adults in a way that clearly shows their immaturity. But then the ending happens and that all goes out the window. OK, so the killer is the sheltered girl, which seems obvious. But what's not obvious is that she's actually her brother, raised to be a girl!!! And that makes her....um? Psychopathic? Even outside of a modern 2024 lens, this is just bad. She's like...hissing and scowling at the end like an animal. She kills the character that clearly cared a lot about her. She kills literal children, just because they threw sand at her. She seems sane for most of the movie. And what the hell was that scene where both the brother and sister saw their dad with a man and then the brother molests the sister? It's just so problematic and the fact that it ends on that is just so annoying. The fit campground leader said it best. He literally sees a kid be decapitated and his only reaction is "my god...she's a boy!!!" as if that's the thing to focus on here.

Plasmabeam - Went into this movie blind and wasnt sure whether it was deliberately bad or not. The twist with the quiet girl was the only thing I really enjoyed here.

Snake - With a better writer, Sleepaway Camp couldve been an all-timer, a psychological slasher perhaps up there with the likes of Psycho. Okay, maybe thats a bit far, but seriously, theres potential here - potential thats completely squandered by shallow cardboard-cutout characters, lacking any real development, complete with everything you expect from a B-movie level script - namely wooden line deliveries and melodramatic outbursts substituting for real acting. Lets be real here - this film is only worth discussing even remotely because of its ending. The portrayal of gender identity is insensitive at best, and transphobic at worst. Its the kind of thing I watched when I was a little younger and thought it was the most shocking, interesting thing ever but as I get older and become more knowledgeable about this subject, it leaves a hollow feeling of exploitation rather than genuine surprise. With a more nuanced approach and a script that treated its characters with respect, Sleepaway Camp could have explored themes of trauma, repressed sexuality, and societal expectations in a truly unsettling way. Instead, it resorts to cheap shock tactics and insensitive portrayals, missing the opportunity to be a thought-provoking horror classic.

Johnbobb - https://i.imgur.com/djVBcLH.gif
This place has everything. Sexual violence against children, terrible prosthetic bodies, weird transphobia... a protagonist who's more traumatized by her dad being a gay man than she is by him being violently killed in front of her.
Look there's a lot of stuff that doesn't age well from the 80s but I have my limits. Fuck you.

Rockus - I assume this is largely infamous because of the shocking reveal at the end, which I ultimately just thought was pretty trashy. You might be able to have fun with it in an ironic way, if it isnt supposed to be campy, with a lot of the lines and tropes but its surprisingly pretty tame up until the last twenty minutes. I thought the only memorable kill was the one with the curling iron but otherwise its a basic rinse and repeat low budget slasher with a memorable ending, and even at that it would be more enjoyable if it just looked a little better. But its shot like an old TV sitcom. It looks terrible. Big disappointment. Out of this whole lineup, which is largely really good, I only dislike maybe one or two of these films and this is one of them.