Sleepaway Camp
Felissa Rose Shines in Her Rookie Role
Over achievement is truly the guilty pleasure of modern horror cinema. However, there was a time when a horror movie attacked the audience with tenacity, flavor, heart, and the unexpected. Fortunately for the true horror savant, the remains of yesterdays finest can still be picked up for viewing pleasures. Because the 80’s was a golden time in horror, it seems only appropriate to do a review on the most frightening and forgotten horror movies of all times…Sleepaway Camp.
The Set-Up
Like many movies from the 80’s Sleepaway Camp takes place at an isolated camp on a lake, with a family enjoying a leisurely Sunday boat ride. However, tragedy soon strikes, as a boat accident kills off the dad and one of the children.
The story picks up years down the road as we are introduced to Angela Baker (Felissa Rose) and her cousin Ricky (Jonathon Tiersten), as they prepare to go away to camp Arawak. Angela is the quiet loner type and Ricky, her brave, brash and bold cousin is going to act as her protection while at camp (it is Angela’s first time, and her manly Aunt Martha is way over protective).
The pair head off to camp where things quickly turn ugly. After a string of grizzly murders, summer fun turns into an investigation to find out who is kill off the campers!
The Aunt Martha Theory
It is hard to fully digest Sleepaway Camp after the first watch. Nonetheless, the film offers some deep, controversial issues that can be difficult to interpret. Take for example Aunt Martha. There is clearly some sort of bridge between John, Lenny (his lover), and Aunt Martha. But, trying to understand the homosexual undertones of the relationship between John and Lenny, only brings out a deeper, more complex storyline from the movie.
If, in fact, the kids only sub-consciously know about their father’s relationship (from walking in on them), then there should be some sort of distraction between the fundamental sexuality of Angela.
If you recall in the beginning, Lenny was calling for John to hurry up so they could catch the ‘doc’. Now, let’s put the pieces together.
We know John and Lenny have an intimate relationship. We know that Lenny is aware of the ‘doc’ (or Aunt Martha). On top of that, it seems that the children would not be very accepting of their fathers (both Angela and Ricky) choices regarding sexual orientation. So, in order for the John and Lenny to entertain their personal pleasures, Aunt Martha is created in an attempt to soften the children’s acceptance.
However, because of the confusion between men and women, the children never learned that there is a fundamental difference. So, for Angela, living as a boy dressed as a girl was never something that she thought twice about. The story tells a deeper tale about the repression of sexuality and its catastrophic affects on children.
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