Slasher movies, love them or hate them they have given birth to some of cinema’s most iconic characters, Jason from Friday The 13th, Freddy from Nightmare On Elm Street and of course Michael Myers from Halloween.

Sleepaway Camp didn’t become a cult favourite overnight, oh no… in fact critics hated it, calling a rip off Friday the 13th, it wasn’t until later on people started appreciating it.

It also was highly controversial, its depiction of same sex relationships and the portrayal of its villain were the subject of intense controversy.

It was the 80s where of course being gay was still frowned upon, remember this was the decade of the aids epidemic which saw over eleven thousand people die from the virus.

I don’t want to get political no, I’m here to talk about Sleepaway Camp, the film follows shy introverted Angela she and her cousin Ricky attend Camp Arawak for the summer, Angela becomes the target for bullies during her stay, mainly from fellow camper Meg and camp counsellor Judy.

Things go horribly wrong from here on out, the cook Artie attempts to molest Angela and he gets a vat of boiling hot water poured on him by an unseen force, camper Kenny and his friend Mike also mock Angela, Kenny’s body is found later on having drowned, both are ruled an accident by the camps owner Mel.

Another camper Billy picks on Angela and he is later killed after being stung to death by bees, Mel the owner of the camp now starts to believe there may be a killer afoot (better late than never Mel)

Angela begins dating another fellow camper Paul, after the two kiss Judy tries seducing him, Angela finds the two kissing and Paul tries really hard to explain himself, Judy and Meg shoo him away and throw Angela in the lake, she then has sand thrown at her by a group of small children.

Later that night one of the counsellors takes a small group of children in to the woods to camp for the night, after a few wake up wanting to go back due to being scared he takes them back to the main camp, Angela then hacks the four children who threw sand at her to death.

Mel suspects that Angela’s cousin Ricky is the killer, he later on is then killed by an arrow to the neck.

We then get a look at the villain, it is none other than Angela only there is something different about her, she is in fact… a boy! *gasp* yes Angela is none other than her thought to be dead brother Peter, who supposedly died during a boating accident seen at the start of the film, this rather creepy twist was the gateway that led to the controversy that surrounded the film.

Oh yeah remember the guy who had boiling hot water poured on him? Yeah well he has some rather questionable lines in this film starting with this one “look at all young fresh chickens” quite tame but then he follows it up with this doozy “where I come from we call them baldies”

I’ll let your mind do the wandering with that line, but I will leave you with this hint, he’s not talking about the hair on the children’s heads.

It’s gross, it’s grim and it is an actual line said in this movie.

Sleepaway Camp does what it says on the tin, it has kills, some tame and some gory, it has a brilliant slasher villain, it is brilliant to say the least, there are sequels but personally stick with the first three, they are good, avoid the modern day ones they are… not so good.

The acting dare I say is… campy and very very cheesy but it doesn’t ruin the film at all, it is by far my favourite horror movie series and one I can rewatch over and over again.

It gets a 10/10 from me, definitely check the first three films out, they are well worth checking out!

As always guys… catch ya later 🙂