Sleepaway Camp Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.0

Sleepaway Camp Blu-ray Movie Review

Pleasant nightmares.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 25, 2014

M. Night Shyamalan has built a career—or at least attempted to build a career—out of fashioning films with so- called surprise endings. Many, perhaps even most, people thought the denouement of The Sixth Sense was brilliantly shocking (a few curmudgeons like myself guessed the outcome long before it was revealed). Shyamalan went on to exhibit the law of diminishing returns with his ostensible “surprises” at the end of films like Unbreakable, Signs and The Village, but Shyamalan is still probably the best contemporary exemplar of the public’s undying interest in being thrown for a loop as a film comes to its closing moments. Shyamalan of course didn’t invent the twist ending—those kinds of twists go back to films as legendary and disparate as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Citizen Kane. Sleepaway Camp might have been just another one of the glut of slasher films that sliced and diced its way through a 1980s film audience, had it not been for one of the more outrageously shocking endings of its era, one that still manages to surprise to this day. But here’s the catch—while the ending is undeniably surprising, does it adequately explain everything that’s gone before? The best twist endings manage to cast a new light on the entire proceedings of the film, but in Sleepaway Camp we’re offered a stunning revelation about a main character that is alarming and disturbing, and psychologically acute enough to help explain the carnage that has gone before, but there’s still a disconnect between cause and effect that isolates the surprise, making it more of a standalone moment than something organically woven into the overall fabric of the film’s plot. There are good, gruesome scares to be had in Sleepaway Camp, and there is an undeniably forceful impact to the last few seconds of the film, but still this eighties’ slasher opus never really manages to rise much above its genre conventions.

The film’s credits sequence seems to suggest the titular camp, Camp Arawak, is shuttered and up for sale. The first post-credits sequence details a horrific boating accident involving young siblings Peter and Angela. The film is purposefully discursive in this sequence, something that will ultimately bear fruit as the climax is reached. We then segue several years later to find Angela (Felissa Rose) evidently the only survivor of the accident and now a ward of her dotty Aunt Martha (Desiree Gould) and Martha’s son Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten). Something doesn’t seem quite right with Martha, but she at least has it enough together to have planned a summer camp outing for Angela and Ricky, even providing them with their health clearances.

The rest of the film then plays out in the sylvan confines of Camp Arawak, a kind of slightly dilapidated locale that is run by a leering, machinating businessman named Mel (Mike Kellin). Angela is obviously deeply introverted, perhaps because of the long ago accident, and it’s also obvious that Ricky often acts as her protector. Within seconds of arriving at the camp, Angela becomes the target of a bratty girl named Judy (Karen Fields), a bully who obviously senses Angela’s psychological weakness. But Angela also catches the eye of a smarmy camp cook, leading to the first of what will be several rather gory death sequences.

Structurally, Sleepaway Camp plays out pretty much completely de rigeur for this type (and era) of film, with a series of nasty folks meeting increasingly nasty ends. What’s kind of remarkable about the film is just how graphic it really is. The aforementioned cook ends up getting boiled to death himself. Another corpse has a snake slither out of its mouth, while another hapless individual is set upon by swarms of killer bees while attempting to use the local facilities. Other characters are in fact sliced and diced in typical slasher fashion. But the film’s emphasis on Angela and her trials makes it overly obvious that the suspect has to be one of only a very few characters, and in fact the ultimate revelation as to who is doing all the messy killing turns out not to be as shocking as another salient characteristic of the same individual.

Sleepaway Camp might have been a minor classic in the genre had it opted for less buffoonish characters than Aunt Martha or Mel, and concentrated instead on the traumas at the center of the story. (The more naturalistic acting of Rose is in direct contrast to the almost cartoonish portrayals by Kellin and especially Gould.) While attempting not to spoil anything major, it must be mentioned that the “shock” of the finale is actually undercut by two elements. First, after the surprise has worn off, there’s so little logic to the entire conceit that it almost becomes self-parody. But perhaps even without that suspension of disbelief, there’s a more troubling aspect with regard to how random the killer’s travails seem to be, at least vis a vis the murders themselves. That’s actually a trademark of many eighties’ slasher films, movies that often just plunked killers down among sheeplike victims and sat back and watched the blood spray. Here, though, writer-director Robert Hiltzik wants to provide a backstory—albeit one delivered in dribs and drabs in the film’s final minutes—that explains everything. What ends up happening is a momentary jolt that only creates more questions.

Sleepaway Camp Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sleepaway Camp is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory (an imprint of Shout! Factory) with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. As is documented on one of the supplements accompanying this Blu-ray, Sleepaway Camp's high definition presentation was sourced from a new 2K scan of the original camera negative, and the results will be largely revelatory to anyone who has seen the film in any of its previous broadcast or home video incarnations. There's remarkably better color (both saturation and accuracy) as well as a much clearer, more stable, image. A few incidental blemishes pop up now and again, but overall the source elements are in incredibly good shape. Contrast is also very strong and helps to delineate some shadow detail in the film's darker sequences. Grain looks natural throughout the presentation, spiking moderately in some dimly lit scenes. There are some minor but noticeable compression artifacts once the film does get into some of those darker sequences after the hour mark. Would a 4K scan have been superior here? It's debatable, given the lo-fi ambience of the source elements. Most Sleepaway Camp fans will be thrilled by the look of this Blu-ray.

Sleepaway Camp Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sleepaway Camp's original mono mix is presented quite faithfully on the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix included on this Blu-ray. There's some very minor hiss and a couple of pops at the outset, but overall dialogue and Edward Bilous' rather evocative score are all presented with excellent clarity and fidelity. Some good sound effects also heighten Sleepaway Camp's mood and are quite vividly presented here.

Sleepaway Camp Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentaries. It frankly might have been smarter to have edited these three together, as they're all a little scattershot and tangential at times, not to mention the fact that all three by necessity cover much the same material. The most orderly of these is the second one, but rabid fans may want to check out all three over the course of repeated viewings.

  Audio Commentary with Actors Felissa Rose and Jonathan Tiersten

  
  

  Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Robert Hiltzik, Moderated by Jeff Hayes

  
  

  Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Robert Hiltzik and Star Felissa Rose

• At the Waterfront After the Social: The Legacy of Sleepaway Camp (1080p; 45:43) is a fun retrospective with new interviews with cast and crew. There's both biographical data as well as film specific reminiscences scattered throughout this appealing piece.


• Judy, A Short Film by Jeff Hayes, Starring Karen Fields (1080i; 15:53)


• Princess, A Music Video by Jonathan Tiersten (1080p; 5:33)


• Camp Arawak Scrapbook (1080p; 9:20)


• Theatrical Trailer and TV Spots (1080p; 2:13)


• Rare Images from Make-Up Effects Artist Ed French (1080p; 1:27)


• A Demonstration of the 2K Film Scan Process (1080p; 9:00) features Ian Turpen, Imaging Technician at Technicolor.

Sleepaway Camp Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's little question that Sleepaway Camp shocks—but does it ultimately surprise, meaning does it actually chill with a revelation that casts everything that's already happened in the film in a new light? I'd argue no, that the final twist is a jaw dropping moment, but nothing more than that—a moment. Still, genre enthusiasts will get more than their fill of gruesome killings in the film, and while obviously a low budget affair, Sleepaway Camp is generally well crafted. There's a certain directorial laxness in letting such tonally disparate acting styles populate the same film, one aspect to Sleepaway Camp that no amount of blood and guts can completely cover. This new Blu-ray looks and sounds great and comes with a wonderful featurette along with intermittently interesting commentaries. Recommended.