Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988)

Sleepway Camp was a dull clone of Friday the 13th, down to the big twist at the end. However, unlike Friday the 13th, which went on to have more than 8 sequels and an iconic killer, the twist is really the main reason anyone remembers Sleepaway Camp. I harshly reviewed it a few weeks back—perhaps more harshly than it deserves, considering how it wasn’t really trying to be anything other than a cheap horror movie with bad acting, cheesy effects, and a low budget. Regardless of the thoughts of a reviewer in 2019, it did well enough back then to earn itself a couple of sequels. I’m glad it did because I actually like Sleepaway Camp II a lot more than its predecessor.

Sleepaway Camp II is still a cheap horror movie with a low budget. It is even more blatant with its references to other horror franchises than the first. However, it takes on a self-aware attitude that greatly helps it be a lot more than the first movie was. It’s actually a funny, different take on the slasher genre that I didn’t expect to enjoy as much as I did.

Pros

• Character of Angela is charismatic and fun in the American Psycho sort of way

• High body count keeps the film moving at a steady pace

• Behavior of side-characters is a lot more logical and simple than the people who wanted to throw traumatized girls into the water

• Better special effects, but still cheesy fun

• Gets rid of the twist for a simpler perspective

Cons

• There’s no plot or mystery, so you’d better be entertained by the systematic elimination of camp counselors

• Not the most creative kills for a slasher film

• No tension; nothing remotely as scary as the final shot of the first movie

• Dumb recap sequence towards the end to pad out the length of the film

Plot & Thoughts

When horror franchises continue through multiple sequels, they often become fatigued and enter into the self-aware horror-comedy territory. The tension and fear that may have been present in the original film will have long since dried up and filmmakers just end up going back to the empty well to throw some bad jokes in, hoping that water will miraculously reappear. I would argue that this inevitability is the most painful when the original film was legitimately scary—or simply good, at the very least. When it happened to Friday the 13th, it wasn’t as tragic as Halloween or a Nightmare on Elm St., but it was still disappointing in most cases—Jason X is pretty funny, though. Sleepaway Camp was bad from the start, so making the immediate transition to self-aware, horror-comedy is actually a pretty good decision. Instead of trying to be scary while getting by on the cheap effects and cheesy acting like its predecessor, Sleepaway Camp II just skips to the goofiness.

Doing what is essentially the exact opposite of the first movie, Sleepaway Camp II shows you the identity of the killer before the title card even appears. It’s the main character, Angela (Pamela Springsteen), a new camp counselor who is very strict about how the rules should be followed, with a penchant for punishing troublemakers in extreme fashion. Angela, if you recall, was the girl who killed everyone in the previous film, except she wasn’t a girl. Well, now she is a girl (maybe). She is older and she’s gone through enough therapy that the courts thought it was okay to let a murderer on the loose without preventing her from going back to the same traumatic slaughtering grounds of her youth. Don’t think about it too much. Much like American Psycho, Sleepaway Camp II focuses on the character with the disturbing psychological issues, instead of the hapless victims. Unlike American Psycho, there’s no tension in watching Angela go around and murder everyone in the camp over the course of, approximately, 90 minutes. Tension is instead replaced with cheekiness and the inherent curiosity of finding out who Angela has lined up next and how she’s going to do it.

The increased budget doesn’t do much to the special effects or make the kills as interesting as anything in the Friday the 13th movies, but Pamela Springsteen brings a charm to the affair that makes each kill entertaining in some way. It might be her penchant for James Bond-like puns. It might just be her nonchalant attitude about murder. Regardless of what it precisely is, she makes the movie. I laughed when the camera followed Angela around a room for a full minute as she looked for the ideal method of killing the chatty counselor who was talking to Angela with her back turned. It’s a simple scene, but it works pretty well.

TL;DR (Conclusion)

There’s not a whole lot else to say about Sleepaway Camp II. While it’s, arguably, more forgettable than the original, I’d say it has a better idea of what it’s trying to do. It’s a simple movie with a simple premise and it doesn’t overextend itself in attempting to be anything more than a cheeky near-spoof of the original movie. I can’t easily recommend it, as you have to be in the mood for a cheesy slasher and for something like Scary Movie with a much less-talented cast and smaller budget. It’s a cheap, cheesy, horror movie that is occasionally funny. It’s not scary, nor is it really trying to be. It may be blasphemous for me to say, but I’d rather watch this again over the original.