Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers (1988)

By 1988, the acting in “stalker” movies improved only slightly; it’s best to watch these films with a group of friends, maybe with a few drinks, laughing at how absurd but fun these movies were. “Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers” is both a slasher flick and a self-parody of the genre that it represents. The original had a unique ending that is addressed and honored in the very beginning of the sequel, which is a brilliant move that both honors the first film and sets the tone for the second. And as a possible marketing ploy, the two leading actors are siblings of much more famous entertainers; Pamela Springsteen and Renee Estevez.

“Sleepaway Camp 2” takes places at the summer camp Rolling Hills. It’s your typical rural summer camp that kids from New York get to go to (I knew it was an East Coast thing!). The movie opens up at a campfire and a few boys and a girl telling horror stories. This is when you notice the mediocre acting and the horrendous mullets. The girl tells the story of Camp Arawak and how a bunch of kids were murdered by a boy that was dressed up as a girl. Another camper adds that the killer was sent to a mental hospital, had a sex change, and was released recently. The girl’s counselor Angela shows up to take her back to her cabin. Of course Angela IS the killer from the other camp and kills the girl on the way back, beginning the body count that will eventually include every person at the camp. A bit over the top? Perhaps! Angela kills each camper after they misbehave in one fashion or another or simply get on her wrong side. She kills the twins because they were smoking pot, she kills the peeping toms because they were peeping, she kills Molly’s boyfriend after he tells Angela that his dad arrested her in the previous film, and so forth.

Favorite death scene – this film doesn’t show many graphic killings but the leading up the death itself is sometimes the best payoff. For example, I liked the scene where a couple of the boys were dressed as Freddy and Jason and were going to scare the girls. Instead, Angela shows up dressed as Leatherface and kills them, one with a real working knifed glove and the other one with a chainsaw.