Sleepaway Camp (1983, Robert Hiltzik) (Patreon)

53/100

[MASSIVE SPOILERS RIGHT FROM THE JUMP.]

Let's just cut straight to it:

• I went in completely ignorant of the twist (though I'd gathered that there's something unusual about this film).

• I correctly guessed the twist's basic nature well in advance (when other girls wonder aloud about Angela showering alone; that plus Bizarro Aunt's seemingly random reference to physical exams at the beginning pretty much gives it away if you're on the alert for weirdness).

• I was nonetheless not even remotely fucking prepared for the actual reveal, which will haunt me to the end of my days.

Now, my immediate thought—which would never have occurred to me in 1983, or perhaps even in 2003—was: Should I feel guilty about having been thrilled, rather than appalled, by this lunatic sting of an ending? Did we not all agree that Walter Hill's feature-length exploration of that idea was at best deeply misguided? Thing is, though, while The Assignment is a terrible film—much worse than this one on every level save for technical facility—I argued at the time (albeit with precious little conviction or enthusiasm) that it could, at least in theory, be interpreted as compassionate, with the protagonist's post-surgical body symbolizing a trans individual's innate feeling of dysphoria. (I started to write "pre-surgical," but of course not every trans person elects to pursue or can even afford that option.) And that seems even more plausible here. Sure enough, a quick search turned up thoughtful defenses of the film by trans writers who love and identify with Angela, perceiving her (his?) homicidal impulses as empowering—blows struck at a world that insists on seeing what it wants to see. While Hiltzik surely didn't intend that reading, his efforts to preserve the big surprise render Angela an entirely sympathetic figure throughout, making the final feral freeze-frame all the more chilling. That's not a Crying Game reveal, or even a Psycho reveal (despite mixing elements of both). It's a Repulsion reveal.

Look at me, struggling to intellectualize a moment that takes a hatchet to your nervous system. There are countless ways that Sleepaway Camp could have served up this information, most of which likely would have seemed not only offensive but moronic; when I try to imagine a more conventional version, pitched at a normal register, my skin crawls a bit. It works because it's insane, and because the film not only abruptly ends on that note but prolongs it all the way through the closing credits, suggesting that it 'll follow you home and into your nightmares. Very few horror movies achieve that, and it's well worth celebrating even if the rest of the film resembles every other low-budget '80s slasher. (Not that I've seen all that many of those. Never even bothered with Friday the 13th or Prom Night.) 

Which is not to say that Hiltzik doesn't occasionally demonstrate a modicum of talent prior to the last few seconds. I quite liked the opening-credit sequence, with images of an abandoned Camp Arawak accompanied by the sound of happy kids at play—simple and effective. Most of the murders are ineptly staged, but in ways that sometimes recall the indirection of silent cinema: a canoe floating upside down, a shadow of grasping hands on the wall. And the performances aren't all bad, though Desiree Gould as Bizarro Aunt belongs in an indescribable category of her own. (Because her first scene occurs early on, I briefly, mistakenly assumed that I was in for a camp film in both senses of the word.) Felissa Rose benefits from having no dialogue for quite a while, rocking a disquieting blank stare; Christopher Collet makes Paul empathetic enough to give the ending an additional horrifying frisson; Katherine Kamhi's Meg more or less embodies the unthinking arrogance you want from a summer-camp counselor (though it's just fucking weird that she's into Mel—yes, teen girls are often attracted to older men, but not so much to raspy fossils). None of this outweighs the rampant stupidity and mediocrity, to be sure, but I'd probably have been somewhat forgiving even without that climactic jolt. Even when the film's bad, it's often amusingly bad; I highly recommend listening to the How Did This Get Made? episode in which Mantzoukas, Raphael and Scheer struggle to work out the character relationships (it's right at the beginning), a seemingly simple task that devolves into utter chaos. Bonus points for cinema's single greatest punch of frustration (into a clearly empty prop box) and perhaps its most oddly unnerving dedication: "In fond memory of Mom, a doer." Exactly what did she do?!?