Sleepaway Camp (R/unrated)
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This came out in 1983, but I didn't see it until 2026. It's a cult classic among slasher fans, but I'm afraid I couldn't really manage to like it. I didn't really dislike it, either, hence the "meh" rating. But for the most part I found both the writing and acting to be subpar. There's also a plot twist at the very end, which I had spoiled for me by skimming Wikipedia's article before watching the movie. I won't spoil the twist in my review, but it's pretty notorious, apparently. However, I don't think it would have particularly shocked or even really interested me even if I hadn't known it was coming. It's just so sudden, and then the film's over, and I'm not sure how to feel about it. It seems like something that could potentially make a viewer rethink the entire movie, but I mean, it's hardly a Sixth Sense-level of reveal. And... I dunno, the whole nature of the twist is, I think, somewhat open to interpretation. And one interpretation, I would find quite offensive, while other interpretations... I probably wouldn't care about one way or the other.

Anyway, it starts with two young children and their father, having some fun on a boat on a lake or whatever. Then there's a couple of people on a motorboat who lose control and run over the other boat, killing the father and one of the kids.

The story then flashes forward eight years, and we see that the surviving kid, Angela, had gone to live with her aunt Martha and her cousin Ricky (Martha's son). Martha has a way of peppering her speech with odd asides, which kind of put me in mind of like a 1950s sitcom housewife or something, but amped up to a ridiculous degree. And later in the movie we'll learn that her "eccentricity" goes well beyond the way she speaks, but I won't spoil what I mean by that. So, Martha is sending Ricky and Angela off to a summer camp called Camp Arawak, which Ricky has been to before, but this is Angela's first time. She is extremely introverted, and for the early part of the movie refuses to talk or even eat. Plus she has a tendency to stare somewhat creepily at people. Well, when all the kids first arrive at camp, we see a few of the staff standing around watching them. One is the head chef, Artie, who says some obviously pedophilic things that another cook barely challenges, and when Artie doubles down on his creepiness, the other cook just laughs it off. So right away, I was hoping we'd get to see Artie killed. And at one point during the summer, one of the counselors brings Angela into the kitchen and leaves her with Artie, who he hopes will be able to get her to eat something. And predictably, when Artie is left alone with Angela, he prepares to rape her. Fortunately, Ricky shows up and stops him, but Artie scares him into keeping quiet about what he'd seen. It's not long after that, that Artie is attacked with a huge pot of boiling water, though of course we don't see who did it. I guess he doesn't actually die, but he's horribly burned and in unspeakable pain. When he gets taken away by an ambulance, the camp's director, an old guy named Mel, just wants to keep the incident quiet, ostensibly so as not to upset the campers. But really, thoughout the film and all the deaths that ensue, it's clear that he's just worried about the camp being shut down if it gets a bad reputation.

Angela faces harassment from various campers and counselors, including a mean girl named Judy, whom Ricky had dated during the previous summer at the camp. She wants nothing to do with him this year, having become stuck-up because she had supposedly "matured". But Ricky's friend Paul befriends Angela, and soon gets her to start talking, and eventually they become sort of romantically involved, I guess. That seemed to be more on Paul's side than on Angela's, but it wasn't entirely unreciprocated. Meanwhile, Ricky always tries to defend his cousin whenever people pick on her. And then, anyone who picks on her ends up being killed, in various ways. Mel comes to believe that Ricky is the killer, and wants to stop him, despite having no proof. And after he finds Meg, a counselor who had inexplicably wanted to hook up with him, dead, he blames himself for not stopping Ricky sooner, and tries to beat him to death.

I also wanted to mention that, while there were some counselors I definitely knew were counselors, there were also some people I think were campers, but seemed to me to be just as old as the counselors, so that confused me. There were also some younger campers who were taken on a camping trip in the woods by one of the counselors, and the kids end up being killed for what seemed like no reason, to me. I wasn't aware of them having done anything to Angela, unlike the majority of the victims. In fact I wasn't really aware of them having done anything at all, before the camping trip, aside from just running around having fun or whatever. But maybe I was mistaken, and they had treated Angela badly at some point, I dunno. Anyway... the true identity of the killer is eventually revealed, and I cannot imagine it would have surprised anyone watching the movie, though I do understand the characters being surprised. But there is also the twist I alluded to before, which... is disturbing, and twisted. And while many fans, including professional critics, may think the twisted twist ending adds a whole new dimension to the film, for me it didn't really add anything. Maybe that would be different if I hadn't known the twist from the beginning, but I seriously doubt it. So... I dunno what else to say, except that the kills were at least slightly more interesting than in a lot of slasher films. So that's something, I guess.

Followed by "Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers", which I might like to check out someday, despite not really liking this movie.