There will obviously be some (slight) spoilers in this thread.
Amongst horror movie aficionados, Sleepaway Camp is still revered today - more than 30 years after it came out - due to its inherent quirkiness & mindblowing, out-of-left-field ending. Or, at least, that’s what I’d HEARD about the film over the past several years, given that I hadn’t actually seen it myself until a few days ago when I picked up the newly released Blu Ray.
Ok, so with that out of the way…watching Sleepaway Camp is a weird experience. I mean, none of the characters behave in such a way that is even remotely believable, a bunch of the performances are over the top, and the wardrobe of the men in the film is comically stupid (though I admit that that look might have been in style in the early '80s when the movie was made). And, yes, the ending is fucking crazy…
For anyone who’s interested, the entire movie is on YouTube, very good quality except for the writing and the acting and the camera work and the editing and the directing.
Yes, I just watched it.
No, I’m not prepared to comment just yet.
I went to the Wiki page to see if there was any info on how they
[SPOILER]presented the naked boy body at the end.
Body suit?
It actually looked like terrible CGI but this was before CGI, so: composite of the actress’ face pasted on someone else’s body?[/SPOILER]
I’d be interested to know if anyone has any info.
There’s a great podcast called How Did This Get Made where they discuss Sleepaway Camp scene by scene, and it’s hysterical. “It looks like the actual camp had a class called ‘Let’s Make a Movie’, and this was the movie they put together… we’ll get a camera, we’ll get a couple of short shorts…”
[spoiler]Originally, they wanted to put a strap-on on the actress. That idea was rejected by her parents.
In the end, they found a guy and got him to agree to shave off all his body hair and slapped a mask of the actress’ face on him. He was apparently quite drunk during the entire ordeal.[/spoiler]
Thanks, Justin_Bailey . . . I think.
and yet, curse you for getting me to rewatch that scene.
It’s actually an extremely well made mask. The frozen expression is the only thing unnatural looking about it, and they help by repeatedly intercutting the close up of the actual actress holding the same expression.
[SPOILER]I found the frozen expression to be very creepy, and in fact one of more effectively creepy things to come out of any horror movie of that era. And I watched a lot of those movies.
Ironic that that was because they had to use a mask and not a purposeful thing. [/SPOILER]
ETA: Thanks, Small Hen, for the “How Did This Get Made” link.
When I first brought up the link, I saw the running time and thought “No way I’m going to listen to the full hour”. Sure enough, I did. (I listened to the first 20 minutes with the time I had available, but then went right back for the remaining 45 minutes as soon as I had a chance!)