Horrorfest 2018 Presents: Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988, Michael A. Simpson)


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While I liked the first film quite a bit, Sleepaway Camp II is better. There are a few notable changes, particularly having Angela, the villain of the series, go from silent to wise cracking. Naturally a new camp is set up, and Angela (now played by Pamela Springsteen, in a great performance), is hiding her identity and has gone back to killing anyone who crosses her. This film also has references to other slasher movies and a bleak sense of humor, elements that were needed since by the late 1980s slasher fatigue had set in.

Unlike the first movie, where most of the characters were awful people, this one has some okay folks. However when it comes to Angela, she doesn’t care: be annoying, do foolish things, or cross her path and things end badly. Two sisters find out the hard way, as do numerous other campers. The body count is higher, a characteristic of most horror sequels, and the kills are more gruesome.

Although it sometimes comes off as really campy, Sleepaway Camp II is mostly fun, even meta at times. If you like slasher films that are humorous and self aware, this one is for you. Viewed thanks to TubiTV, a good resource for movie fans. Oh and I think I hear the happy campers song echoing off in the distance…

 

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