Customer Reviews

Return to Sleepaway Camp

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I've been very excited about watching this, ever since I heard about it. I checked the IMDB almost daily for updates, and was constantly irritated that the release date kept getting pushed back. But I finally got to see it.

There's no cold open, straight to the credits. When I was watching the credits, they looked really good, and I was thinking to myself, "Wow, this is going to be a real movie. High production quality, etc." Then, the actual movie started, and it looked just like the last one.

I enjoyed this movie a lot. I thought they did a great job of making it a sequel, which is hard to do when the first one was made 25 years ago. It has the same feel, same style of writing, like it was made a year or two later.

Isaac Hayes is an awful actor, and Jonathan Tierston has only done one other thing aside from the first one, and that was in 1987. He is definitely not an actor. Vincent Pastore does a really good job. I was disappointed that Aunt Martha didn't make a cameo. She did something in 2006, but other than that, only the original.

If you were a fan of the first movie, I think you'll totally dig this one.

Be Careful! I just noticed a review on here stating that this movie was the full version of that craptacular "Sleepaway Camp: The Survivor" footage that was an extra in some of the Survival Kit Box Sets. This movie has absolutely NO relation to that. Return To Sleepaway Camp is a direct sequel to the unforgettable original Sleepaway Camp. Ronnie and Ricky are back and so are a bunch of gruesome murders at camp. This was directed by the writer/director of the original Sleepaway Camp and is a welcome return to fun who-done-it slasher movies!

25 years after the horrific massacre that happened in Camp Arawak then in 1988 and 1989 there were other massacres in other camps in the New York state done by Angela Baker (Felissa Rose) as she has been confined to a asylum with her cousin Ricky (Jonathan Tierson) now is a construction worker. At Camp Manabe, the kids and teens have great fun even if it's sex and drugs, they do someones get provided by supervison by Counselers including Ronnie (Paul DeAngelo). However there is this tormented teen boy named Alan (Michael Gibney) who gets picked on all the time and sometimes bullies some of the campers, he feels like a social reject that just doesn't belong to camp. However some of the campers and staff members begin to be disappear one by bloody one leaving them as dead bodies, Ronnie is reminded of the horrible murders that happened when he worked at Camp Arawak. Who is this mysterious killer? could be Alan on the verge for revenge, some member of the staff or could be it Angela Baker back for crazy revenge?

Exciting and vibrant comeback for the Sleepaway Camp franchise! this new installment is a reunion movie with some of the original characters and cast members. Issac Hayes in one of his final roles co-stars as a Chef whom is a homage to his "South Park" character, this one won't disappoint fans of the series including the cult original as it offers sexy girls, gory violence like the memorable gasoline with drugs death sequence that has to be seen to believed, decent acting, and of course a suprise ending just like the original as this is the best sequel of the franchise. Hell even the original's writer/director/producer Robert Hiltzik has returned.

This DVD offers a few good extras like Behind The Scenes featurette, interviews, Photo Gallery and music video.

Great sequel, I hope they make pt.5 Very cool kills, lots of in cheek humour and overall a great movie. Angela hasen't lost a step and is still as freaky as ever. This should have been part 2.

The best in the series. the way the kids died are totally disqusting, and the ending was amazingly shocking. LOVED IT! It was to much fun... not knowing who the killer was the whole time.

I've gotten into the habit recently of watching horror movie sequels back-to-back and then reviewing them. I thought perhaps I was being anti-social, so I recently watched all four SLEEPAWAY CAMPS on four consecutive dates with the same girl. See? I'm not antisocial. Just weird.

Sleepaway Camp -- The original movie is bizarre, to say the least. After a mild opening in which most of a family is killed with a speedboat, the movie cuts to two children, Ricky and Angela, being shipped off to Camp Arawak by Angela's mom, a ludicrously spacy woman. Angela, the surviving daughter from the movie's intro, appears to be mute. Ricky dutifully cares for her throughout the movie. Aside from an old black cook and a well-meaning but clueless counselor named Ronnie, the rest of the cast is almost entirely composed of mean, selfish, antagonistic people. But, phew! They start getting killed.

The first person to kick the bucket at camp is a lecherous cook who openly brags about his pedophilia. He's not kidding, either. When he is introduced to Angela during lunch, in his busy kitchen, the first thing he does is drag her into a supply closet with the intention of exposing himself (and probably more). Later, he has a large tureen of boiling water dumped onto his head. Zing!

The movie tries to make itself mysterious, but it's not hard to figure out who's doing the killing. Every time Angela is picked on in some way, the person eventually bites it in some overly dramatic and silly deaths. However, although the whodunit of it is not a big surprise, there's still a lot of mystery to the movie. Specifically, my date and I wondered how it ever got made. The budget appears to have been twenty dollars, and -- up to that point -- both of us claimed to never have seen such horrific acting. It was a stupid, poorly contrived, horribly done film, and the writer/director, Robert Hiltzick, had dedicated the entire thing to his late mother, a woman the dedication describes as "a doer."

We couldn't stop laughing. I don't think the film was meant to be so funny. Maybe it was. Maybe that's where the phrase "campy" came from. Either way, we enjoyed ourselves. Four (accidental?) stars.

Sleepaway Camp II - Unhappy Campers -- The very first thing that happens in this film: Angela (same character, different actress), is now a counselor at Camp Rolling Hills. Within the first two minutes of the film, she bludgeons a female camper and then cuts out her tongue, punishment for sneaking over to the boy's camp and telling scary bonfire stories. Angela, apparently, is like a camp chastity Nazi or something. My date is disgusted and already regretting her decision.

It's obvious right away that this film is not only far more graphic and explicit (when the girls aren't topless and joking about their breasts, they are trying to get slutty with each other's boyfriends), but it is also not interested at all in suspense or drama. Angela kills every single person without even a "how do you do?" That might sound like a spoiler, but this movie doesn't have any secrets or tricks up its sleeve. A camp of sinners and sleazeballs gets sliced and diced. The end.

There is a subplot concerning the two wholesomest kids in camp finding each other amidst all the devious tramps and the people being stabbed and drowned in outhouses, but these kids were apparently only halfsome, because, as I pointed out, they die along with everyone else. But I guarantee you, I didn't ruin the movie for you. No. This movie is just another dumb, horribly written and directed film that is actually pretty funny. Just as funny as the first one, though.

My date refused to finish it after the outhouse scene. Four stars.

Sleepaway Camp III - Teenage Wasteland -- In the first two minutes of this film, the viewer is treated to more pointless nudity and a death by garbage truck (driven by Angela). She is now on her way to Camp New Horizons, an ill-advised social experiment that forces juvenile delinquents and spoiled rich kids into tents together. This place is run by a dangerously idiotic couple and seems to have little to no funding. The only person with any degree of dignity is the camp's only counselor (!) a guy named Barney who is also an officer of the law AND the father of a camper who died in the previous film.

The dialogue and acting in this film make the first two look like Schindler's List. The characters make wild, irrational decisions. People are despicable for no good reason, and Angela never struggles with finding the time, energy, and secrecy to dispatch of most of them. She is aided by the fact that this camp, like the previous two, seems to have no schedule of events or basic supervision. In fact, budget constraints must be lower than ever, because this time around the place appears to be run out of two woodsheds. And yet, in the credits, there is this: Mr. Simpson's Porsche Provided by MEGDAL IMPORTS. Mr. Simpsons is the director, and to the best of my knowledge, neither he nor his Porsche appear in the film. Another horrible horror movie that we couldn't stop laughing at.

My date said that the acting was even worse than the first film. She gave it two thumb up. Me: Four stars.

NOTE: THERE IS APPARENTLY A FOURTH FILM SOMEWHERE OUT THERE. I COULD NOT FIND IT, NOR KNOW ANYONE WHO IS WILLING TO VOUCH FOR ITS EXISTENCE.

Return to Sleepaway Camp -- The creator, Hiltzik, was not responsible for parts 2 or 3. They were the work of writer Fritz Gordon and director Michael Simpson. For some wild reason, Hiltzik, who'd done NOTHING since the first film (according to iMDB), decided to make a REAL sequel to his first film. This is it, a movie so absolutely awful in every way, I found it nothing short of mesmerizing and have watched it twice again since.

It's obvious that Hiltzik is catering to his fans, because the first death is almost identical to the first death in the first film: rude cook dies by hot liquid. The head cook is, yet again, an elderly black man (Isaac Hayes who acts in every scene as if he has recently gone blind). Muscley, dim-witted Ronnie is back as the head counselor. Reprising his role from the original, Paul DeAngelo makes bad acting look like a fine art. I'm not joking. I could watch that guy overact for hours and hours.

The camp is run by The Sopranos's Vincent Pastore, and is once again filled with the most mean-spirited, vile children ever. The kids are so rude and unruly, when they are punished for their misbehavior (by being sent to their cabins), I'm surprised they don't just hit the counselor with a rock. The hammy acting will astound you. The dialogue will baffle and delight. Even the extras in this film are as weird and wooden as life-sized cardboard puppets.

The plot this time around is not very different at all. One camper, a kid named Alan, is the butt of everyone's jokes, and those who taunt and tease him end up meeting grisly ends. The thing is, Alan is the whiniest and most annoying movie character since Luke Skywalker. Played with absolutely no consistency at all by Michael Gibney, Alan is the movie's most confusing character. Does this boy have a mental disorder? Is he schizophrenic? Why does he love frogs so much? Why doesn't he ever, ever, ever change his clothes? Why is he such a jerk?

Yes. Alan is just as annoying and mean as everyone else, and yet when the camp gangs up on him and shoots spit balls at him or yells at him to stop making flamethrowers out of lighters and spray cans, he starts complaining that everyone is picking on him because "he's different." He chats with his brother about a mysterious "fever." "The doctor said there'd always be effects," Alan moans as he pets a frog.

It makes no sense. Nor does the rest of the film. The original actors who portrayed Ricky (Jonahan Tiersten) and Angela (Felissa Rose) reprise their roles here, which is a bit of a treat. Tiersten has obviously done no acting since the first film. He doesn't even bother looking interested, casually smoking a cigarette during a tense hunt in the woods for the bodies of slain children. Rose isn't exactly recognizable for much of the film, but it won't be hard to know point her out after about ten minutes. My date did it in twelve.

My date hated the film. So did my neighbor, who refused to watch anymore after about thirty minutes. But me? I couldn't get enough. It is, without question, the most hilariously awful film I've seen since Starship Troopers. I chuckle now just thinking about it.

I see that Hiltzik has started production on a SLEEPAWAY CAMP REUNION. Bravo, Mr. Hiltzik. I doubt very much that you'll be able to top the inane silliness, the incomprehensibly horrible acting, the deliciously cheesy plot "twists," but I'll be glad to watch you try.

Even if my date is no longer returning my texts.

Known for having a shocking surprise ending, Sleepaway Camp (1983) is a classic 80's slasher, written and directed by Robert Hiltzik, that has gathered a huge cult following over the years. Two "unauthorized" sequels followed in the 80's, which did not involve Hiltzik, or stars from the original film, Felissa Rose and Jonathan Tiersten. With the support of fans still interested in seeing another sequel, Hiltzik resumes the story more than two decades later, in Return To Sleepaway Camp (2008) a direct to video release. This review contains significant spoilers, so proceed at your own risk.

Hiltzik completely ignores the events in the previous two sequels, and resumes his story some twenty years after the infamous events at Camp Arawak, where transgendered Angela Baker (Felissa Rose) went nuts and committed a number of shocking murders. At Camp Manabe, new owner and bird lover Frank Kostik (Vincent Pastore) has Ronnie Angelo (Paul DeAngelo), a former counselor at Arawak, on his staff. Life at summer camp is much the same, with lots of fun activities, adolescent pranks, and hormones running wild.

Hiltzik attempts to replicate the vibe from the original movie. This time the featured recipient of abuse is the camp troublemaker, Alan (Michael Gibney). Frequently provoking fights, harassing girls, and throwing tantrums, he is picked on, and made the brunt of cruel jokes by almost everyone, as he tries to make friends with fellow camper Karen (Erin Broderick).

As before, the first kill is set in the kitchen, as a cook takes a fatal dive into a deep fryer. The second kill is even more spectacular, where a stoner type kid is turned into a human torch. The crimes bring Sherriff Jerry to the camp to investigate. He speaks with a voice box because he lost his voice due to cancer, and it's pretty obvious that there are some other issues with the Sherriff. Suspicion for the killings falls on Angela, but her cousin Ricky Thomas (Jonathan Tiersten), reports that she remains institutionalized.

After another tantrum, Alan runs off into the night, starting a night of bloody terror. Kostik gets some unexpected headgear, while in the woods, Randy (Byre Cooper) a counselor, has a part of his anatomy yanked off, and his girlfriend Linda (Jackie Tohn) gets caught in a trip wire. During the killing spree Ricky arrives at the camp, and joins Ronnie and Sherriff Jerry, in the search for Alan.

As in the original, the best parts of the film are the nasty kills, which are pretty creative, and display lots of variety. Hiltzik still has a cool sense of style for shooting horror, and the level of gore and graphic violence, is cranked up to high this time. Loyal fan support over the years is why this film was made, and Hilting delivers more of what the fans loved, keeping things at a very juvenile level, with lots of childish dialog. In his acting debut, Michael Gibney is effectively obnoxious as Alan. The late Isaac Hayes, has a brief role in the last film of his career. The cast may not get to display much of their acting skills, but it hardly seems to matter, as long as the blood flows. The big surprise reveal, probably isn't much of a shock by the time it occurs, as it is evident pretty early that Felissa Rose has returned.

Proving that fans can make a real difference, superfan Jeff Hayes was the force that helped get the major players together, and provide the impetus for the sequel to be made. Hayes served as consulting producer for the film, and contributes some of the bonus materials. Intended mainly for the fans, some who have been waiting over twenty years for a sequel, Return To Sleepaway Camp is a pretty solid effort. The original film was crudely juvenile and charmingly unsophisticated, and the sequel retains some of that same flavor. The film really steps up to modern levels in the violence and gore departments, delivering solidly. After so much time had passed, Hiltzig probably didn't have many options for bringing back Angela, so it's fairly easy to go with the rather silly plotline. It's time to go back to camp!

I am a diehard fan of the original cult classic Sleepaway Camp and my jaw dropped when I saw the REAL sequel (don't even bother with 2 and 3) had finally been released. Unfortunatley, I kind of figured out the ending halfway through the movie, but that didn't stop me from appreciating this trip back to camp. Return to Sleepaway Camp has all of the crazy features I loved from the first film - over the top acting, foul mouthed dialogue, men in daisy dukes (a nice throwback from the head camp counselor), and of course creatively original kills. Sleepaway Camp fans definitely won't be disappointed.

First off i am a huge sleepaway camp fan, i love all 3 movies and can watch them all over and over again. When i heard that they were making another one i was more then thrilled. But i started to get impatient when the kept pushing it back further and farther, i was starting to think that it wasnt going to be released but it finally came out and i bought it that same day.

I loved the film but i do have a few problems with it. When i first watched it i wasnt really sure what to think, a part of me loved it and the other part was a bit disapointed. 1) Low body count, i was expecting a bit more but the first sleepaway camp wasnt to big in the body count area so i guess its not that bad. I did enjoy the creativity they put into the death scenes. The bunk bed one was nice 2) The character of alan was a little to over the top for me, was kinda getting annoying. They picked on him so much it was unbelievable. 3) The end...just watch it and you'll see. Your going to either love it or hate it but myself, i want to see what happens after that!!!

So despite the little problems it had i did enjoy the film. It really did feel like a sleepaway camp movie right out of the 80s. It was directed fairly well but i thought it could have been written a bit better. It was good to see most of the original cast return, and to see issac hayes(even though he was barely in it). I had a lot of fun watching it and if you dont take it too seriously and realize your watching a direct to dvd sequal to a slasher movie that was made 25 years ago then you should to.
So if you enjoyed the first sleepaway camp, then you'll want to see get this movie. So now i just have to sit and patiently wait for sleepaway camp reunion, lets just hope it gets made!!!

<strong>Return to Sleepaway Camp</strong> (Robert Hiltzik, 2008)

Twenty-five years after the original <em>Sleepaway Camp</em> became a runaway cult hit, Robert Hiltzik got back in the director's chair for the fifth film in the ongoing (the sixth is in post-production as I write this; the fourth, started in 2002 and abandoned when the production company went bankrupt, is reported to now be finished and looking for a distributor) horror/comedy series. One would have hoped that Hiltzik returning to the fold would have meant a similar return to straighter horror, as the first movie wasn't played as a comedy, but one would hope in vain. Hiltzik has very much internalized the movies in between. The end result? A movie that combines the worst of all the pictures that came before it, with no inkling at all of what made them watchable.

Alan (Michael Gibney in his first big-screen appearance) is exactly the kind of kid an audience is least likely to feel sympathy for. He's a whiny little brat who complains to any adult in earshot that he's always getting picked on, which causes the older kids to pick on him, so he turns around and bullies those younger and smaller than himself. He also never bathes or changes his clothes (one of the few good touches in the movie is the degradation over time of the condition of his ever-present white T-shirt). Of course, he's the outcast, and you know where this is going if you've seen earlier movies in the series; those who pick on him start dying horrible deaths.

I think where Hiltzik went wrong with this is that in the original, which cleaves strongly to this same formula, while Angela wasn't exactly a sympathetic character, her extreme lack of socialization and uncomfortableness around others made us at least pity the poor kid. (Either that or Felissa Rose was really that bad an actress in 1983.) Alan is one of the least sympathetic characters in horror movies, maybe in any kind of movies, in a long, long time. I don't know about everyone else, but I was hoping he would be the first one to bite it less than five minutes in. It would be a spoiler to tell you the movie's biggest letdown, but given the placement of this sentence in this review, you're probably smart enough to figure out what it is on your own. A complete waste of time, notable only for Isaac Hayes' spoofing on the Chef character he played in <em>South Park</em> for a minute or so early in the film. * ½