Customer Reviews

Sleepaway Camp II - Unhappy Campers

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

When I put this DVD in, I wasn't really expect much. All I expected was a crappy sequel to a really great film, since alot of slasher sequels aren't that good. Well, I was pleasantly suprised because what I got was a highly enjoyable late 80's horror cheesefest that all fans of corny slasher flicks can appreciate.

Basically, the plot revolves around a group of kids at a camp called Rolling Hills, which is apparently 60 miles from Arawak. Well, it turnes out that Angela did her time at the mental hospital and has had a sex change operation (She used to be a boy) and is apparently "cured". Haha. Boy, were the counselors that hired her wrong. Pretty soon, kids begin to start missing. Angela claims that she's sent them home for behaving badly, when really, she's been brutally murdering them in painful, gruesome ways. No one knows this, and of course, they believe her when she tells them she sent 'em home. Well, when more and more kids keep getting "sent home", the camp counselors get suspicious and fire Angela. Of course, Angela runs off into the forest and to the abandoned cabin where she likes to hang out. One of the remaining teenagers decides that she wants to try and cheer her up, and grabs her boyfriend and has him help her. Well, when they reach Angela's hangout spot, they soon find out her disgustingly horrible secret and now both of their lives are in danger. Will they make it out alive? Watch the movie and find out, damn it!

Well, there's a run-down of the main premise of this short, but incredibly entertaining bloodfest. Now, the story is really quite absurd. Wouldn't they check Angela's records or something before hiring her as a staff member? In real life, yes, they would have and they would have NEVER have hired her...unless they were total and complete idiots, of course. But, luckily, these counselors are idiots and we get to have a fun time watching Angela "weed out the bad kids"! The gore scenes in here weren't very graphic, but then again, the gore scenes weren't too graphic in the first one, either. You see, they didn't NEED to be gorey! And neither do the deaths in here!

Oh, and if you're looking for some T&A, there's plenty of it in here. Right after the beginning credits, we see one of the young teenage girls topless because she says she likes to sleep in the nude. And there's one that just likes to act like a complete [hooker]to impress her friends and the guys, and one of the best sex scenes ever filmed happens to be in here. Yes, the sexual stuff is pretty pointless, but this is a SLASHER FILM. Most slasher films have a little bit of nudity or sex in them, to attract their younger male target audience. And of course, the girls are treated to a couple of muscular guys without any shirts on a couple of times.

The acting is pretty average in here, but it's better than the performances in the first film. Pam Springsteen is amazing as Angela, and I personally think she's much much better than Felissa Rose. I love the way she portrays our favorite transvestite serial killer. When she murders, she doesn't think twice about it. She just acts like it's some every day thing, and just...does it. There's no other way to explain it, she just kills 'em. Only a couple of the murders have build up to them, and yeah, I do wish there had been more build-up in this one like in the first, but oh well. I still had a great time watching this, so that doesn't matter.

Overall, this isn't as good as the first one, but for some reason, it's far more entertaining.

Reccomended for a Saturday night rental. Or you can just buy it if it's really really cheap, like I did. Don't forget to pop a ton of popcorn to go with it!

Angela from the first Sleepaway Camp is back, this time as the counselor for a new camp, Camp Rolling Hills. With time at the mental hospital and a sex-change operation under her belt, she's back to school some campers on the ways of the world.

Alcohol? Pot? Sex? Flashing? Peeping? No, these things don't belong at Camp Rolling Hills, so Angela has to punish the bad campers in the only way she knows how. When too many campers are "sent home," her boss gets suspicious and fires Angela...and then she snaps.

This is a really fun movie. I didn't expect much, but I really enjoyed it. Pamela Springsteen is just great as Angela (yes, she is the Boss's sister), and the rest of the cast does what they can - I mean, they're hired to doff their tops not perform Shakespeare. There's gore, there's nudity, there's laughs...what's not to like, really?

This is a fantastic sequel! It has everything a great horror movie should have- a likeable killer (played magnificently by Pamela Springstein), unlikeable victims, nudity, drugs, great death scenes (LOVE the toilet scene) and funny one-liners. I definately believe they topped the first one with this movie. This movie doesn't try to be scary (like the first one did unsuccessfully)--it tries to be funny, yet it doesn't lack on gore or great killings. I really enjoyed what they did with Angela on this sequel. She was so annoying in the first--you almost wanted to smack her! Props to this great little movie and to Pamela Springstein- our first female transexual physcho killer!!!

ok when i first read about the sleepaway camp movies,i really wanted to see them,and this was the funniest out of all 3 of them,part 3 was too,but this one was funnier,i have watched a few times now and i aint sick of it yet.buy it today!

After seeing only parts 1 and 2 of this series, I honestly think that SLEEPAWAY CAMP is THE finest example of the slasher subgenre. First of all, its a franchise with at least 3 sequels, it spanned the 1980's, its fairly cheesy, and best of all, Angela, the series "Jason/Freddy" type killer is completely unique because she/he is a transvestitte who's story, while completely over the top and very unlikely to ever happen, is actually a really good reason for someone to go out and kill people. I mean, think about it, if you were a child with gay "parents" and you saw your father and sister killed by reckless teenagers and then, as a boy, were raised as a "girl" by a freaky aunt who behaves as if she's in a high school theatre production you'd be screwed up hardcore. To complicate matters, at fourteen, your crazy aunt sends you away to a trashy camp for kids populated by snotty bitches, perverts, and man bullies who pick on you at every chance. Then you fall in love with a nice boy, but WHAT CAN YOU DO? your a guy, you probabley think all of those mean girls are hot, but you don't want to screw up a chance at a nurturing, healthy relationship that you've needed all your life. So after the pressures of killing your enemies in a psychotic rage, you decide to see if the guy who likes you can really like the real you, and after his bad reaction to your secret, you snap completely, kill him and are arrested. To me that sounds like a better reason for a spree than being "pure evil" like Freddy or Michael Myers, or because your just a zombie like Jason, or because you want revenge over some petty misdeed that happened years ago like the guys in movies like "Prom Night" or "the Prowler". In SC 2, Angela has gotten a job as a camp counselor after a sex change and rehabilitation. Of course thats a stupid thing to do. The thing is, all Angela wants is to be normal and healthy. She also wants the campers to never take their normal and healthy lives for granted. When she goes on another spree, its because after all her years of "readjustment" and thinking positive and "opening up and not being so damn shy" she is still being pushed around by the same snotty, undeserving brats that tormented her at camp arawak. My favorite thing in this movie is when Angela is fired and Molly finds her at the cabin and tries to comfort her and Angela is all "There was a boy that I didn't get along with once, I fixed him...I drowned him". I wholeheartedly recommend this film to slasher fans because of the excessively human killer and the great montage of gorey deaths, nudity, humor, and fantastic one-liners, which all combined is usually absent in slasher movies.

This movie has exactly what I look for in movies. An Over-zealous do-gooder who wants to rid the world of teenage sex and drug use by killing the guilty. What could be better than a chick who plays guitar and kills!

When a child 'misbehaves' she kills them and tells everyone that 'they got sent home'. Yeah, you got that right, straight home to hell. She collects the bodies in her 'secret' lodge. What a hideout, a wooden shack with a 'keep out' sign. Ha ha, big fun.

Pretty cool death scenes too. I mean c'mon who doesn't want to see a beautiful young blond being drowned in an outhouse toilet?

This movie rocks.

What happens when you mix a campground full of unwary, hormonally -charged youngsters and the instructors that seem motivated by the same reasoning, a wonderfully nice lady by the name of Angela that is working around the aggression of her past follies by molding good little boys and girls through a healthy concoction of moral policing, torment, and the habitual killings that sometimes follow in suit, and the creativeness of drills, abandoned buildings, cooking out, and other dysfunctional ways of dealing with the masses that crawl beneath your skin? Why, you have a situation in which the councilor of the week can send people home in any bloody way she chooses in the sequential premeditation we like to call SleepAway Camp 2.

In this installment, Angela finds herself truly a female and "cured" of all the ghosts tormenting her previous camping experience. No more are the shadows of people mocking her plaguing a 14-year old memories, to the point that the doctors running evaluations on her mental condition say that she's fine. In fact, according to her, she has some good recommendations from them in regard to finding work when she is released, so finding a job was fairly easy. And what's the best line of work for someone who's trying to avoid a relapse into the world of campground butchery that she plunged into not too terribly long ago? Why, as a camp councilor, of course! This, of course, leads down highways that are a little more graphic than the last installment in the Sleepaway saga, letting Angela wholeheartedly embrace the multitudes with her own special brand of love while working her way through the bad apples in the bunch.

Something I actually enjoyed in this movie was the mocking undertones of stereotypical campground behavior and the individuals haunting those abodes, not to mention the sing-a-long "I'm a Happy Camper" tune that still haunts the fine-tuned humming I inflict upon anyone that happens to be around. For these reasons as well as those that spell murder, unhappy endings, and an array of potential victims that grovel on the steps of age, class, and sex, I would have to recommend this movie. Besides, seeing Angela claim a foothold on Freddy, Jason, and Leatherface (only rip-offs and not the originals, but still) was entertaining, to say the least!

The original "Sleepaway Camp", though no horror masterpiece, at least had some fun performances from the bitchy Judy and Meg, some amusing dialogue from the potty-mouthed brother, creative kills, the progressiveness of the father having a boyfriend and the aunt seeming like a drag queen, and the shock ending.

This 1988 followup "Sleepaway Camp 2" has none of the above. In fact, it's just a bad script with no suspense, since we know who the killer is from the get-go. There seems to be four times as many counselors at the camp than there are kids to look after.

The female nudity comes from mostly one character, the resident slut. At least her death in the outhouse toilet was somewhat original.

**WARNING: Do not purchase the version from Legacy Entertainment**

Although I found it for $4 in a bargain bin, it still wasn't worth it. I could live with the fact that it looked like a full-frame transfer from VHS but the audio mix was so mangled I could not make out what the actors were saying during many of the outdoor scenes and Mess Hall scenes. Their lips are moving but all you hear is the cutlery scraping plates, or birds chirping outdoors. It was the worst audio of any DVD I've seen.

Also, I believe this was an edited version because the gore was non-existent. Right after the killer raised their weapon, the camera cut to the next scene. Stay away from this verion from Legacy. The film may have played a little better for me without these issues.

One star goes for some tacky but amusing dialogue I WAS able to hear, and the bad 1988 fashions (I've never seen so many mullets in one place at one time!).

Recognizable faces in the cast were Renee Estevez (Emilio's sis) and Brian Patrick Clarke (Susan Richardson's hubby 'Merle the Pearl' from "Eight is Enough").

Thankfully brief with only an 80 minute running time, SC2 is one of those movies that is worth watching only so you can poke fun at how stupid it is.

Director Michael A. Simpson and writer Fritz Gordon really created a delicious horror/comedy treat for those of us who enjoy taking a break from serious horror. By the late eighties, the slasher craze was well worn out. The horror genre in general would eventually turn more towards psychological thrillers in the early nineties like Deceived, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and The Silence of the Lambs. The late eighties also saw many horror franchises like Halloween and Friday the 13th dying out and taking a much needed break. The original Sleepaway Camp is by no means a classic although it did try to be more of a serious horror film. It featured a shocker of an ending which is probably what made it stand out the most. With Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers five years later, the writer and director took a smart approach to continuing the cheesy original by turning it into something more comedic and entertaining. Pam Springsteen as Angela makes the film work and delivers each one of her lines with perfection and gusto. You see camp counselor Angela just wants everyone to be "good kids" and have a great time at camp. Unfortunately for the campers, their idea of fun includes sex, drugs and mouthing off. When Angela discovers this, she sees it as her duty to "weed out the bad" in various ways whether it be roasting someone on a grill, drowning them in a leech infested outhouse toilet or serving them a healthy cup of battery acid. If the others begin wondering what happened to someone, Angela simply says they got sent home when she actually keeps them all stored in her secret hideaway cabin. When Angela isn't knocking someone off though, you may catch her strumming "Kumbaya" on her guitar. Sleepaway Camp II is actually my favorite because it is such a fun, entertaining ride. The writer/director and Pam Springsteen would follow this up with Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland which was filmed directly after and was equally as good. However this one is slightly better. Both were filmed in Bremen, Georgia. Buy this and watch it again and again!

Until recently, I never took the time to watch Sleepaway Camp 2 (or any of the Sleepaway Camp movies for that matter). I am so glad that I finally did! Sleepaway Camp 2 honestly had everything that people want in a slasher film (or at least everything that I want in a slasher film). Awesome death scenes, great one-liners, and acting that I have to say was a step above other horror sequels. This movie was so entertaining and so fun to watch! Pamela Springsteen was absolutely amazing and it made me sad to find out that she's not in movies anymore. Watch this movie... you'll be quoting it for weeks! (Don't buy this copy though, the Survival Kit boxed set comes with all 3 movies, all of which are great, and is only about $12 more.)