Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Episode 131, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig; And I’m Craig.

Todd: And welcome to July. It’s summertime. Craig. Craig has been off because he’s a teacher. Yep.   I’m a principal, but I’m in China. I’m never off. But it is sweltering hot here in Beijing. I’m sure it’s sweltering hot where you are, Craig. 

Craig:  It’s actually really nice right now. It has been super hot, but these last couple days, we’ve had a little bit of a break. So that’s been nice. 

Todd:  That’s good. That’s good. I’m glad to hear that. We, we haven’t been out swimming or doing anything fun like that. There are no beaches in Beijing. Everything’s man made. We have the old the old water cube, you know, where the Olympics were held, and, Michael Phelpsberg, all those records has been converted into a, water park. But it’s, like, super expensive, so we’ve never been there.   I’m dying to get out and swim and celebrate the summertime in these fun ways. So maybe the best substitute substitute we have, the best thing we can do is to go back to our old favorite horror movies that take place during the summer and do a bit of a a theme month. What do you think? 

Craig:  I think it sounds great. 

Todd:  Alright. So let’s get down to it. There are no shortages of horror movies that take place in summertime settings for some odd reason. Maybe the most notorious setting for a slasher film is, summer camp. And we’ve done a couple summer camp movies. We’ve done one of the Friday 13th movies at least. We did Yeah. The Burning. 

Craig:  Those are 

Todd:  the 2 that I thought about when we watched this week’s movie, which was Sleepaway Camp from 1983. I was in kindergarten in 1983. Sleepaway Camp is, it’s kinda one of the more notorious of these slasher films, and it’s box art. I just I just got to talk about the box art for a second. Yeah. It’s, Sleepaway Camp 1. I always got Todd confuse the Sleepaway Camp 2. Sleepaway Camp 2 has this really cheap ass looking box art.   It’s a Yeah. Girl with a backpack on looking toward a camera walking through the woods. Looks like it was shot on somebody’s Polaroid or something. And in the back, is a Jason hockey mask and a Freddy glove, like hanging out of the backpack, except they look like they were bought from a Halloween store, like they’re plastic. Not that it isn’t cheap, but the box art for the first one is really interesting. It’s got a bloody knife stabbed through a shoe as Todd like it gets like a kid’s sneaker that’s upside down hanging from the knife and for some reason the sneaker is dripping wet and I have really have no idea why I think when I see this I just it’s like a Salvador Dali painting to me you know it’s just a little surreal I don’t know why the sneaker is dripping wet there’s a hand the this knife is upright almost like it’s it’s holding it in triumph or something but I’m trying to figure out the situation in which this knife got stabbed upside down through the sneaker, and there’s not like a foot in it. And why is 

Craig:  the sneaker dirty wet, but 

Todd:  the hand isn’t. It’s just an odd Yeah. Image, but it’s iconic and it looks good. And then you got Sleepaway Camp down below it in a font, that looks like branches. And on the back, do you remember what the back looked like? No. The back is brilliant. There’s no pictures, there’s no photos, or stills, or anything for the movie. There’s just a tagline, the camp’s activity for Todd, murder.   And then and then there’s a it looks like a sheet of paper that, like, somebody’s writing a note home to their mom. And it says, dear mom and dad, you’ve got to get me out of here right away. There’s a crazed killer on the loose, and kids are being scared to death, and a girl was brutally stabbed while taking a shower, And nobody’s doing anything about it. Your peaceful your peaceful perfect place just to meet girls has become a slaughtering ground for a bloodthirsty murdering monster. Wait a minute. I think I hear someone coming up be and then the bee jacks out. There’s some blood drops on the paper. It’s just classic. 

Craig:  That’s hilarious. They got 

Todd:  the shower in there. That was nice. And I love these letters that end with, you know, wait a minute. That’s the person’s writing out. I think I think someone’s coming up behind me. It’s so good. If if you don’t wanna pick this movie up off the shelf based on the box box alone, it’s it’s too great. So yeah, I watched this way back in the day probably back in high school.   How about you, Craig? 

Craig:  You know, it’s so weird because this is one of those movies that comes up all the time in discussions about horror movies and, you know classic or iconic or cult movies and that’s where I saw it again this time around. You know, I just saw on one of the horror movie sites that I frequent, I saw a list of summertime horror movies and and this was on there along with like Friday 13th and The Burning and stuff. And I know a lot about this movie, like, I’ve read about it. I’ve seen images from it. It’s established its place, I think, largely because of a big twist and I knew going in what the big twist was. So I didn’t expect there to really be any surprises, but I had never seen it before And I don’t know how I have gone almost 40 years of my life, you know, loving these types of movies and and somehow had had never picked this one up, but I’ve seen it now. So now I guess I could now I guess I can join 

Todd:  in the conversation. That’s great. Welcome to the club, Craig. Yay. So just in case, you haven’t seen this movie and you want to before we start talking about it, you probably should because we’re gonna talk about the twist. And there is a twist at the end. It is notorious. And if you’ve been living under a rock and this hasn’t been spoiled for you yet, you better watch the movie, because I would be interested to hear, you know, obviously, the first time I saw it, I wasn’t old enough to really think about it too critically.   Now that I saw it the second time, I knew about the twist. Craig, you knew about the twist going into it. Yeah. It would be interesting to hear from somebody, an adult, who could see this movie now and give their honest opinion about it not knowing what the ending is. 

Craig:  Yeah. And well, and I’m sure that we’ll talk about this, but I don’t know that this movie would fly today because it’s it’s Oh, 

Todd:  yeah. Todd, no. 

Craig:  It You know, it touches on some topics that since the 1980s have become sensitive is not necessarily the right word, but I guess that we are just a little bit more sensitive to I don’t know. We’re a little bit more PC these days than we used to be. 

Todd:  We’re a little smarter. Yeah. We’re a little smarter. 

Craig:  Yeah. We’re definitely smarter. I don’t find this movie to be terribly offensive, at least not for the reasons that I can imagine that some people would. Anyway, we’ll get there. I mean, it’s a summer camp movie and it’s a summer camp slasher. I mean, that’s that’s what it boils down Todd, and for those purposes, it’s relatively formulaic. You know, you get a bunch of kids at summer camp and start picking them off. You know, that’s that’s how it goes and there’s the mystery who done it.   Even though I feel like this movie does kind of an interesting thing where they on the one hand, kind of make it super obvious who the killer is, but on the other hand, then they give you all these kind of red herrings, so you’re constantly questioning. And then you kind of doubt you kind of doubt your suspicions because it seems so unlikely. I don’t know. There are other things in this movie that I found to be more than the things that I think that some people would find objectionable, but we’ll get there. It’ll it opens up with, like, this lake view, you know, and it scans over this really pretty lake and there’s, some interesting music in the background. Mo a lot of the movie is scored and it’s an original score, and there are actually, I think, 2 or 3 original songs, that are used in the movie too. The camera scans around this camp and it ends on a sign, for Camp Arawak which is where you’ll be spending most of your time and there’s a for sale sign on it. And then we cut immediately to a flashback where you’ve got these 2 little kids, a young girl and a young boy and their dad out on the lake on a sailboat and Todd, you know, be little rascals playing a little trick on their dad.   The kids capsize the boat, and so they’re all in the water. Meanwhile, a speedboat that’s towing a skier and it’s got a young man and a young woman in it, and the young man is driving the boat and the young woman, who apparently is a camp counselor at this camp nearby, says that he she wants to drive the boat. He allows her to drive the boat and it’s it’s all really very kind of silly. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  She gets distracted by the skier and they’re not paying any attention and this speedboat runs them over. 

Todd:  You know, this scene right away, it doesn’t leave a very good impression. The content of the scene, sets up what we need to know, and it’s gonna be very important later. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  The execution of the scene is really amateurish. Yeah. Like you said, it the the whole situation’s rather silly. It’s not very convincing that they’re out on this lake with not many people around, but these people do not manage to see this boat overturned until it’s too late. And then when you look at the different shots, the spacing and where they are, it doesn’t even make sense. Like, one moment, this boat with them is out in the middle of the lake and then when they show the shot just as the, speedboat is coming towards them, they’re like right in front of the dock. Right. And as the speedboat runs over it, you get a close-up of him running over it, and then the speedboat is back out in the lake Craig.   Whereas the speedboat should be like on the land if it ran over this boat. Right. The way that it was approaching it, you, right away, you kinda know what you’re getting into. You know, there are a lot of movies like this. Right? We’ve talked about it, but, this movie in particular is the very first time effort from a director named Robert Hilsick. He wrote and directed this, and pretty much nothing else. He had a little bit to do, I think, with the other sleepaway camps. He was like a consultant or something like that on the sequels. 

Craig:  I think they just had to give him writing credit because they used so many flashbacks from the originals. I don’t think that he really had anything to do with them, and there were a bunch. There were, like, 4. No. I think there was Sleepaway Camp 2, Sleepaway Camp 3, and then they started to shoot, Sleepaway Camp 4, and they never finished it. And then 10 years later after they never finished it, they just went ahead and released it anyway even though they only had a half hour of original content, and they just they just filled the rest with flashbacks from the previous movies. Oh my god. And then eventually, there was Return to Sleepaway Camp, which again he came back, the original guy, Hiltzik came back and and wrote and directed and a lot well, not a lot, but some of, the original cast came back.   But I you know, I thought the same thing. I’m like, woah, this guy did like 5 Sleepaway Camp movies? I don’t think so. I don’t think he had anything to do with those unauthorized sequels except for that they had to give him a writing credit because they use so much of his stuff. 

Todd:  I think you’re right. And and he’s been trying to reboot the series or re remake the first one and and and it was announced back in, like, 2016 or something. I don’t think anything’s come of it since. There’s there’s really no information. I don’t know if people are really that interested in it, to be honest. And really, I mean, this guy, the whole reason he made the movie was he was looking for something he could sell, coming fresh out of film school. And he knew that horror was really, really easy to sell at the time. And so he came up with this thing, and apparently, he even shot it, at a camp that he attended when he was a kid.   Yeah. 

Craig:  Well, and it’s surprising that he didn’t really go on to do more because he shot this whole thing on a budget of $350,000. And in in the USA alone, it grossed 11,000,000. I mean, that’s like you know, that’s not blockbuster numbers, but based on how much they spent on it as opposed to how much it made, one would think that he could’ve done something else, but who knows? For whatever reason, he didn’t. 

Todd:  And it beat out big movies at the box office when it came out. I mean, it had a very limited theatrical release. It was a very short release. Yeah, so it it it looks cheap, and that’s really how the whole movie is kind of like this. The scenes are not really set up very well. The staging is very unconvincing. Some of it’s clearly like he told people, okay, just kind of mess around in the background while I film these people in the foreground doing something. So if you’re just kind of taking in the whole scene, the whole thing seems really stagey. 

Craig:  It Todd. And and I wanna address that, but after this little scene where it seems apparent that the dad has died because you see him floating seemingly dead in the water. Then it cuts to 8 years later and we have, what become really our 2 main characters, Angela, who was the little girl on the boat, and her cousin Ricky. And they’re, I don’t know, what would you say, maybe 13, 14 something like that. 

Todd:  Yeah, that’s probably about right. 

Craig:  And and they’re going to camp and the aunt who was mentioned before, she’s a doctor, apparently has raised Angela in the wake of this tragedy And we get this scene with her sending them off to camp and this woman is just psychotic, like, I don’t even know how to describe her, like, she’s very kind of mommy dearest. She kinda looks like a dude 

Todd:  in a 

Craig:  lot of makeup and I wrote down terrible acting, but I almost feel like that’s what they were going for. Like they wanted her to be crazy crazy over the top. And she says something weird. 

Clip:  Here they are all filled out and signed by yours truly. Wasn’t that nice of me? What are they? Why, they’re your physicals, of course. We can’t go to camp without our physicals now, can we? Just be careful not to tell anyone how you got them. Oh, no. No. I’m afraid that they wouldn’t approve of that at all, even though they know that I am a doctor. No 

Craig:  matter what they do, I’ll never 

Clip:  tell. Oh, you’re such a dear. 

Craig:  Okay. Whatever. And then they get off to camp. And what I was trying to get back to when you were talking about how it seems kinda cheap and it’s not all that well put together, One thing that this movie has going for it that most of these summer camp movies don’t, and I don’t even know if it’s necessarily a positive thing, but in most of these movies, you’ve got mid 20 somethings, sometimes even 30 somethings playing kids, playing the campers. And this movie is cast almost entirely with actual young people ranging anywhere in age from I would guess about 11, 12 to, you know, teenagers. Yeah. And and while that, you know, that gives it some authenticity, obviously you’re also working with people who are probably not terribly experienced and that shows in some places, and the other thing that you talked about how the scenes are not particularly well set up. This movie feels very much like it was made for television because it has it has built in commercial breaks. 

Todd:  Yes. Did you notice that? I did. It was so weird. And I had to go back and think, and I was even looking online. I was like, was this made for TV? TV shows, TV movies, especially in this era, there would be like a musical swell right at the end of a scene, and then it would fade to black, and then the commercial would start. It was just kind of like the standard way of putting in a commercial break. Yeah. Otherwise, movies never, you know, movies rarely fade to black.   Right. And this movie’s got it, like, at all the regular intervals you would expect, like, every 20 minutes or every half hour or whatever it is. It’s so weird, but but then I was like, well, there’s no way this was made for TV. There’s so much cursing and swearing in it. 

Craig:  Right. And the content is questionable too for television. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. There’s no way. 

Craig:  I’m sure it aired on television. I’m sure it was probably pretty heavily edited when it did, but, yeah. It’s it’s kind of it just in quality in the way that it was set up it really kind of felt like a made for TV movie. 

Todd:  It’s so strange. Do you think he was just aping that? Like he thought that’s what movies were supposed to do? Or do you think that he thought that maybe an edited version of this could could play on TV? 

Craig:  I have no idea, but that that certainly felt like how it was set up. Yeah. And and we’ve talked about this a bunch of times, you know, made for TV movies were, kind of a big thing. They’re not so much anymore unless you’re big in to Lifetime or Hallmark or those types of things. Who knows? Anyway, they show up at camp and we’re gonna talk about all these plot points, but the things that stood out to me was from the time they get to camp then throughout the rest of the movie, This movie makes summer camp seem like the most hellish nightmarish place that you could ever possibly go as a child. All of well, most of the adults are pretty awful, Like, the very first thing that happens is they’re all getting off the bus and the cook, Arty, is like 

Clip:  Look at all that young fresh chicken. Where I come from, we call them Baldies. Makes your mouth water down it.   Arty, they are too young to even understand what’s on your mind.   Then, good buddy. There ain’t no such thing as being too young. You’re just too old. 

Craig:  Gross. Like, that is so nasty. Well, that’s so gross. 

Todd:  And everyone else is just standing around kinda nodding and smiling and rolling their eyes like, oh, Arty. Todd old Arty being being a joke ster. 

Craig:  It, like, it closes up on his face as he’s staring at these young girls, and he’s, like, licking his lips. Like, it’s just barf. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And then all again, not all, there are a couple of nice kids, but literally like a couple of them. The rest of the kids are horrible, like they’re just nasty, horrible, awful people who seem to get no joy out of life other than just tormenting other kids and being even the nice kids sometimes like, Ricky, you know, Ricky is is the cousin, Angela’s cousin and he’s really a nice guy, but even he and his friends bully the fat kid in their cabin, like like, you know, it just Todd, if I guess what I’m saying is, if you have kids and you can’t afford to send them to summer camp, but they want to go, show them this movie and then they won’t wanna go. That’s right. You’ll save a buck. 

Todd:  It’s awful. And nobody cares. That’s the other thing. 

Craig:  No. Like, there’ll be huge fights, like, huge piles of guys, and literally, the camp counselors will just be standing off to the side watching. Like Yeah. Like like they’re bored. Like, here we go again. 

Todd:  It makes it unrealistic too. I mean, it takes it to that level where you just can’t, you know, none of the scenes ring true because of it. There are few good moments in here of some real, I don’t know, drama, if you could call it that. But most of this seems just like a bunch of silly little scenes that were put together. 

Craig:  Yeah. We get introduced to some of the other characters. We meet Paul. Paul is a friend of Ricky’s. I wrote down all these actors and actresses names, but none of them really went on to do much. The guy who played Paul, his name was Christopher Christopher Colette, and he was one of the few who actually went on to do some TV work and some other movie work. He’s got kind of a recognizable face. And then we meet, the girls in Angela’s, cabin, and there’s Judy, played by Karen Fields, and she’s just awful for no reason from the beginning.   Yeah. Because because over she used to go out with Ricky last summer, but over the summer, she got boobs. And with those boobs came just a horrible personality. And then, Meg is, the counselor in Angela’s cabin, and she’s awful also. So then we just kind of get to start to see how Angela I mean, it’s obvious that she’s traumatized from this event in her childhood, and that’s not unbelievable. You know, her dad and her brother were killed right in front of her and so she’s quiet, but kind of eerily quiet, like she really just sits there and stares. And the young lady who played Angela, her name is, Phyllisia Rose. She’s very pretty and and she looks her age, but she’s got these really dark kind of piercing eyes, and and I read that in the audition process, the audition for Angela was to just sit and stare intently and pretend you’re eating a candy bar.   Like that was the whole audition. And so she does so she does a lot of that just sitting and staring especially in the first part of the movie and and when she’s in the cabin, she’s staring at Judy and 

Clip:  What are you taking pictures? Quit it. You must be Angela. Remember Ronnie spoke to us about her. Looks like we got a real winner here. I ain’t kidding. 

Craig:  And then we get the first of several kind of gross moments where Angela’s in the, cafeteria and she’s not eating. And apparently, she hasn’t really eaten anything for, like, 3 days. One of the only nice counselors, he seems like I didn’t even write his name down, but he seems like kinda one of the head counselors guys, and he wears super shorty shorts. I love watching these movies from the eighties. Our fashion when the eighties, I tell you, it was something special. I don’t know what people were thinking. We were all over the map. Oh, man.   It was I mean, he looks like he’s wearing, like, a woman’s bathing suit, like, that’s, like, cut up to his waist. Anyway, that’s not important. He’s nice, and he takes her back to the kitchen and asks Gross Arty, the pervy cook, you know, she hasn’t eaten anything for a few days. Can you maybe find her some ice cream or something, get her to eat something? And then he gets called away, so Artie’s left alone with her. So he immediately takes her into the food pantry. 

Clip:  So, Angel,   see anything you like? Maybe I can help you decide. You sure are a sweet looking little cupcake, ain’t you? Like, I got something you’re gonna like real good.   Hey. What are you doing?   Keep your muscle. You mean? I didn’t say nothing. Got it. Nothing. 

Craig:  Ricky, who is constantly looking out for Angela, which is really kind of sweet in this kind of weird movie. He comes in and he sees what’s going on and he takes her away, but that’s kind of the impetus for the first kill, and then that’s kind of the pattern that it follows throughout. The people who end up getting killed in this movie are mean or bad or they they bully Angela or something. 

Todd:  Yeah. So this first death is interesting and you gotta give this movie credit for trying to keep things creative. It’s not just a killer walking around with a knife, you know, stabbing people, but they try to make the deaths different, and different they are. Yeah. This guy has the world’s tallest pot of water boiling on the stove. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s literally, like, 4 feet tall. 

Todd:  I don’t even know where they got up. This is the most impractical kitchen appliance Yeah. You can possibly imagine. Anyway, it’s so tall that he has to stand on a on a on a chair or a stool in order to reach it over the top of the stove, and he’s dumping corn in there. And we get a POV shot of a person sneaking up behind him, a kid’s hands. And this is what we see the whole time through are these these POV shots and we actually see the hands and they’re clearly a child’s hands, doing most of the work Mhmm. In these death scenes. It’s also very clumsily staged.   I guess they push him forward so that he’s bent over the pot, kind of. And he has to brace himself against against a shelf that’s over it. Yeah. And he’s like looking down going, oh, oh, that’s funny. What are you doing? Blah blah blah. This guy could get down at any point. It’s it’s not a thing. 

Craig:  Right. It kinda didn’t make any sense and I feel like the the director knew that and so he had to shoot everything in super tight close-up. Because if we were to see it from pulled back at all, we would know that he could just step aside or jump down 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Whatever. That it makes it seem like he’s, like, dangling over this huge pot of boiling water. 

Todd:  Yep. And so the the person pulls the stool out from under him and as he falls, he grabs the pot and pulls the boiling water down on him and he gets basically badly scalded. Mhmm. And we get a nice close-up scene of him. This only the only real makeup effects, I guess, we have in this movie, I think. There are, like, dummies and and, you know, severed heads and things like that. But I think this is the only real makeup effect we have on a person. 

Craig:  It was kinda neat. I don’t I don’t know if it necessarily looked real, but it was kinda cool. I mean, they clearly put some effort to it. You know, they had something. I I don’t know if they had latex over his skin or what, but they, you know, somehow made it appear as though blisters were rising and pulsating on his face. Pulsing. 

Todd:  It it it was gross. It’s not realistic, but it’s gross. Yeah. Yep. And so then the, Ben, the black cook comes running in and And just stands there in horror. Like, they all just stands there. Nobody’s nobody’s calling for help. Apparently, they did call for help because the next scene is, the police, coming in, you know, and then they come in and they interview, everybody in the kitchen.   And the thing so Mel is the guy who runs the camp. He’s a cigar shopping dude, and he’s the only person of note in this film. He’s a Tony award winning actor. He was all over television, and this was actually his last role. 

Craig:  Yeah. Mike Kellen. And, apparently, he was sick. The he had lung cancer the the whole time they were shooting this movie Terminal Lung Cancer, and he just hid it. Nobody knew, and he died 3 months before the movie came out, you know. It was his very very last thing. 

Todd:  You didn’t get to see his ultimate swan song. Maybe it was a good thing for him. Yeah. And and so there’s this this thing they’re trying to set up a little bit with Mel. Mel is a nice guy. Mel seems concerned, but Mel’s also the cover up dude. Right. And so he’s very concerned about getting the story straight.   And there’s this long kind of painful scene where he says goodbye to the police officer, and then he turns over to Ben, and he talks to Ben. 

Clip:  Guess that makes you the head man here now, doesn’t it?   I wasn’t thinking much about myself, mister Kostig. I just don’t see how something like that could happen.   Come on now, Ben. We still got a camp to feed here now, don’t we?   Yes, sir.   Besides, $50 more a week can’t be all that bad now, can it?   No, sir. I always thought he had a little devil in   Alright. $15 a week more for the rest of you?   That’s real generous of you, sir.   Well, no. Ben, there is one thing though. There’s really no reason for the campers to find out what happened. 

Todd:  You know 

Clip:  what I mean? 

Todd:  Ben’s kind of an embarrassing character too. Yeah. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yeah. Simple minded black person. 

Craig:  Yeah. Bad bad stereotype. Yeah. 

Todd:  It’s it’s just kind of, oh gosh. Okay. We get it. Alright. He’s trying to cover it up, but the scene goes on way too long and it’s just a little too on the nose. 

Craig:  Yeah. And I mean that’s the thing, like, there are several scenes in the movie that just seem unnecessary and a lot of them, you know, I would be watching a scene and like where is this going, you know. The the very next thing that we see is they play Ricky, again the nice kid plays this joke and I guess it’s a very campy joke, but it’s on the fat kid where they get him to sit up into one of the other campers butts, like, so his face is right in his butt. Very funny. And then we have a scene where there’s a ball game, and it’s like the the kind of little guys on one team and when I say little guys, I mean, like, middle school on one team against, like, the big guys, like, high school guys on the other team. And they, you know, they they bet on who’s gonna win or whatever and and eventually the little guys win, which yay, great, good job for the underdogs or whatever. But this it it was like I went to a ball game at a summer camp, like, why do I need to 

Todd:  see all this? That’s right. We’ve we’ve seen so many scenes like this, like in the burning or something like that. Maybe the ball gets hit into the woods and somebody has to chase after it and there’s kind of a tense moment, maybe somebody gets murdered, maybe somebody almost gets murdered. My Todd, at least just have some killer POV shots from the forest looking out at them or something. Give us some reason for this baseball game scene to be in this movie, and there’s no reason at all. It doesn’t even really set up the characters because all they do, which is basically all they do through the whole movie, is just curse and swear and yell insults at each other. 

Craig:  Right. Antagonize one another. And not only are they constantly doing that, but I feel like whoever was in charge of the sound, I don’t know, also felt found it necessary to fill any dead space with just that constant back and forth and bickering. 

Clip:  No problem. You know, this guy blows dead dogs. Just lay it in there. 

Todd:  Eat shit and die, Ricky. 

Clip:  Eat shit and live, Bill. 

Craig:  Yeah, Bill. He’s a little wet. Come on, Bill. God, these are these are the jerkiest kids ever. Then we’re in, like, I don’t know, the camp common building or whatever, the rec hall or whatever and the canteen. Yeah. And the older guys are planning on luring the girls out to the lake in the hope of getting them to go skinny dipping with them and a couple of them decide to approach Angela and she’s still not talking and it’s just I really don’t I don’t remember kids being like this. Now, there were jerks when we were kids.   There are always jerks, but like these 2 guys who are significantly older than her. I mean, we would be talking about, like, juniors, seniors in high school, like, hitting on the freshman 8th grade girl. And, like, these 2 guys both approach and, like, hey, Angela. We thought maybe you’d wanna go swimming with us. What? You’re not gonna talk, you stupid bitch? Like like no. 

Todd:  One of them looks at Angela, just said straight up, yo, Angela. How come you’re so fucked up? I mean, like, what’s your problem? Hey. 

Craig:  Did they leave her alone. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah? 

Craig:  What are you gonna do about it, asshole? They just jump immediately to hateful, like, Todd. This is not gonna get you far, boys, like, come on. You read about toxic masculinity. I’d be like, that’s what we’re seeing here, like, calm down. 

Todd:  And I’m not even sure what’s supposed to be. Are are we supposed to get the impression this canteen is so large that these sorts of things can happen and other people don’t notice? So the notion that all this is happening and going on and then only until a fight breaks out, you know, when Ricky starts fighting, what’s his name, whoever it is who who cares whoever it is who like Whoever it is. The mean guys. 

Craig:  But seriously, like, these Ricky starts fighting these 2 guys, and then within a second, it is literally a pile of, like, 10 guys, like, they’re in a pile on the ground. And the counselors are literally just standing there watching, 

Todd:  like That’s so true. 

Craig:  Like, no reaction whatsoever Oh my goodness. Okay. Whatever. But anyway, then Paul comes up to Angela and again Paul was Ricky’s friend and he’s nice. He’s nice to her. He is a nice guy, and so when he says good night to her, she says good night and, it’s the first thing that she said in the whole movie. I really kinda wondered if she was gonna be mute throughout the whole thing, 

Todd:  but 

Craig:  she’s not. She starts talking to Paul, and eventually, she starts talking to some of the other nice kids too when they’re nice to her. 

Todd:  But Judy doesn’t like this at all for some unknown reason. 

Craig:  Yeah. For no reason. 

Todd:  Judy’s portrayed as not having any trouble being able to get anybody. But she somehow, for some reason, just fixated on Angela and doesn’t want Angela to be happy or doesn’t want people talking to Angela or something. It’s never clear why No. At all. If Paul had previously had a relationship with Judy, then that would make at least a little more sense. But he hasn’t. Ricky was the one who previously had Right. Relationship with Judy.   So it’s not like there’s even some, you know, prior boyfriend girlfriend jealousy thing going on here. 

Craig:  No. It’s completely unmotivated. So okay. So the guys get the girls out there by the lake, but none of the girls are falling for it. Thank Todd. 

Todd:  But 

Craig:  Kenny, this one older guy does talk this one girl into going out for a canoe ride And he takes her out and then he’s just a big jerk and he lies and says that there are all kinds of snakes and stuff. Like, seriously, like, Todd, I don’t know. 

Todd:  What how is this seductive? 

Craig:  I know. I was never a typical teenage boy, so I don’t know what goes on in 8, you know? Like, maybe you say something nice. I I like, you’re not 8. You know? Like, maybe say something nice. I don’t but instead, he’s just a jerk, and he he flips over the boat, and everybody laughs, and all the guys are on the shore and they’re enormous tighty whities and, they’re all laughing, and they all go inside. And for whatever reason, Kenny is just hanging out underneath the flipped over boat singing a song, like, guess that’s what he’s gonna do with the rest of his night. Yeah. 

Todd:  It’s so dumb. It’s it’s so bad. Oh, my Todd. It’s just a reason to get him under this under turned boat. 

Craig:  I know. And you know, really, it’s not if you compare it Todd something like Friday 13th the original one, it’s not that much different. It’s not, but it is it’s worse like the characters are unlikable, the acting is just not that great. Anyway, he’s hanging out under the boat for no reason and it’s, you know, like, daylight under the boat even though it’s nighttime outside. And so we get to see that somebody come up somebody’s head from the back. We see it come up underneath the boat with him and he’s like, what are you doing here? And then, whoever this person is drowns him, and they find the Todd in the morning, and for some reason overnight from having been drowned, his body is decomposed and eaten up and disgusting. Again, the effects look pretty good. It doesn’t make any sense, but, it looks okay. 

Todd:  It’s only one of a few times where we really see a gross, you know, like a gross effect. You would almost imagine this was up until this point. I think it’s about 30 minutes into the movie, maybe more. It could be a TV movie without all, you know, if you took out the swearing. 

Craig:  Oh, sure. Sure. And and then, you know, we get kind of a lot of nothing, you know. Angela is talking to the nice people now, she’s, holding hands with Paul now like they’re kind of a little couple. He kisses her good night, which she’s not totally unreceptive to, but you know it’s it’s quick or whatever. But then like you said, Judy just because she’s a bitch just starts flirting with Paul for no good reason, Meg, the counselor continues to taunt Angela and like at one point grabs and shakes her, like, what are you doing? Like you’re supposed to be the counselor, like what is wrong with you? I I keep kind of mentioning some of these details without trying to be super obvious, but at this at one point, Judy taunts Angela by saying, 

Clip:  hey, Angela. How come you never take showers when the rest of us do? You queer or something? 

Todd:  Oh, I know babies. 

Clip:  You haven’t reached puberty yet. Is that it? I bet you don’t even have your period. That’s enough, Judy. Angela’s allowed to shower in the morning or any other time she wants to. Yeah. She takes showers when no one can see. She has no hair down below. Judy.   She’s a real carpenter’s dream. Volada’s a boarder needs a screw. That’s enough. That’s 

Todd:  the first time I’ve ever heard that particular quip. I thought it was, I I wrote that down. I’m gonna use it later. No. I’m just kidding. 

Craig:  Please. Please don’t. 

Todd:  Oh, Oh, Todd. So gross. Then there’s then there’s a water balloon fight going on, but it’s the guys were on the roof. 1 of the captain’s doing this? It’s so stupid. I I don’t understand this scene at all. They’ve got, like, a bucket full of water balloons and there are 5 of them all gathered together on the top of a roof throwing the water balloons at each other. Somebody needs to tell them what a water balloon fight is. 

Craig:  Well, right. And and then they throw one at Angela and you would have think that they punched her in the face because Yeah. Ricky, like, freaks out. Like, it’s I get that they’re jerks, but it’s a water balloon. Like, it’s really not that big a deal. They got her shirt wet. She’s fine. 

Todd:  Belle comes over, breaks it up. 

Craig:  Yeah. So but, you know, somebody was mean to Angela again, so time for another death. And this was one of my favorite parts. So all the guys are going out somewhere and this one guy, I hate that I wrote down hot guy in my notes because that’s speaking just on physical attributes alone. They’re all jerks, but, he’ll meet them, but first he has to take a wicked dump. Way. 

Todd:  His words, not yours. Todd are you guys up to? Yeah. We got a game against the counselors. You gonna play? Sure. I gotta take a wicked dump first. I’ll see you guys 

Clip:  down there. 

Craig:  Alright? So he goes to the bathroom and somehow, gets locked in there. Somebody locks him in there and then you we see somebody cutting the screen behind him while he’s taking his wicked dump and they drop like a hornet’s nest or a bee’s nest or something in there, and he gets killed. And again, there’s more gross effects there. Decent. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s not. I mean, it’s more the aftermath. We don’t get to really we see a lot of close ups of his legs flipping around Right. Close ups of the bee’s nest hanging over his head. And then eventually, he pitches forward or something onto the floor, and you get a close-up of what’s a dummy Yeah. With, bees all over its face. But it’s it’s well, you know, that part is nice.   Yeah. It’s nice. It’s a nice half eaten corpse. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s not poorly done. But again then you have Mel coming back in and he’s upset and now he’s convinced that there’s a killer on the loose and he’s all motivated about, you know, finding this killer or whatever. Paul and Angela have a little date at the lake where they make out for a while and he, even though he’s a nice guy, really very quickly gets pretty handsy with her and and she tells him to stop. I mean, he kinda does, but he’s still kinda messing around with her top and, like, I’m thinking, like, Paul, seriously, come on. You’re supposed be the nice guy, like, get your hands off her boobs. Like, you just started making out, like, giving them Yeah. But then there’s this weird flashback which I don’t even understand.   Like, it’s so out of left field. I don’t know. Like, I I just didn’t see it coming. Okay. So there’s a sheet while she’s being kind of fondled by this guy, she has this weird flashback. She and her brother are peeking in the door, apparently of a bedroom, in which her dad and the guy who had been standing on the shore talking to them in the first part of the movie, they’re in bed together. They’re in bed together and it, you know, it’s clearly an intimate thing, you know, like 

Todd:  Both their shirts are off. 

Craig:  They’re topless. It’s, you know, it’s an intimate moment. And then it cuts to a scene of Angela and her brother sitting on a bed and the brother’s just pointing at her and, like, either the bed is spinning or the camera is moving around them for like 30 seconds and I still don’t even really understand what was going on there or what was really the point of that scene. I guess maybe just to indicate that for whatever reason she was traumatized by that so she’s uncomfortable with intimacy. I don’t know. It was weird. 

Todd:  Yeah. I I couldn’t unpack it myself. Even in light of the ending, it still makes no sense. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  So yeah. No. I I don’t have any I don’t have any better explanation for it than you just came up with. 

Craig:  It it just totally took me by surprise especially since this was from the early eighties when people’s sensibilities about homosexuality were very different. 

Todd:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  Just even to see that on screen in the eighties, I think probably would have scared people. I mean, that like that’s I guess that’s why you find it in a horror movie. I kind 

Todd:  of wonder if that was just thrown in there just to be shocking. It was just totally some exploitative thing. But then, like, why why were the kids pointing at each other in the bed? Like, that part I didn’t get. Yeah. It’s not foreshadowing anything. 

Craig:  Not really. I mean, like you said, in light of the ending, I suppose you could make some connections, but I don’t know. Not really. Then we get to watch them play capture the flag for 5 minutes. 

Todd:  Oh my Todd. But they don’t play capture the flag. The guy tells them the rules for playing capture the flag and they’re starting a soccer field, And then a whole scene happens, while in the background, we see that their version of playing Capture the Flag is everybody’s in a big group in the middle of the soccer field, like like tag football. It’s so weird. You’re supposed to have a flag way across the campus somewhere Shoot. And flag way across the I I didn’t get it. It was so stupid because because the scene is is so like so in one minute, they’re with the group playing capture the flag and the next second, we have this faraway shot where they’re the the people are still, I don’t know, bouncing back and forth in the background. We’re far away from it.   Suddenly, 2 of the participants who are, guess who Ricky and Angela. Are talking. Ricky runs off, and then Judy pops in. Like, she just like like, she was waiting off screen to pop in. You know, it’s just so stagey. 

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, it’s all just a setup for Judy seduces Paul into making out with her really only for the purpose of hurting Angela’s feelings, and it it works because Ricky and and Angela both stumble upon them making out. 

Todd:  Yeah. In the woods. 

Craig:  And and that’s, you know, I mean that’s kinda it. Paul, a bit later, you know, comes and apologize Todd her, but now again Angela’s not talking to him. Judy keeps trash talking, then Judy and Meg, again, the camp counselor, pick Angela up, Meg throws her over her shoulder and then throws her in the water while Angela is, you know, screaming and pleading not to be thrown in. This is the most horrible summer camp ever. Yeah. It’s 

Todd:  terrible. Mel and while while this is happening, the owner of the camp is confronting Ricky and shaking him down. 

Clip:  Todd are you doing?   It was like all those other times. You get to the trouble, you run through a rescue and try to take care of everybody. How are you gonna do it this time? Another drowning or something worse?   What are you talking about? Let me go.   I saw you those times. The direct room at the water flight, you killed them. 

Todd:  He seems to imply that Ricky is present every single time. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  But I guess, I don’t know. 

Craig:  Yeah. I didn’t really get that either, but he jumps them. Super innocent, nothing big deal, you know. It’s not like it’s that big a deal at all. Then we find out there’s gonna be a big social tonight. And then Meg oh, okay. I’m sorry. No.   I know you were getting it. Yeah. 

Todd:  Then out of complete left field, Mel was hanging out and Meg starts coming on to him. Yeah. Bethel who is like a like 50 or 60 years old. Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  Easy. 

Todd:  And Meg who is in her twenties, and this doesn’t particularly bother Mel. 

Craig:  No. He’s like excited about it. Like Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s so weird. No. And then, like, she flirts with them and, like, she sets up a date with him at his house, and then she goes back to the cabin and she’s, like, 

Clip:  I’ve got a date tonight. 

Craig:  And Judy’s, like, with who? And she’s, like, it’s a secret. Like, gross. Like, with your grandpa. Like, congratulations. It’s gross. 

Todd:  And then we get the shower scene. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  She’s got a shower. This is the best part. It ends up being the cheapest shower killing scene ever filmed. You don’t see any TNA. It’s just kind of a middle shot up. And then suddenly, she backs up against the wall and start it’s act startled and starts screaming. Mhmm. And if you didn’t see what this was being intercut with, you would think that she saw a spider or something.   Right? And that’s it. But then what they’re cutting to is a knife, which is stabbed through the divider of the shower, the the wall of the shower basically, because these aren’t like proper showers. It’s like shower stalls. 

Clip:  Right. 

Todd:  Stabbed through the stall and is is basically pulling eviscerating her. It’s it’s cutting straight down through across her back. So blood is spraying out this slit that this is cutting in that wall. While on the other side, she’s just screaming up against the wall. 

Craig:  Right. And it must have been like the thinnest shower wall ever or the sharpest knife ever because, like, whoever the killer is, like, drags it down, like like they’re cutting through a tomato. Okay. So she’s dead. So then, we see Paul apologize to Angela again. Angela is coming out of the social and she tells him meet me at the waterfront after the social. So he thinks that he may have, a chance. 

Todd:  I love that line. 

Clip:  Meet me at the waterfront after the social. 

Craig:  Then another scene which like just felt like time filler, one of the camp counselors has Todd take some of the younger boys off to camp alongside the lake or whatever and he does, And they make a point of showing that somebody has a hatchet, and then a couple of the boys wake up in the night and beg the counselor to take them back. So he does, and he leaves the other boys there. Now, this doesn’t all happen in the same moment, like there are scenes in between, but when the counselor comes back, the rest of the boys that were left there have been slaughtered. And my first thought was, why? Like, why these little kids? And then the more I know and then the more I thought 

Clip:  about it, I was, like and and I and 

Craig:  I read it online too. They were the ones that threw sand at her on the beach, like, really? Like Oh, you’re kidding me. Yeah. That They they were the boys that drew sand at Angela at the beach. And now, apparently, that is a capital offense. Like, anyway, whatever. And and we don’t even see much. I mean, it just look we just see their sleeping bags all hacked up.   We don’t even see the kids at all. 

Todd:  Actually, I saw an interview with the director and he said that if there’s one thing he would change about this movie, he would take that part out. 

Craig:  I can I can understand why? 

Todd:  He thought that they went a little overboard. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. A little. These are little kids, like 8 year olds. Come on. 

Todd:  Oh, man. But but the next scene stays. Bill goes looking for Meg. He finds her. She bit falls out of the shower, and he sees the cut against his back, and he goes into this long soliloquy. Yes. He’s looking at the body. He’s just talking to her body for a good 5 minutes.   So then we have this next scene. Judy’s been making out with some dude, and she’s been interrupted. And so the dude fly you know, goes off. Mel was looking for 

Craig:  Right. Meg. 

Todd:  Meg. That’s why he’s the one who interrupted them. And so then we see that Julie is curling her hair. It’s it’s, I don’t know, 9 or 10 at night. Yeah. And she’s sitting in the dark alone in her bedroom, and she’s decided she needs to curl her hair. 

Craig:  As you do. 

Todd:  But they just they just needed to get a curling iron to the scene. Because one thing we said is they get real creative with these desks, and sure enough, a figure appears and comes towards her, throws her down, and, puts a pillow over her face, and then grabs the curling iron. And then what we just see in shadow is the curling iron being raised, and then it comes down. Judy screams and we see a close-up that she’s still got that pillow on her face, and then it cuts away. And I was like, wow. Is that Todd that really imply what I think it implies? 

Craig:  I’m glad you’re not the only one whose mind went there because, like, I was like, what did they do with that curly eyeliner? 

Todd:  Where did it go? Because later, when all hell breaks loose and the cops show up and they all, you know, they’re like, there’s a killer. Everybody split up, you know. The cop, they end up at that cabin and the cop goes inside and he comes back out. And it’s just a close-up of the stunned look on her fate on his face. Like, what he just saw in there was so disturbing that he can’t even talk about it. So, yeah, I think that’s what I think that’s what the 

Craig:  application was. I expected to read something about it online, and I didn’t find anything. I just saw that she was smothered and burned with the curling iron. Well, I don’t know. Even if what our minds are thinking about is true, like, that alone wouldn’t kill her. But anyway, whatever. It doesn’t matter. It’s gross and she’s dead.   And, then the only other thing that happens really before the big climax is that Nell eventually finds Ricky and beats him, I thought to death, like I really thought that Mel beat Ricky to death. It turns out we get just, like, a 2 second scene later where some counselors find Ricky, and he kinda coughs, and wakes up. That’s all we see. I almost wonder if it if if initially he was intended to be dead and then they change their mind and just threw that in. Then as soon as that happens, then Mel walks right onto the archery range and he sees somebody and he’s like, No, it can’t be. And then he gets shot with an arrow right through the neck. 

Todd:  Which was the best effect in the whole damn movie? 

Craig:  It was pretty good. I mean, you could tell the difference in skin color, in the appliance, but, it looked it looked 

Todd:  pretty good. There was no cutaway. There was no nothing. He’s standing there and, arrow just appears in his throat. I mean, it’s not even a jump cut. I mean, it is they did something to spring the arrow up or I don’t know what they did, but it was really impressive. 

Craig:  Yeah. It looked good. 

Todd:  I even saw an interview with, with a special effects guy, when he talked about, you know, being particularly proud of that arrow scene, and he wouldn’t even say how he did it. He just said that the, actor was really nervous about it. I don’t know if they actually, like, threw an arrow at him or something at some at some level. I don’t know. But it it looks like he just somebody freaking shot him through the neck with an arrow. It was amazing. Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. It is good. And then there’s chaos in the camp because they found these dead bodies. The cops are there, the counselors are all looking. They know who’s missing. They know Angela and Ricky are missing. They know Judy and, Meg are missing, and Ricky. I don’t know who all I’ve said, but they know who’s missing so they’re looking for these specific kids.   Then we see Paul wading down by the water because that’s where Angela told him to meet her and she shows up and, she says let’s go swimming and he says, but we don’t have our bathing suits. What do we do about our clothes? She says, take them off and he of course gets all excited and starts stripping off. Then we cut back to the counselors and they’re searching around, then we get that quick scene where we find out that Ricky is really not dead, which made me happy because I was sad that he was dead. And then the 2 nice counselors, the nice male counselor and the nice female counselor are walking through the dark and they hear what sounds like somebody singing and they approach the shoreline of the lake and they we see from the back, I mean, obviously we know it’s Angela, but she’s sitting there seemingly naked and we see just kind of again, we’re looking at her back, but we can kinda see that she’s got Paul’s head in her lap and she’s kind of stroking it. It looks you know, affectionate and then that leads up to the big twist which is she stands up and she’s fully nude and Paul’s head, which is actually severed falls to the ground and she’s got this crazy look on her face, and she’s making these weird noises that we’ve never heard throughout the rest of the movie, and the counselor, the male counselor points at her and says, and then we see a full body shot of the nude Angela with a wiener and then that’s it. Yeah. Like I knew I knew that that was the twist, like I knew the big twist was Angela is really a boy. Now, I did fail to mention that in that moment we also get a quick flashback where we see the crazy aunt from earlier in the movie talking to this young child whose head is wrapped as though it’s injured saying, oh, I’m so glad to have you, but I’ve already got a son so you’ll be my precious little girl or whatever.   So it’s obvious that she has just raised this boy. It was actually the girl who died in the accident, and she’s raised this boy as a girl, and now here is how it’s turned out. But I did not, you know, even though I knew that was the twist, I didn’t expect that to be the very end of the movie. I thought surely there would be something more after that. 

Todd:  Because it’s not enough. And and I think, okay, you know what? I think I just figured out the gay thing too. Let’s come back to that. Okay. Alright? But here’s what I think. First of all, it’s clear this movie is dated. This twist doesn’t work today. 

Craig:  No. It’s insensitive. It would be like, 

Todd:  wow, she’s a boy. Who cares? Because I think at the time, and I think this if I’m going back and, you know, revisiting my feelings when I was a kid watching this, first of all, I was very confused by the ending because of all the snarling and the weird look on her face. It’s creepy ass ending. I mean, without the male female thing, She looks insane and she’s making these Todd awful inhuman noises and the look is frozen on her 

Craig:  face. It’s because it was a mask and I was so impressed by that because I didn’t know that. They they did a cast of her face and made a mask. It looks just like her. I would have had no idea that it was a mask, and they put this mask on this poor young college kid who they paid to do this, and I read that he had to get drunk in order to build up the courage to do this. And, you know, it’s this skinny little kid. I mean he looks like an adolescent kid naked totally exposed. Yeah, it’s shocking. 

Todd:  So I think that I think there are a couple things going on here. First of all, he needed a twist. And so he thought this would be his great twist. 2nd of all, he wanted it to be shocking. And I think for the time, it’s shocking in 2 ways. 1 is, oh, this person you thought was a girl all along really is a boy. And 2 is the full frontal male nudity. Yeah.   Even though it’s it’s it’s it’s pretty dim. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think maybe, just dialing back a little bit, maybe the implication is a girl wouldn’t have been capable of doing all these murders. And so it all makes sense now that Angela’s not That Angela did it because she’s actually a boy. You know, she’d have the strength or the wherewithal or the Craig, you know, girls just don’t go crazy kinda thing. 

Craig:  Yeah. I think you’re right. And I think that it’s interesting because Phyllis Rose who played, Angela, her mom didn’t want her to be the killer in the movie, and so they kind of compromised in that every scene in which she’s, you know, do doing her murderous stuff. It wasn’t her, it was actually the kid who played Ricky, doing all that stuff And and you can tell in in places. I mean the hands look more masculine than Angela’s hands look, all the time. And in the one scene where he’s in silhouette when he’s getting ready to kill Judy, I mean it’s a masculine form. I mean it doesn’t look like her, which is also kind of confusing because it’s not like she’s, you know, it’s not like she’s changing shape or or anything like that. But, and again, I guess, you know, maybe it’s misdirection or whatever, but it would be offensive and I understand why it would be, you know.   We again we have different sensibilities, we’re smarter now and while I don’t feel like it’s necessarily making fun, there’s there’s certainly a suggestion that her gender identity goes hand in hand with psychosis, which you know just isn’t true. But it was a different time and and I think that the director probably got what he was going for, and I think that that’s probably the only reason that this movie is still notable. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  I think that if it hadn’t been for that twist and that shock that this would have fallen along the wayside because it’s really not a great movie. It’s not terrible. No. But it’s not Todd either. 

Todd:  It’s not the worst we’ve seen by any means. And we’ve talked about how it’s creative in in a sense of, you know, that that that it it it tries to do some different things, but it’s very inept. It’s ineptly made. It’s poorly written. The acting, it’s it’s commendable that they used younger kids, but then, like you said, the acting really suffers back to her father being gay is supposed to explain why she is still attracted to boys? 

Craig:  Well, yeah. I mean 

Todd:  She was raised a boy raised as a girl? I mean, it it it’s, you know, I just I’m thinking that maybe that was in his mind when he was putting that in there. Again, being a product of a different time. Right. Right. Trying to make that explanation. 

Craig:  Right. Trying to justify her confusion and therefore, you know, her behavior. Yeah. It’s a trouble. 

Todd:  It’s weird to talk about. 

Craig:  It is. It is weird to talk about just because it’s so, you know, this is not a study in gender identity. This is not a study in in sexuality. You know, it’s it’s a crappy movie. Yeah. But I you know, I I get what you’re saying. I feel like that was the intention. Misguided. 

Todd:  Oh, not Yeah. Misguided a 100%. But I think that’s probably what he was trying to do there. And, you know, it’s interesting because I think the ending is still really notable and really creepy, even if it turned out that there wasn’t a dong between her legs. Because just the image of it, and the snarling with her mouth wide open like that, it just the sound sounds like it’s coming from somewhere unreal. And she’s just frozen there and she’s got this stance with that knife in her hand and she’s just looking at them and I would wanna run the away from that scene Yeah. As fast as humanly possible. And that, honestly, this Especially the second time around is actually kinda stuck with me.   Put a chill up my spine even though I already knew what the twist was and that wasn’t terribly shocking to me. 

Craig:  Right. Oh, yeah. I felt the same way. 

Todd:  Do you know that they almost did the opposite? There was talk early on about having Angela play that and they were gonna mold a penis and put a strap on on her. Yeah. And they actually molded it. And I don’t think anybody actually believed it was gonna happen, but the mother obviously came in and said, there’s absolutely no way that I’m gonna allow that. 

Craig:  Oh, thank Todd. 

Todd:  Yeah. And I think they were all like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s kinda what we figured at the same time. 

Craig:  Yeah. I would be kind of interesting in seeing at least the first sequel. I know that the sequels went far campier and they played it more for the comedy. They had Felicia Rose come back and read, for Angela again for the sequel, but because they were going campier, I guess she just could she couldn’t or didn’t well, you know, whatever play the funny. So they recast it the role with Bruce Springsteen’s younger sister of all people. Yeah. And and and she she maintained the role up through those even that unfinished sequel. And then they did return to sleepaway camp and again, you know, spoiler alert, Angela shows back up again in that one, and she is again played by, Phyllis Rose, but I think that, you know, I think that’s the big shock of that movie.   I haven’t seen it. The second one sounds, I don’t know, kinda funny. After that they really just sound pretty stupid, but if I were desperate, I might check out the second one. 

Todd:  Well, it’s kind of a ridiculous premise anyway. It’s gotta be super campy. I mean, what she goes off for counseling, actually undeniably did all these murders and then ends up as a camp counselor after rehab or something. Like Yeah. Around children again. 

Craig:  And and gender reassignment surgery. It’s like they don’t have to worry about that anymore. Dumb. 

Todd:  We it’s not on our list, just to round out our, our July, theme of summer movies, but I do think we need to revisit it sometime in the future for sure. Sure. Sure. Overall thoughts, Craig? 

Craig:  Oh, gosh. You know, overall I I’m glad that I have seen it now. You know, I’ve read so much about it and, you know, it comes up a lot, so I’m glad I’ve seen it. It wasn’t great. It certainly wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It’s certainly problematic. I can’t believe that they’re even considering remaking it. Like, I just can’t imagine what audience they think that they would find for this movie, but, you know, it’s a product of a different time, and as problematic as it is today, if you can remove yourself from that and look at it as a product Todd a different time, It did at least make an attempt to be a little bit different.   It it, you know, it tried to be original in the kills It had a twist that nobody had ever done before, and so I give it props for that. It’s not a great movie. If you’re a horror enthusiast, yeah, go ahead and watch it. You know, if you’re just kind of a casual horror fan, you can skip it. It’s, you know, it’s it’s not great. 

Todd:  I enjoyed I even enjoyed watching it the second time around even though I it was exactly as I remembered it. I just think it’s another one of those so bad it’s good movies, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It’s super bad in in just these charmingly inept ways of a guy. I mean, and maybe I just got that soft spot in my heart too of the guy making his first movie. It’s Yeah. It shows, but it there’s you can tell that they had fun with it, you know, that they were really That’s true. 

Craig:  But I wish I wish it were funnier because so much of it is really mean spirited. Yeah. You know, like, the the the kid like, everybody’s just awful, like, and I guess you’re glad when they die or whatever, but I don’t know. Yeah. I get what you’re saying. And and for a first effort, you know, great. Good job. I certainly couldn’t accomplish that, so more power to you.   In some ways, it just kinda leaves a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth, you know. I I’m not offended. I didn’t hate it, I didn’t feel like, you know, we’ve watched some movies even recently where I felt like it was a total waste of my time and I was actually kind of irritated by the end that I’d sat through it. And I didn’t feel that way about this. It wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t painful to watch, but I don’t need to see it again. 

Todd:  Alright. Well, stay tuned. We’ve got plenty more summer movies, another 4 picked out for you because we have 5 Tuesdays in July. If you enjoy them, please share them with a friend, And also visit our website, 2 guys dot redfortyvet.com, where we post all of our episodes, occasionally put some, written movie reviews as well. Until next time. I’m Todd, 

Craig:  and I’m Craig 

Todd:  with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.