FILM: MORE TEENAGE MAYHEM IN ' SLEEPAWAY CAMP '
Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - January 23, 1984
Author: Rick Lyman, Inquirer Movie Critic
Dear Mom,
How are you? I am fine. I went to Sleepaway Camp this morning. My editor made me go. She's mean. I had to sit through the whole thing.
There were other people in the audience. I guess their editors made them go, too. Some of them yelled at the screen.
"Hey, man, this is traaaaaash," one shouted. "This is like some weird home movie," another screamed. "When we gonna get some action?" another pleaded.
Here is what happened to the people in Sleepaway Camp : One was stung to death by bees, one was drowned, one was boiled alive, three were hacked to death with a hatchet, one was shot in the throat with an arrow, one was beheaded and one was abused with a hot curling iron. In a flash of originality, one of them was stabbed to death in the shower.
Here is what happened to the people in the audience: nothing. I've had more thrills untangling paper clips. You want excitement, try to walk across Vine Street before the light changes.
I am told that the average cost of making a movie these days is $12 million. Sleepaway Camp looks as if it cost about, oh, 59 cents.
You've heard of the Actors' Studio? The people in this movie appear to have graduated from the Actors' Toolshed.
Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you about the three people who get run over by a motorboat. Eeeeeek. . . . WHAM! That's how the movie starts.
We flash ahead eight years. The lone survivor of that horrible boating accident is Angela, a shy and troubled teenager who goes off to Camp Arawak with her protective cousin, Ricky.
Everybody makes fun of Angela. Nyah, nyah! Why are you so shy, Angela? You sure act weird, Angela.
Pretty soon all the people who've been making fun of Angela turn up burned, bloated or hacked into julienne slices. Mel, who runs the place, keeps everything quiet because he's afraid that bad publicity will ruin the camp's reputation.
This makes about as much sense as anything else.
You'd think that the big question would be: Who's reponsible for these icky murders? There are plenty of suspects. It could be Ricky, protecting his shy cousin. Or it could be Angela, who's a little too quiet. Or it could be Mel, who looks a little too much like Milton Berle for his own good. Or the big- chested sexpot who torments Angela. Or the smart-aleck older boys who push Ricky around. Or Angela's sweet boyfriend, Paul.
But the even bigger question is: When will we get a daylight scene so I can look at my watch and see how much longer this thing is going to last?
I should warn you - in case your editor makes you go see it - that the people behind Sleepaway Camp seem to think that the climax is a real shocker. A big surprise. If you've been living in Sri Lanka for the last 20 years without television or newspapers, the ending might cause your right eyebrow to lift about one-tenth of an inch. No more.
The only good news is that there seem to be fewer and fewer of these teen- splatter movies, and they seem to make less and less money. That's good news because one more and I'm gonna be going away to summer camp. Either that or the funny farm.
SLEEPAWAY CAMP
Produced by Michele Tatosian and Jerry Silva, written and directed by Robert Hiltzik, music by Edward Bilous, and distributed by United Film Distribution Co.; running time, 1 hour, 19 mins.*
Mel - Mike Kellin
Ricky - Jonathan Tiersten
Angela - Felissa Rose
Ronny - Paul De Angelo
Paul - Christopher Collet
Judy - Karen Fields
Parents' guide: R (violence, obscenity, nudity)
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'SLEEPAWAY CAMP,' 'WAVELENGTH' - SKIP 'EM
Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - January 24, 1984
Author: JOE BALTAKE, Daily News Movie Reviewer
"Sleepaway Camp." A thriller starring Mike Kellin, Jonathan Tiersten and Felissa Rose. Written and directed by Robert Hiltzik. Photographed by Benjamin Davis. Edited by Ron Kalish and Sharyn L. Ross. Music by Edward Bilous. Running Time: 84 minutes. A United Film Distribution release. In area theaters.
* "Wavelength." A SciFi drama starring Robert Carradine, Cherie Currie and Keenan Wynn. Written and directed by Mike Gray. Photographed by Paul Goldsmith. Edited by Mark Goldblatt and Robert Leighton. Running Time: 87 minutes. A New World release. In area theaters.
Ring out the old year, ring in the new. Ring-a-ding-ding.
Well, folks, the annual glut of holiday movies finally has started to subside and we're back to grind, grind, grind.
Last week, we welcomed "Angel" and "Hot Dog - The Movie," not a very auspicious or promising start for the new film year. And this week, well, we have "Sleepaway Camp" and "Wavelength," examples of the poverty and pure gall of "contemporary moviemaking," or whatever.
A bloodied knife penetrating a child's sneaker figures prominently in the ads for "Sleepaway Camp." The ad reads: "You will go there in a bus . . . and come home in a box!"
Give me a break.
That's about as original as "Sleepaway Camp" ever gets. The plot is a replay of gory heebie-jeebies stirred in the "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween" trilogies: White middle-class kids, all sexually promiscuous, get hacked to death by an unseen killer in sunny, meadowy settings.
And as is true with most movies of this ilk, "Sleepaway Camp" prompted the urban audience surrounding me to cheer on the killer and ridicule and scorn the ill-fated white kids.
The film's cast includes a lot of New York stage performers, apparently hard-up for movie work, and features one of the last screen performances of the late Mike Kellin, the gravel-voiced character actor who made a career largely playing ex-cons and sociopaths. His best film roles: the psycho convict in "The Great Imposter" and the sentimental tour guide (who remembers the food and service of every hospital he's ever been in) in ''Paternity."
Mike Kellin deserved a better send-off. We deserve better movies.
Another case in point is "Wavelength," a bit of misguided camp that marks the directorial debut of screenwriter Mike Gray ("The China Syndrome"). This el cheapo flick is the flipside to Steven Spielberg's "Close Entounters of the Third Kind" and "E.T.": Three alien creatures come to earth, hole up in the Hollywood Hills and prove to be not so very cute or benevolent. Neither is this movie.
The creatures are being held there against their will by a short-sighted U.S. Air Force that fails to see that the bald outer-space critters resemble some of Hollywood's lesser denizens. (If you doubt me, check out the aforementioned "Angel.")
It's feared that the aliens will do something awful to humans, like boggle them into a dazed state, but judging from the people on hand here (played by Robert Carradine and Cherie Currie, among others), it wouldn't make much difference. It might even be an improvement.
**SINGLEG* Parental Guide: "Sleepaway Camp" is rated R for its violence, and ''Wavelength" carries a PG for its language.
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