“You
pissed away your good looks and God-given talent your whole life and turned
into nothing but a cynical, dirty-mouthed waste of flesh!”
If the Angel of Death had no
trouble finding fault with the horny, pot-smoking teenagers of the Reagan era,
can you imagine how she’d react to the crazy kids of today? The thought evokes
a streamline of gore-soaked images; possibilities of how the notorious Angela
Baker would “handle” 21st Century
post-adolescents. With their iPhone obsessions, sexting, bath salts, and this
odd new Pokémon Go craze, we’ve got bad campers coming out of the
woodwork, not mention falling into open manholes, leaving a mountain of easy
prey for the predatory counselor.
In the sequel to Robert Hiltzik’s
1983 cult classic, everyone’s favorite transgender (transgendered? Anyone?)
psycho returns, this time as a Camp Rolling Hills counselor, and within the
first five minutes of the film, we come to find she has even less tolerance for
those who don’t play by the rules. All you have to do is give Angie the ol’
side-eye and you’re doused with Jack Daniel’s and set ablaze atop a barbecue
pit.
For a time, Unhappy Campers was
not only my favorite installment in the Sleepaway Camp franchise, but it
was easily one of the most viewed and most quotable movies in my extensive
collection. I vividly remember sitting cross-legged on my basement floor,
reciting every line in the script (without the aid of a VCR, thank you very
much) just to impress the few friends able to tolerate my questuinable
eccentricities. So enamored with the demented sequel, I could even recite
the synopsis printed on the back of the old Nelson Entertainment VHS, word for
word, without so much as glancing at the box. What can I say? I was quite
smitten with Fritz Gordon’s (a.k.a. Michael Hitchcock’s) quirky writing style,
this brand new incarnation of the Angela character, and, most of all, with
Pamela Springsteen’s portrayal of the murderous camp counselor who can’t stand
the idea of anyone having any fun.
For those of you who’ve been
listening to my silly little fanboy commentaries from the beginning, you
basically know how I operate and what to expect from an episode of B-Movie
Bonanza. This is not an excuse to rip an ‘80s cult classic to shreds, but
to show both my appreciation and undying love for a movie that has brought me
so many years of twisted entertainment.
I used Scream Factory’s Blu
ray/DVD combo as my film source, so for those of you who want to watch along,
this would obviously be the best option. The running time is 1:20:22, including
the MGM intro prior to the opening titles. After recording this episode, I
popped in Anchor Bay’s 2002 Survival Kit edition, just for the sake of
comparing lengths (good grief, that sounds filthy) and their version runs, sans
MGM intro, 1:19:53, which would leave you about 30 seconds off. So, join me as
I revisit Sleepaway Camp II, but please, pack only the essentials and
remember, “nice girls don’t have to show it off.”
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