Sleepaway Camp (1983) ** or ****

I've watched some really excellent horror movies the last few years. “Sleepaway Camp” is not one of those. The movie is weird, cheesy, low-budget, nonsensical, and did I mention weird? Perfect material for a cult classic.

The story starts on a lake in upstate New York. A dad and his 2 kids flip their sailboat, and as they bob in the water, a distracted counselor from the camp across the lake runs them over, killing the dad and one of the kids.

Skip ahead a few years, and the surviving kid, Angela (Felissa Rose), is now living with her weirdo aunt. Angela and her cousin, Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten), are heading off to spend the summer at that same camp across the lake. Ricky is an athletic, well-liked kid, and he tries to watch out for his quiet, withdrawn cousin. Angela still gets bullied by other campers, including the camp vixen, Judy (Karen Fields), as well as one of her counselors, Meg (Katherine Kamhi). There's also a creepy camp chef who tries to molest Angela.

What happens to all these malefactors who transgress against Angela? It's no spoiler to tell you that, one-by-one, they die in various, horrendous ways. The scenes are so foreshadowed, and the acting so bad, that none of it is really scary, but I will say that there are some good, low-budget, makeup effects in this movie. Somebody in that department really gave it their all. Otherwise, the movie is a hot mess, but just weird enough to be watchable. Plenty of things in this movie make no sense at all, like why Meg, who looks about 18, would be romantically interested in the 70-something camp owner, or why the camp chef would be able to openly leer at the young campers in front of his co-workers. The movie also spends about 10 minutes on a campers-counselors baseball game that winds up having nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the story. Fortunately, Jonathan Tiersten is actually a halfway decent actor. Karen Fields and Katherine Kamhi aren't winning any Oscars, but they chew up the scenery and clearly enjoy their villain roles. Felissa Rose doesn't really do any acting as Angela, she just gives this blank, wide-eyed stare to everyone. That stare is actually the third scariest thing in the whole movie.

In any slasher movie, there are two big questions: “Who will die next?” and “When are we gonna see some more titties?” “Sleepaway Camp” differs from the rest, in that the answer to the 2^nd question is, never. In this movie, the girls keep their 1-piece bathing suits on, while the guys strip down. When they aren't showing off their bare asses, the dudes wear little short shorts and cropped, mesh shirts that would be at home in an '80s Pride parade. Oh, did I mention there's a scene with two men in bed together? As queer cinema goes, “Sleepaway Camp” is even gayer than “Top Gun”.

Oh, what are the scariest and second scariest things in the movie, you ask? The second scariest is Angela's bizarrely-perky aunt. I don't have words to describe how strange she is, but she made my skin crawl. As for the scariest thing, I'm not gonna tell you. “Sleepaway Camp” has one big twist, and I won't ruin it for you. As schlocky as it is, if you're into this sort of cult classic, this is one you should probably see.

2 stars out of 5, but on a cult classic scale, 4 out of 5