Bloody summer - the camp of horror
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Bloody summer |
| Original title | Sleepaway Camp |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1983 |
| length | 81 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Robert Hiltzik |
| script | Robert Hiltzik |
| production |
Jerry Silva Michele Tatosian |
| music | Edward Bilous |
| camera | Benjamin Davis |
| cut |
Ron Kalish Sharyn L. Ross |
| occupation | |
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| chronology | |
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Bloody Summer - The Camp of Horror (original title Sleepaway Camp ) is an American slasher film from 1983.
action
A boy and a girl can be seen on a lake, sitting with their father on a small sailing boat. The children overturned the boat in high spirits. When teenagers speed across the lake in their motorboat, overlooking the overturned boat, they run over the family swimming in the water and the father and one of the children die.
Eight years later, Angela, the survivor of the accident, is sent to a youth camp with cousin Ricky by her eccentric Aunt Martha, who raised her. Angela is extremely shy, doesn't speak a word and soon becomes the target of teasing, with the spiteful Judy and her allied supervisor Meg stand out. The intrepid Ricky defends his cousin as best he can, but is constantly fighting with his peers, which also affects Angela.
When the camp pedophile cook lures Angela into the pantry to assault her, with Ricky's help, she escapes. A little later a stool is pulled away from the cook's feet when he is standing in front of a huge kettle full of boiling hot water. When he falls, the contents of the cauldron pours over him, and he is taken to a hospital with very serious injuries. Two young people soon fell victim to the perpetrator and were drowned or surprised in the toilet, which was locked from the outside, with a bee's nest pushed through the window . Both victims are teenagers who had an argument with Ricky. The camp leader Mel, however, insists that it must be an accident.
Meanwhile, Ricky's school friend Paul has managed to find a connection to Angela, and he gradually manages to break the ice. When he tries to get closer to her physically, Angela withdraws in shock and a flashback shows how the two siblings from the beginning of the film watch their father exchanging tenderness with a man in bed. When Judy and Meg start further bullying actions against Angela, they too are targeted by the murderer and are killed. When Mel finds Meg, stabbed to death in a shower stall, he is convinced that Ricky is the killer. He beats the boy half to death and is killed a short time later by an arrow himself.
When the camp supervisors discover Meg's body, they start the search for the killer with the help of a police officer. They find Angela on the beach and they see a sight of horror. Angela has cut off the head of Paul lying in front of her with a knife, and when Angela turns her naked, blood-drenched body to face them and looks at them with wide eyes and mouth, they see that Angela has male genitals. In a further flashback it is revealed that it was not the little girl but her brother Peter who survived the boat accident, but was raised like a girl by her aunt, because she already had a son with Ricky and wanted a daughter so badly.
Background and publication
In order to keep the costs of the B-movie production low, amateur actors from the area were cast in addition to extras as well as smaller speaking roles. The paramedics and patrol officers appearing in the film are really some and were also hired at Argyle (New York). They can be seen with their real service uniforms. The two young protagonists of the film, Felissa Rose and Jonathan Tiersten, were denied a notable film career, with the exception of a few other engagements in sequels and other horror films.
Sleepaway Camp was launched on November 18, 1983 as a limited release in around 80 American big city cinemas and was a surprisingly big hit with the public, which is why the distribution was expanded. The roughly $ 350,000 production grossed about $ 11 million at the box office. The film was released on video in 1985 in West Germany.
Criticism, reception and sequels
Sleepaway Camp received average reviews from the trade press, mostly as a genre-typical butchery, with Hiltzik's direction being positively highlighted, while the script's attempt to derive the violence of the serial killer psychologically was described as unsuccessful and confused. According to critics and the audience, the final twist stands out, especially because of its expressionist-threatening staging.
The film was made during the commercial heyday of the slasher genre and is one of the productions that has gained a loyal fan base and a corresponding interest in sequels. From 1988 a total of four sequels were shot, each of which did not match the success of the original.
In 1988 Camp des Grauens 2 ( Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers ) was created, followed in 1989 by Camp des Grauens 3 ( Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland ). Pamela Springsteen took on the role of Angela in both films . Both films were directed by Michael A. Simpson. Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor began in 1992 but was not completed and published until 2012.
Return to Sleepaway Camp , released direct-to-DVD in 2008, was the first sequel to be written by original director and screenwriter Robert Hiltzik. To conclude his own "trilogy", another film is planned under the working title Sleepaway Camp Reunion .
Web links
- Bloody Summer - The camp of terror in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Sleepaway Camp on Schnittberichte.com