This year we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of “Sleepaway Camp”

“Angela Baker, a shy, traumatized young girl, is sent to summer camp with her cousin. Shortly after her arrival, anyone with sinister or less than honorable intentions toward her gets their comeuppance.”

“Sleepaway Camp” is not only one of my favourite Horror films, it’s also one of my all time favourite films ever. Any chance I get to talk about this feature I will, such as this, the celebration of the 40th anniversary of it’s release!

This is a film I have very fond memories of. I saw it on my own as a teenager, it was recorded off a TV channel onto a VHS. I had absolutely no idea about it at all but I’ve always had a curious mind, match that with my love for films and you end up in these situations.

By the end of the film my jaw was on the floor and I realised I’d hardly touched my crisps I was planning on eating whilst watching the film as I was so invested in what was going on. It had me seriously hooked and didn’t let go until the credits rolled.

I really miss those days when a film had the power to do that to me, a newbie to the genre who went into every film with my eyes wide open and zero expectations. The great thing is though, is that this film is still doing that to people watching it for the first time now.

That shows the power of the film, that 40 years later it is still shocking audiences, and in this day and age that’s no easy feat. It’s become something of a must watch film due to its iconic ending, but there’s much more to it than that.

It features some absolutely great characters. There’s ‘Judy’ who is such a fun character to watch even though you’re supposed to hate her, kooky ‘Aunt Martha’ who made an impact despite little screen timeand who can forget ‘Ronnie’ and his short shorts.

The film also features one of my all time favourite pieces of dialogue, “She’s a real carpenter’s dream: flat as a board and needs a screw!”, this line spoken by ‘Judy’ and it never fails to make me laugh despite the many times I’ve watched this film.

It also has some memorable scenes, one that always sticks in my mind is the scene with ‘Artie’ the cook. He’s a… strange… character, basically a paedophile who’s openly honest about it (how they got away with that I’ll never know), but watching him get what’s coming to him is great.

Of course we have to talk about THAT shocking ending, it’s come under some scrutiny and criticism in the last few years, I won’t go into all that here but what I will say is that it is certainly one of the most shocking endings I’ve ever seen in film.

For me this is one of those films that I’d really love to have seen on the big screen, to be sat in the audience when THAT climatic ending happened and no one had a clue, I can only imagine what that must’ve been like for the audience.

So I’d like to wish a very happy 40th Anniversary to “Sleepaway Camp”! I’m actually going to go and watch it again now, I recommend you do the same. Actually I might have a marathon and watch them all, the sequels are so much fun as well.