Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers(1988)

Straight out of the gate, I preferred Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers over the original. Sure, the original is good, but mainly for its surprise ending. Other than that, it was a fairly average slasher for the time, not necessarily a bad thing but not much different.

I can only assume that the filmmakers realized that when going into the sequel.  There was no way they were going to overdo the original's ending. So they went with humor, boobs, and gore, and man it worked.

There were numerous nods to popular films at the time, such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They even gave a nod to The Facts of Life, lol. Add all that to the fact that the movie starred Bruce Springsteen's sister and Charlie Sheen/Emilio Estevez's younger sister, and you have a classic in the making. 

There were so many things they did right with this movie. I loved that they didn't go for seriousness. They were having fun and you could tell. Suspense is built in exactly the right spots and the humor never distracts from the slasher aspect of the film. It never tries NOT to be a slasher film, like so many others that came after it, it just tries not to take itself too seriously and keep the audience entertained.

The film clearly is aware that it's not the most original film ever made, and even acknowledges this with a sequence that sees two campers dress up as the killers from better known slasher flicks. The film features no mystery to the killer's identity as we know who it is before we even see her committing any murders; but this is made up for by some good humour and a good range of dispatch methods, which include stabbing, strangulation, burning and decapitation.

Most slashers feature a big man with a knife as the killer; and so the young male to female transsexual in this film is something of a deviation from the norm, and it works really well! The strangely captivating Pamela Springsteen takes to her role with relish and actually is quite believable as a nutcase trying her best to seem normal.

There's nothing in the film that is really brilliant or clever, but the plot flows well for the duration and is constantly interesting enough. After the first hour, we get the build up to the ending and it changes tone a little bit; but the ending is decent enough (and leaves the door open for the second sequel, made a year later).

I personally loved the movie and had a lot of fun watching it. I consider this to be one of those great, beer-drinking, gathering-style movies.  It can only get better with more people. Also, it will always go down as having one of the BEST vhs covers of ALL TIME. Stay Tuned for an upcoming review of Sleepaway Camp 3!