One Movie One Scene - Sleepaway Camp
Hello, and welcome to the third installment of One Movie, One Scene! This is likely a scene many of you are very familiar with and it’s a pretty obvious choice for One Movie, One Scene. But being obvious has never stopped me before, so onward! This scene is widely regarded as the single scene that elevates what might otherwise be just another Ft13th inspired early 80’s slasher, albeit a quirky one, into an unforgettable classic—okay, classic is at least debatable, but there is no denying that it is unforgettable, something that certainly cannot be said for most of the movies in the subgenre.
Scene: the reveal at the end of Sleepaway Camp, or “Whoa, Angela!”
Next time you’re watching Sleepaway Camp, look for Tony Danza in an uncredited role as one of the counselors during the baseball game scene! Just kidding.
*If you have not seen Sleepaway Camp, and you want to, please stop reading this, go watch it, and come back later to avoid SPOILERS!*
I don’t think it’s intentional that the word “Camp” can be read two different ways when it comes to this movie. But I do think it’s great that it can.
“It’s camp! The tragically ludicrous, the ludicrously tragic!” One might describe Sleepaway Camp in much the same way.
Sleepaway Camp is a weird movie from the get-go. Even before the bizarre scene with Aunt Martha, in fact before the movie even starts, there is this to reckon with:
This is before we even get to this…
“Oh, dear. I must be getting forgetful in my old age. Ricky, sweetheart, reach into that bag and fetch me my brain medicine.”
I don’t know what that dedication means. Sure, I could infer. I could even do some internet research and probably find out. But, honestly, I prefer the mystery. Whatever the story behind the dedication, it’s a little strange, and in context it’s really fucking strange. I mean, who dedicates this movie to their mom, even if she’s not still around to see it? This is just one of many little things that make Sleepaway Camp such a strange movie—and all that strangeness is a big part of why I like it.
However, if I’m being honest, without the final scene, I probably like it about half as much as I do. Not that the movie stops being weird at the end, if anything it gets weirder. But it becomes a different kind of weird. Up until that point, a lot of the weirdness of the movie could, if we are being honest, probably be chalked up to general ineptness (the cop’s obviously fake mustache, for example).
Jesus, man, Groucho’s mustache looked better than this.
See? Okay, maybe not better, but they’re on par.
In other words, many of the movie’s beloved idiosyncrasies are likely more unintentional than conscious choices. And, for the most part, they result in unintentional laughs rather than actual scares. But the final scene is different. The final scene is weird, but in a decidedly unfunny way. It’s the only time that the movie actually manages to be scary, in fact. At this point, I feel it’s important to say that, for me and I suspect for many others, the effectiveness of the scene comes not from the surprise that Angela is a boy, but from how intensely weird and unsettling it is. It looks unnatural—and not because of the dick. It’s actually everything else but the dick. Mainly, it’s the face, especially the mouth and eyes; the incongruity of the body and the face; and the sound—growling? hissing? both? I don’t know, but it sounds goddamn unnatural.
I think it’s fair to say that the final image actually bears little resemblance to reality. If someone Angela’s age and size were revealed to be male through full frontal exposure, it’s doubtful this is how he/she would look. Now, I can accept that this is meant to be someone who has snapped—Angela has just cut someone’s head off, after all—and thus a crazed look makes a lot of sense. But the appearance (and sound) of Angela in the final shot goes far beyond crazed and right into creepy, disturbing, uncanny, nightmarish, whatever you want to call it.
Now, I’m willing to concede the possibility that even in this scene at least part of its effectiveness is the result of the same kind of happy accidents that make the rest of the movie so good. My main reason for saying so is knowing how they achieved the effect of Angela as a boy, which was of course decidedly low-tech (a face cast of Felissa Rose placed on a male actor), and I feel like this actually does have a lot to do with how weird it looks. However, while I do think the budgetary limitations of the movie play some part in the effectiveness of the scene by contributing to the image just feeling “off”, I still give credit to the filmmakers for creating one of the all-time indelible horror movie images. It is a scene that succeeds in unsettling the viewer solely on the strength of its visuals and the sound accompanying it—and that is a mark of horror cinema in its purest form, and why this scene not only transcends everything that precedes it but changes and elevates it as well. While the entire movie is weird—like, really weird—very little if any of it is particularly scary. The ending, though, is scary. I went into it knowing that the last scene is supposed to be the best part and that it is “memorable”, even “crazy”. While I avoided any further details, I did know this much. I still wasn’t expecting this, though. I was caught completely off guard and more than a little creeped out. And these are not things I can honestly say about a lot of horror movies. So, big kudos to Sleepaway Camp for doing both. And, I cannot stress this enough, it’s not because of the dick. Because, despite Jaime and Bronn’s conversation from GoT Season 7, Episode 7, it’s not all about cocks.
And, lastly, heeeere’s Angela!
This image stays on screen for the duration of the end credits, and even for several seconds after they end. Disturbing enough in its own right, but consider that the image is also accompanied by this…
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Written by Corey
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