A Serbian Film (2010)

How bad can a movie themed on
mid-century communist propaganda possibly be?!

A Serbian Film is one of those controversial movies you get once in a blue moon that the creators insist there is deeper meaning to, much to the disagreement of audiences and critics. Mark Kermode disputed there being any legitimate allegory being made by the movie, and it has gone down in recent history as one of the most horrifying films ever made. Having finally subjected myself to its uncut version, I am baffled as to how anybody can not recognise the statements being made. I know virtually nothing about Serbia, except for it having a history of severe unrest in many senses, but I could very explicitly identify what the movie was trying to convey. Despite what one might expect having heard the grisly keywords associated with it, A Serbian Film is a devastatingly effective movie with plenty of angst.

Miloš is a retired porn actor who has settled down with a wife and child, but given up a good income and lavish lifestyle in the process. Struggling to get by and realising a quiet part of him misses the guy he once was, he is informed by a former colleague of a filmmaker who is producing a new high art form of pornography, and wants Miloš as his star. Coddled beneath several layers of armed security guards is Vukmir, a sinister and eccentric multimillionaire with a chip on his shoulder about the state of modern Serbian society. He is well practised in his prophetic rhetoric, ranting at length about what real art is, and what it is to feel and live. He wants to sign Miloš for big bucks, but is unwilling to tell his actor exactly what he will be performing, as part of some pornographic method acting school of thought or something.

No autographs, please.

Miloš is dubious about the unspecified nature of the work, but his wife Marija is heavily swayed by the money he will receive in return, so he decides to go for it. First day on set, Miloš is directed by Vukmir via an earpiece while flanked by several armed heavies holding cameras. Some odd domestic is going on between a mother and her adolescent daughter, both of whom go on to be central co-stars in this weird improv. By the second day, Miloš' convictions are being tested too hard by Vukmir's depraved setups, and he decides the next day to throw in the towel.

Suddenly Miloš awakens, hungover and bloodied, and it is three days later. Haunted and unable to find anybody he knows, he racks his brain for scraps of memory and tries to piece together what the hell happened to him. Through flashback and footage on a stolen camera, the movie takes us through Miloš' dreadful search for the truth, and we know things will somehow never been the same for him again.

Fans of Last House on the Left may recall that the original draft of its script was a more pornographically-oriented take on things, and as A Serbian Film was wrapping up, I couldn't help but compare it to Last House. It ultimately tells the same story, of an innocent and loving family torn apart by cruel outsiders, and how the family members react and are irreparably damaged by the ordeal. It is hard to classify either movie as horror, because they are really more like hard dramatic tragedies; they show us relatable and likeable characters whose terrible experiences stir emotional reactions in us as viewers. If I felt anything at the end of A Serbian Film, I felt sadness.

This is the greatest show!

Another element that these two movies have in common is that they narrate from the perspective of the family while framing them visually from the voyeuristic view of the aggressors. A Serbian Film is a very slickly produced picture, with sharp and very precise camerawork and sound. As we follow Miloš through this dark chapter, the camera always follows him like a stalker: we see him from over the shoulders of the people he converses with, or the corners of rooms. The feeling of being watched is intrinsically woven into the style of the movie, while sound forces the foreboding atmosphere upon us like a millstone, with inventive use of string plucking, static-like electronics and even what sounds like tearing paper. An incredible tension is created, starting with small tugs and stirs, and finally climaxing (eh-hem) in the film's closing minutes as an unbearable outburst.

This film is nothing short of ballsy. Srđan Todorović gets to show off an incredible range in the role of Miloš, and wouldn't work so well were it not for his courage to do exactly what the character requires of him. Were his performance to lack a certain emotion and vulnerability, we would not be able to feel for him anywhere near as much as we do by the time his nightmarish ordeal finally ends. I cannot imagine any of the roles in this movie being easy to fill for a director or for an actor, and every single person gives it their all, and absolute sincerity. Sergej Trifunović as Vukmir grasps just the right note of villainy and cunning. He is eccentric without being cartoonish, and measured enough for us to never quite peg him as a straight-up bad guy; he genuinely believes in what he does, and there is more to his motives than simply enjoying causing pain.

If this scene doesn't turn you on, you
clearly don't understand high art.

There is a great scene early on in the movie in which Miloš and Marija are in bed together watching one of his old skinflicks. They have the old "difference between love and fucking" discussion and Marija tells him that she quite fancies just being fucked once in a while. So he tries on the rough, underwear-tearing persona that he hung up years ago, and while she seems somewhat turned on by it, he clearly is not. The action cuts back and forth between the couple fucking, and Miloš' onscreen performance, before he recedes, turns his wife back over, starts to kiss her, and goes on to actually make love to her. This tells us so much about Miloš, and about his relationship with Marija. Although he clearly has the capacity (and from what we all hear, quite the knack) for your classic porn-style fucking, it is a compartmentalised section of his personality that he realises he doesn't like to open out into other sections, and just maybe, he has grown to dislike that side of himself.

Many an exploitation flick is accused of doing exactly what it says on the tin: exploiting suffering. More specifically, they are accused of 'glorifying' violence. A Serbian Film has definitely met its fair share of this vein of criticism, but it never once looks at violence through a rose tinted filter. Every second of pain is depicted as cruel and senseless, and despite its inherently sexualised framing, is never presented for titillation or kicks. It wants us to look at its content in the harsh, brutal way that it truly exists in the world, and ultimately, it wants our understanding of Miloš to grow as a result. The impact of the movie hinges on how we feel for the characters being wronged, not how gross and sensationalist it can be.

Uh... no homo.

The casual moviegoer is unlikely to accidentally stumble into this picture without any prior understanding of what they are getting themselves into, but let it be known: this is a gruesome and hard-hitting picture which in its uncut version uses some very disturbing imagery. It is stuff you won't shake off easily, but if you feel you can handle it, it is very worth seeing. I got so much more from watching this movie than I had anticipated, and am still somewhat surprised to be declaring it a moving and very effective piece.

I wonder what Roger Ebert would have made of this movie. Although he was still alive and critiquing when it came out, he never reviewed it. I feel like his 70s self - the same one that commended Last House - would have seen redeeming qualities in it, and perhaps even recommended it, much to the horror of the average moviegoer. In his mid-80s, Siskel-centric era, he may have decried it for its sexually-oriented violence. I know that by his twilight years, he had grown pretty damn tired of the hardcore exploitation flicks. That was his taste. I love me a hardcore exploitation flick, and A Serbian Film is as extreme as it gets in terms of content and context.

Hostel (2005)

The 00s was an era of reimagining horror. 9/11 had a profound effect on almost every facet of modern life, and movies were far from immune. Not unlike the way the Vietnam war influenced a new chapter of horror in the early '70s, 9/11 brought real-life terror and gore to the forefront of the public conscience, and changed what viewers looked for in entertainment. Although action movies and TV serials scrambled to rearrange into a less close-to-home format, the horror genre leaned into it, and a new wave, later dubbed Torture Porn, was born.

The two key figures in the Torture Porn movement were Saw (2004) and Hostel (2005), each of which divided audiences in their ultra-visceral depictions of violence. Nobody around in the '00s can forget people asking "Did you see Saw?" before chuckling at their own comic brilliance, and talk of Hostel was hot on its heels. As a younger teenager during this period, I had to wallow in hearsay until each of the movies was released on DVD, and I clearly recall my first viewing of each. Hostel I acquired by taking advantage of my older boyfriend, and we watched it at his house with my sister. At the time I deduced it to be one half softcore porn and one half slasher gore with a nice memorable eyeball schtick, and have gone on since to develop a real fondness for it.

Each Eli Roth movie is a real character; some people can't stand his sophomoric blend of blood and humour, while others revel in his silly, in-your-face approach to making films. My sister and I have always been firm fixtures in the latter group, and share a particular fondness for the most divisive aspect of any Roth movie: the dialogue. If your patience is stretched by Roth's style, Hostel will be far from your cuppa soup, but those who enjoy a bit of silly humour in place of the pointless ramblings that usually open up earlier slashers find his style refreshing. Of course, Roth is also fond of elaborate practical effects, with which he likes to have a lot of gory fun. Anti-TorturePorners point out that violence doesn't equate to scare, which is certainly true, and that a good movie wouldn't have to resort to explicit violence, which I don't believe is true.

Beanie hat! 

Now what I do think is that violence and other forms of cruelty can be absolutely necessary to properly tell a story. Hostel doesn't deliver much real narrative to 'justify' its gore, as we are ultimately not really supposed to like or relate to any of the characters (another Roth trademark), but this doesn't mean there is no thought or perspective to it. Even if the audience doesn't explicitly notice that the movie's style is deliberate in its depictions of violence, they notice the effects.

Roth is far from a tactless filmmaker, and I think that his childlike enthusiasm for every single frame he shoots is his real strength. His work is always more than competent on a technical level, and all gore considered, he makes really good-looking and engaging movies. He is not looking to win any prestigious awards or merge his way into the Hollywood elite, but simply wants to have a really good time making the sorts of movies he would watch himself, and for other people to have fun watching them. For sheer entertainment value, Roth is always a safe bet for me.

World's most trustworthy travel agent

There is not a lot to say about the plot of Hostel, as the fun is in the experience as a whole, but let's give it a try. Paxton (Jay Hernandez) is backpacking across Europe with his meek friend Josh (Derek Richardson), and other tourist Oli (Eyþór Guðjónsson) has been picked up at some point in their travels. We meet them in Amsterdam, where they are busy doing what all good Roth characters do: partying. They get thrown out of clubs, dip in and out of whorehouses, and of course, refer to many things pejoratively as "gay". They come across a seriously weird-looking fella named Alexei, played by Lubomir Bukovy, who tells them that if they want the pure shit from source, they need to trek through the Slovakian wilderness to a village that is populated entirely by Page 3 girls and child thugs. The guys are all pretty stupid, so do they consider this trip a good idea? Of coursh, ma horsh.

While on the train to Slovakia, they are buttonholed by some geeky old dude (Jan Vlasák) whose defining characteristic is eating chicken salad with his twitchy fingers. When said fingers get a little too close to Josh's junk for comfort, the guys throw an all-American freak-out at the gayness of it all, and the Salad guy skulks away apologetically. In response to the sexual assault of their buddy, Paxton and Oli throw a few more homo jokes out for good measure. They arrive in the whore village and stay at a...*dun-dun-duuuuun* hostel, where they lament the lack of English dubbing on local television and how very gay it is that they have to share a room at a hostel. It soon becomes clear that the situation isn't quite so guy-on-guy as they had anticipated, when two hot women in their room invite them over to the spa.

The only time Paxton hated having balls in his mouth

So the partying is in full swing, but after the first night, Oli has disappeared. Paxton insists that this shouldn't spoil their fun, so they do some more partying, and the next day Josh is gone too. Curiouser and curiouser! All the locals are kinda shady, and a gang of kids mug people for such riches as bubblegum, but hey, it's probably just be because they're European.  In the course of trying to find the friend that actually matters enough to rouse his suspicions, Paxton is also set upon, revealing that this quaint little village not only has hot women and kid thugs, it also has millionaires who pay to torture foreigners in an abandoned building. And what's worse... they're all in on it! Ooh, faced!

What got under people's skin about Hostel and Saw was that they were more than just corn syrup and condoms full of sausage meat - they were presented in a vivid and immersive way that felt inescapable. Scores of slasher movies from yesteryear would throw lots of blood around, but rarely focused so hard on the suffering of those being minced. Hostel lingers on the victims of the situation, emphasising the experience of being tortured, tears and blood and vomit. None of the characters is a big badass who just tells their assailant what a "sick fuck" they are while having their limbs removed with table cutlery. They behave like real people, and show violence for what it really is - long, slow suffering.

It's the gayest movie in the fucking world!

Roth's tongue-in-cheek style does require a somewhat turbulent tone that may not make for comfortable viewing by all, but it functions as his charming little take on the genre that I can never help but enjoy and watch repeatedly.

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)

The Human Centipede is as bleak as a decent movie can get, and that is very much to its credit. I vividly recall the cultural hubbub that was The Human Centipede when it first reared its ugly head in 2009, and I found out about it through outraged and disgusted social media posts by friends. Of course, knowing me, when that much outrage has been generated, I simply have to see what all the fuss is about. On first viewing, I experienced the retching and hilarity that was expected, but years later, after two sequels have been made, and the Siamese triplet of a film series has been completed, I was surprised to see that it not only held up surprisingly well, but was a genuinely well done film.

Your basic premise is that two American girls, Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) and Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie), are on a European road trip, and for some reason are making their way down woodland roads en route to a nightclub. Well, their car breaks down, and they exchange some terribly delivered bitchery, while trudging through the rainy forest in shorts and high heels. They happen across the house of one Dr Josef Heiter, a retired specialist in separating conjoined twins. He promptly drugs the girls and intends to expand his surgical repertoire by creating a conjoined triplet that is connected via a single gastric system. In layman's terms, they are sewn mouth to ass. Also along for the worst ride since It's a Small World, is Akihiro Kitamura, who at least garners the privilege of being the front part of the centipede.

As a thoroughly cosmopolitan movie in terms of production, we are treated to no less than three spoken languages, and the version I just watched didn't have subtitles. This made for interesting viewing, particularly as I have previously seen subtitled versions, and know the gist of the dialogue, but mainly went by the emotions being conveyed. The good Herr Doktor does the girls (and the audience) the courtesy of mostly speaking English, but the general lack of communication between characters plays nicely into the idea of alien parts being thrust together.

Does this centipede taste funny to you?

I have noticed an interesting phenomenon within the small-time acting community: many an actor can play fear or hysteria quite well, but delivering natural, conversational dialogue seems beyond them. This is certainly the case for our two American leads, whose earlier scenes are poorly delivered, but are saved by strong direction and production values. However, the shining star of this dim and grimy production is Mr Dieter Laser, who was just made to play a part of this kind. His sinewy figure, soulless eyes and boundless physical delivery make for a sinister and utterly unpredictable villain.

What really struck me this time around about The Human Centipede was how well it conveyed total and utter hopelessness. In some ways, it feels like it belongs in the '70s with the other low budget, somewhat artistic exploitation horrors, in that it stirs the most basic of instincts in the audience, by tugging the nerve of vulnerability. The recurring shots of Jenny and Lindsay holding each other's hands in desperate mutual comfort are some of the many silent and bitterly poignant visuals used by writer/director Tom Six, who pulls off a deeply macabre atmosphere from beginning to end.

This movie is oddly absorbing, and it is easy for a new viewer to expect 90 minutes of faecal torture porn, but The Human Centipede is so much more than that, as becomes apparent after the whole 'eating shit' money shot has been and gone. In fact, the concept of being forced to not only eat the faeces of another person, but also to survive solely on it, is remarkably minimal as a focus of the narrative. The real horror comes in being put into such a horrific and vulnerable situation that requires a miraculous combination of team effort and good fortune to survive even for a day, and the idea that this is not a situation that will soon end with death, but could go on for a very long time.

Honestly, best shot of the entire movie

It is hard to ignore the evident inspiration (for lack of a better term) taken from Josef Mengele for Heiter's character. In fact, it would not surprise me if the likes of this movie took place in Mengele's basement somewhere in Brazil after the war. This connotation also forces us to remember that the likes of this gross movie are not merely the twisted imaginings of some Dutch nutter, but that humans have been devising cruel and unusual ways to punish each other since the dawn of time.

The Sacrament (2013)

Finally, a decent example of post-modern found footage horror. Let us make this the third relevant step in the subgenre thus far: 1) the original and best Cannibal Holocaust by Ruggero Deodato, 2) The Blair Witch Project and 3) Ti West's The Sacrament. These three films have presented to us unimaginable terror through the medium of handheld footage, and have done so to such admirable effect that I feel they warrant this three-step programme in FF.

The synopsis of The Sacrament will almost certainly ring bells for many people. Some people may actually remember the real events upon which the movie is based occurring. I was gripped by the premise of a mockumentary about a guy who is invited by his sister to visit the strange cult village she lives in, and the madness that goes on within. OK, lemme just throw it straight out there. Kool Aid. There we have it: the Jonestown massacre of 1978. Once I'd finished being thrilled to hell by The Sacrament, I went and googled it, and soon found the reason the story seemed so familiar to me, and watched several absolutely soul-crushing documentaries on the tragedy. Let there be no mistake: this movie is, at times, painful to watch, and not in any gratuitous, explicitly savage or violent way, but in often quietly disturbing moments, with a wholly crushing sense of dread building from the outset. It is, in this way, that it is amazingly effective.

For my birthday this year, I was given (after much hinting) the Shameless DVD release of House On The Edge Of The Park by Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust), and whilst powering through the special features, an interesting lecture came up, held by some English film professors, with the director and actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice present. These professors had been commissioned to examine the results of violent movies on audiences, and this was one of the titles they looked at. Their findings were interesting: most people were disturbed by brutality and control inflicted on vulnerable characters. Surprisingly, mostly Ricky. His character is the secondary antagonist, who answers to Alex (David Hess), and he comes across as mentally challenged. Where the audience could, for the most part, accept the violence going on between the fully functioning adults, they were uncomfortable with the young, virginal Cindy getting caught up in the trouble, and the obvious manipulation of a mentally incapacitated man.

The story of Jim Jones, the wacko proprietor of Jonestown, shows bold and consistent themes that ran throughout the guy's life. He always had a knack for sniffing out vulnerable people, who felt outcast and ill-fitting, and giving them a place where they belonged. As a child, he actually was one of those sickos who got off on torturing animals. And when shit hit the fan, the dude ran. The really disturbing element of The Sacrament, rather like with HOTEOTP, is that the victims' vulnerability is what throws them into the arms of evil people. It's a classic abusive relationship. The abuser is dominant, and presents themselves as an escape, a refuge, which the victim dares not try to escape, for fear of what's on the outside being worse than the inside. The relationship is ruled by fear, isolation, insecurity. And what kind of place, we come to ultimately ask, must a person be in to feel like killing themselves, their friends and children, is the best, or only, option.

Something I came to notice only after I had watched this movie and gone on to learn about the incident through documentaries, was that The Sacrament is practically a shot-for-shot recount of the real incident, with names and dates changed to protect those (very very few) still living. Not that this is really necessary, but still...they had to fictionalise something. Patrick (Kentucker Audley) is a photographer, who receives a letter from his recovering addict of a sister Caroline (Amy Seimetz), inviting him to visit her at Eden Parish. It's one of those places that the residents refer to as a 'community' when we know it's a total freakin' cult. Patrick's two buddies, Jake (Joe Swanberg) and Sam (AJ Bowen) are professionals in media and looking for a compelling story.

My boyfriend said to me when the guys first arrive at the 'community', "They have a watchtower. Only one kind of place has a watchtower." While the residents willing to speak to the crew rave about the freedom and peace that their new home has given them, a distinctly ominous tone is set with the introduction of the Jones figure, here named The Father, on the first evening at a village meeting. He has agreed to be interviewed by the guys, luring them into an intense exchange somewhat reminiscent of Dr Lecter's psychic musings. Father is played, with a thrashing undercurrent of menace, by a wonderful actor (ironically) named Gene Jones. A 60-something balding fellow with immeasurable manipulations behind those dark glasses, Father is an astonishing character, played with measure and daring by Jones. He embodies the macabre evil that slowly decays his character, and is frighteningly similar to the real Jones.


As mentioned, the movie is a distinctly accurate reconstruction of the massacre, so the details need not be disclosed here. But the film crew get out alive, as did one or two of Congressman Leo Ryan's people back in '78. But the interactions and manipulations that festered in that town and brought on its imminent demise are painfully crafted by West, leaving the audience gripped in fear and horror and despair. You witness the movie's finale as a desperate, helpless onlooker, mouth hanging open for minutes at a time. If the Titanic had been sank deliberately by a mad captain, the situations would begin to be comparable. It's a level of horror that transcends horror: it's tragedy. As helicopter shots capture the shrinking patchwork of whole families, lying face down on the ground, arms about each other in dying embrace, masses and masses of people, it's like having been plucked from Hell and stuck on a bird's shoulders, to be nothing more than a silent, rescued witness of the aftermath of murder. The Sacrament is utterly sombre, and unforgettable. It is brilliant.

Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers (1988)

Sleepaway Camp is probably my favourite slasher discovery of this year. Campy, with a brilliant twist and material you quite frankly just couldn't and wouldn't make nowadays, it's the one out of every ten or twenty that you remember vividly, that you come back to watching again. It's a riot.

So it's only natural, in the big money-making machine that is often filmmaking, that someone would want to come along and mooch off of the original's success. In fact, it'd be fun to play a game where whoever thinks of the most horror movies without sequels would win a cookie. Along with action, it must be the most sequelled genre of all. But the difference with Sleepaway Camp 2 is that the usual 'big mystery' is already solved: we know Angela, the poor psychotic he-she from the original, is back with a vengeance, ready to slaughter slutty and insubordinate campers. Yes, as she reveals towards the end, thanks to a ton of good references from the doctors that treated her, she is cured and ready for gainful employment. Especially the kind that takes place in the exact same setting as her previous ordeal.

Angela is played quite nicely

Yeah...awful lot of this goin' on.

by Pamela Springsteen (yes, I found out, she is related to Bruce), and is the counsellor who surely has a problem with uppers, if her wide eyes and Osmondy grin are anything to go on. But while she is first to whip out a guitar for a round of Kumbaya, she is also the strict schoolmarmish one, who insists that "nice girls don't have to show it off." And who would she impart this wisdom to, if this camp (not Arrawak, but Rolling Hills) were not at least partially populated by teenage hoes who enjoy waltzing around naked? It seems Angela has found her calling.

Ultimately, there is nothing too remarkable about any of Sleepaway Camp 2. It is tamer in almost every aspect than the original: although there are a lot of young boobs, there's no full frontal that the original is so infamous for; the murders are far less graphic and imaginative; the bittersweet sleaziness that characters like Artie the paedo cook brought to the first is largely absent. And in absence of any tangible originality (especially in view of no less than six Friday the 13th movies preceding this picture), a lot of ideas are borrowed from elsewhere, with particularly glaring reference to the legendary Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

As Angela slowly but surely builds a scene straight off of the Sawyers' family Christmas card out of dead campers, each murder under the guise of sending the kid home for bad behaviour, the staff start to suspect something is going on. But not in time. They just become tally marks for Angela's body count, which seems to be the main driving force of the plot. In a story with this many minor characters, it is surprising to see a conclusions that leaves every single one dead, campers and counsellors alike.

What's more surprising is how little is made out of such brilliant source material. I kept trying to remind myself throughout viewing that this was a professional production. It's just that acting is largely dreadful (with the conclusive survivor-on-aggressor scuffle shockingly choreographed and edited), camera work is slow and unadventurous, little decent use is made of soundtrack, and the script is poor (not even in the 'so bad it's good' kind of way). In fairness, it is a decent enough movie for one of those fun film nights with friends where you laugh and drink and eat pizza and stuff. It's a laugh... but it's by no means a great horror.



Although it may sound like a typical alternative, I still feel that some kind of corny reunion special back at Camp Arrawak with the counsellors and/or campers who we can assume survived the first movie. Because that would have more meaning to it than this movie does, which seems to exist as nothing more than an under-the-radar slashfest with little further context. Sleepaway Camp left us asking questions, wondering about motives and morals, about pasts and futures. Sleepaway Camp 2 leaves us wondering, and then suddenly not wondering, why Felissa Rose didn't reprise her classic role.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

I think maybe I haven't been indulging in enough '80s movies recently. For too long have I been wallowing in the shaggy beards and flared jeans of my beloved '70s...I'd totally forgotten that there were some serious short-short-wearing gentlemen who needed appreciating ten years later. Sleepaway Camp is gloriously kitsch, with its high tolerance for guys with crop tops and hotpants and girls with...well, more on that later...

The film starts on an interesting note: a dad and his son and daughter are out on a boating trip, and fall into the water. This isn't really the issue. Issue is, there's a teenage lifeguard in a motorboat nearby who's being hassled by some girl (who rocks a fat fold on her stomach -- thanks for the achievable body image, '80s!) to let her take a turn at the wheel. The darn fool concedes and she manages to cause a major freakin' wipeout, killing the dad and one of the children. As if this isn't bad enough, the motorboat was towing a waterskiier whose college major is most likely in Hysteria. She makes more of a fuss than the kid and father did.

Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcooooome!

Flash forward eight years and two cousins, Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten) and Angela (Felissa Rose), are being sent off to camp by Ricky's absolutely demented mother (Desiree Gould), whose looks are reminiscent of the Emcee in Cabaret and whose delivery is too over-the-top, even for melodrama. She fusses over them and says "Wasn't that nice of me?!" a lot. She, being a doctor (surely not a GP, but a Barbra-Streisand-as-Mrs.-Focker kind of doctor) has filled out their physicals in an overly dubious manner, which she warns them not to draw attention to. I guess with this, we're either thinking that Dr. Demento here is an utter freak, or that the kids have some kind of creepy illness. Or perhaps both. Yeah, probably both.

The kids arrive at Camp Arawak, which appears to cater to the delicious age range of 13-18, facilitating all kinds of hilarious clashes and insults, and the younger ones ain't as meek as I expected! Ricky is one of those tough pubescents that Corey Feldman played a lot of. He kicks and spits and tells people to "eat shit" a lot. Angela is withdrawn; she never speaks to anyone, and has a permanent wide-eyed look of anxiety on her face. Ricky is very protective of her and makes her excuses when her introversion causes social spectacles.

Shit kicks off pretty early for Angela. In the girls' cabin, we have one bitch counsellor, Meg (Katherine Kamhi) and one overly-gentile counsellor, Susie (Susan Glaze), and for some reason, Meg's constant harrassment of Angela in front of others never seems to cost her her job. Ricky's friend Paul (Christopher Collet) takes a liking to Angela, but is being teased by the Jessica Rabbit of the camp, Judy (Karen Fields), who also makes it her mission to torment the girl. It struck me as a little odd that Judy seemed several years too old for a kid like Paul, but then, as is pointed out..."girls mature faster than boys."

It's not just the cabins that are filled with weirdos and assholes. The proprietor of the establishment is one Mel Costic (veteran Mike Kellin in his final role), the kind of cigar-chomping greaseball in checkered pants who'd be a more likely candidate for pornographic direction than for childcare management. Luckily, his right hand man is chipper and muscly Ronnie (Paul DeAngelo) who wears the speciality Eunoch range of shorts and gets the kids all pepped up for campouts and baseball games and whatnot. However, the rest of the staff are just as creepy as Mel...the first shot we get of the kitchen staff is unsettling to say the least. Head cook and professional fat slob Artie (Owen Hughes) stands leering over the "fresh chicken", telling the boys that where he comes from, "we call 'em Baldies." Wow...wherever he's from probably ain't on the map.

The pervert becomes the pervee

So what could possibly go wrong in a summer camp inhabited by teenage sluts, teenage assholes and the odd paedophile? Well writer/director Robert Hiltzik made the wise decision to nip the pervert character in the bud before it got too creepy to handle. Artie's comeuppance serves as the first in a nicely-varying range of mysterious killings going on at the camp, always shown from the killer's perspective with only their hands coming into view. And the best part is... every character does one of those hilarious unsuspecting lines of dialogue (which remains ambiguous so as not to give the game away) before getting sliced. Things like, "Oh, it's you, what the hell do you want?" To the film's credit, we are left changing our mind as to the culprit for a good half of the movie. Towards the end it filters down the suspects for us, until there's only one we haven't seen doing non-suspicious stuff at the right time.

I suppose the main thread of the story (which back in the '80s they did their best to include around the slashing) is Whatever Happened To Angela? The kids and counsellors get real sick o' her shit, and one day Meg decides to grab her and throw her into the lake, while Judy follows and taunts her. Meg remains within the camp's employment after this incident too. This, of course, further traumatises the girl, and when she finally gets to know Paul, their makeout session is interrupted by very weird flashbacks to Angela and her brother as children, and her father with his male lover. Well the story with Angela is the basis for Sleepaway Camp's notorious twist-ending, and because of its sudden nature, it was really impossible to be handled both as a serious subject and a shock....

***Spoiler Alert***

The means by which I came across Sleepaway Camp spoilt the ending for me. The terrific documentary Going To Pieces examined the 'rise and fall of the slasher movie', and interviewed Felissa Rose about various movies. When the time came to talk about her famous role, they lingered mostly on the infamous ending, complete with matching VT. So I sought out the movie because of the weird ending I had been given a glimpse of. Because even out of context, it struck me as a real killer of a twist! So, as aforementioned, the movie whittles it down, by process of elimination, to us suspecting Angela as the killer. And something is most definitely wrong when she meets Paul at the beach and insists they both get naked.Meanwhile, a single policeman has turned up, and the remaining counsellors do their best 'concerned' impressions, with highlights including, "Oh no...there's a killer on the loose". The cop sends the counsellors off to search the camp..."even the empty cabins," he advises. Wow, what would they have done without him?! Everyone knows that criminals never hide in unoccupied spaces!

Mr Short-Shorts has graciously changed into a full-length tracksuit. Well, I dunno. Perhaps his ball-bearing hotpants would have proved the killer's antidote. Never know. But he and Susie (possibly the worst-acted character in the whole picture) have gotten their pretty permed selves down to the lake, where they see Angela sat, humming and cradling Paul's head in her lap. They approach from behind, cooing her gently to come with them. Then another flashback, of crazy Aunt Doctor, inheriting little Peter after the opening speedboat accident killed his family, and deciding to raise the child as the girl she always longed for, deducting that two boys "simply will not do"... see where this is going? Up hops Angela, mouth agape and growling like an animal, Paul's severed head rolling from her lap. And there she is... naked... with a penis. A penis! In the words of Felissa Rose, "I was the chick with the dick!" 

Now, if this moment hadn't been the very reason I ended up watching the preceding 80 minutes, I would have been whooping and hollering at its awesomeness. Ironically killer twist: perfectly executed; puns most definitely intended. But I have one question about it...killer Angela remains perfectly still whilst the camera zooms out to reveal her secret. Why? Perhaps it was to accommodate the obviously immobile Felissa Rose mask worn by the drunken college boy stand in. I guess it doesn't really matter. Even if Angela's weirdly wooden stance was the only thing that gave me a weird feeling about the shot, then it still achieved its desired affects regardless.

One may also come to assess what the makers may have meant by this ending. It's deep enough to be about more than shock value, so what statement is Sleepaway Camp making? Some may argue that it's an offensive sweeping suggestion that transgender or transsexual people are in some way sociopathically ill. Some may also see a link between the brief flashbacks of Angela/ Peter's father in bed with another man and the child's subsequent issues, But on the other hand, is the real evil not, in fact, evil Doctor Auntie, who decided to gender-reassign little Peter to suit her own selfish ideals? Perhaps the plot was first imagined as a reversal on the life of a transgender person: where they might choose of their own accord to change their identity to how they feel is right, Peter is forced by someone else to change his identity to how he feels is wrong. This is probably not a terribly common situation, but perhaps by extension, it is a statement about children's need to be their own person, and not live out the ideals and fantasies of their parents or friends. The more thought I give it, the more meaning I see in this cheesy old slasher flick.

Terry from Reno 911! (right) and some fashion victim at camp (left)

Sleepaway Camp is the kind of movie that I felt the compulsion to tell my sister about. She and I are both raging horror connoisseurs and have shared many a movie, not to say we always agree. But I know she too would appreciate all the straight men dressed like Terry the Homo from Reno 911!, the surprisingly imaginative and gruesome killings (did I mention curling tongs getting put in the most ridiculous of places?!), and the kind of creepy predatory style that could only have been used thirty years ago. This is a wicked flashy piece of the '80s which takes a number of increasingly unexpected turns, and even in 2015 feels quite original. Sleepaway Camp is definitely one of my new favourite slashers!