Sleepaway Camp (1983), The Best Plot Twist In LGBT Horror

When you’ve watched dozens, if not hundreds of 80s horror films, it can be difficult to find something that truly shocks you. I remember a professor mentioning Sleepaway Camp (1983) in film school, but I never really thought much of it. When my wife and I sat down on a whim to watch it, neither of us expected anything out of the ordinary. But the farther along it went, the more I realized that something was off. Robert Hiltzik’s Sleepaway Camp takes you on a wild, transgressive ride that leads to the most shocking and controversial plot twist I’ve ever seen in a slasher movie. And as a heads up: this review will have spoilers!

The film follows Angela Baker, a shy and introverted teenage girl. Angela’s traumatic past is revealed through flashbacks, showing that she lost her father and twin sibling in a tragic boating accident years prior. After losing her family, Angela is sent to live with her very eccentric Aunt Martha and protective cousin, Ricky. Aunt Martha gives some strange speech about what a wonderful summer it will be before pushing the two young teens out the door to camp.

Upon their arrival at Camp Arawak, Angela becomes the target of ridicule and bullying from her fellow campers, as well as some staff members. She refuses to speak to anyone except Ricky (and she barely responds to him). The perverted camp cook attempts to molest Angela, only to be severely burned by a pot of boiling water. Though it was clearly intentional, the camp’s owner, Mel, tries to downplay the incident. But as the summer progresses, a series of gruesome and mysterious murders plague the campers and staff.

Naturally, Mel becomes increasingly paranoid about the reputation of his business and suspects Ricky to be the killer. Meanwhile, a camper named Paul develops a romantic interest in Angela, and they share a kiss, which further fuels the camp’s gossip mill. As the body count rises, the police begin looking for the missing campers, only to make a genuinely shocking discovery. 

On the surface, Sleepaway Camp plays out like many other slashers from the early 80s. Bullies and objectively “bad” people turn up dead in increasingly shocking ways. In the climax, the killer is revealed and we’re given some sense of closure. However, Sleepaway Camp diverges from more mainstream slashers in a few important ways. First and foremost, the central characters are all pretty young. In fact, the camp doesn’t seem to have a coherent age range; there are young adult campers mixed in with kindergartners. Nonetheless, the majority of campers seem to fall somewhere between 12 and 15 years old, which is still a pretty young demographic for a slasher.

Not to sound like a prude, but the language is also far more graphic than you would expect from an 80s horror movie. And again, it’s an 80s horror movie mostly starring very young teens (or actors portraying very young teens). So it feels a little strange to constantly hear people hurling curse words at each other that would be more at home in a Tarantino script. Again, I don’t want to seem priggish, but it certainly caught my attention and made the whole thing feel a little “off” from the start.

Speaking of “off,” you get to enjoy an extremely bizarre performance from Desiree Gould as Aunt Martha. The filmmakers want her to be eccentric to the point of being insane to serve the plot later on, but her performance is so theatrical and out of place compared to the relatively natural (by 80s standards) performances from the rest of the cast. It helps make all the killing seem more pastiche than painful. One could argue that it even borders on camp (no pun intended).

At this point, you’re probably wondering how Sleepaway Camp qualifies as an LGBT horror film. A big part of this has to do with the ending. The plot twist in the final moments is infamous, to say the least, and if you haven’t read up on the film beforehand, it really does take you by surprise. Spoiler: Angela is revealed to be transgender in the most graphic and strangely frightening way possible. 

But this isn’t the only reason Sleepaway Camp falls into the LGBT subgenre. Right from the opening shots, you can’t help but notice the short shorts. Sure, it’s the 80s, and men wore tight shorts, but these really leave nothing to the imagination. In a genre that almost exclusively objectifies the female body for heterosexual male audiences, objectification of the male body comes as a surprise. It’s even more surprising in a film full of prepubescent and pubescent characters.

However, Sleepaway Camp’s status as an LGBT cult classic is controversial in its own right. In one flashback sequence, Angela’s shyness and “trauma” is treated, in part, as a result of witnessing her father having sex with another man. So, the film already works from a homophobic framework, which is not all that surprising given the standard horror formula that makes all non-heteronormative characters creepy, traumatized, violent, sadistic, insane, or all of the above. Fortunately, the film actually works in both directions, as it (arguably) uses the heterosexual and pedophilic camp cook as a way to offset the innate homophobia.

It is also one of the few 80s horror films to involve a transgender character whose gender is a central plot point. Once again, the story equates “transgender” with insane, but not necessarily in the way you’d think. It’s part of what makes this weird little horror film a progressive narrative wrapped in conservative fears.

As it turns out, Angela is technically transgender, but not by choice. In fact, she was never really transgender at all, but was forced to live as a girl by her crazed aunt. This is kind of a conservative’s worst nightmare: a parent forcing their child to be transgender, and then that child growing up to become a psychopath. But it also highlights the fact that Angela’s transition was not a consensual one. So, even though her trauma stems from watching her father have sex with another man and then being forced to live as a girl, it doesn’t have to be read as a definitively homophobic or transphobic film. In my view, it works as a commentary on the lasting effects of childhood trauma and the horror of being forced to live as someone you’re not. It’s literally the story of most transgender youth, albeit turned on its head.

But more importantly, the filmmakers knew the ending from the start. So the way in which they portray Angela is extremely telling. She is shy, awkward, and doesn’t really fit in. Nearly everyone bullies her mercilessly. When she does find herself attracted to a boy, she is too afraid to do anything with him for fear of being “outed.” Therefore, once you know the ending, you’re really just watching a film about a teenager trying to make it through all of the horrible cruelties inflicted on transgender youth. 

That’s part of the reason why I don’t feel so bad spoiling the ending here. The film actually reads better if you know what’s going to happen in advance. And I still haven’t described the final sequence in detail, because even knowing that Angela is transgender does not really take away from the shock factor. The last scene sent a chill down my spine, even as I found myself laughing at the insanity of it all. 

But if you are going to watch Sleepaway Camp (and I hope you do), don’t just skip to the ending. The entire film is well worth watching. Is it weird? Absolutely. Is the acting hit-and-miss? For sure. But it also features the best plot twist I’ve seen in a long time, making it a surprising classic of 80s horror. 

And before you go check it out, I’d like to mention that I watched Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers (1988) and Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland (1989). The second one is watchable (at best) and makes brief references to the ending of the original film, but the third one is an absolute chore to get through. So, don’t waste your time on the sequels. 

Sleepaway Camp Movie Review: ★★★½ out of 5

If you’d like to watch Sleepaway Camp (1983), the film is currently available to stream, rent, or purchase via Amazon or Shudder. For more film reviews like this one, be sure to check out the Philosophy in Film homepage!