Episode 48 — Sleepaway Camp

[GregJ 12]

I also thought she stuck the curling iron in Judy's vag when i was watching the movie but wasn't really sure if thats what happened or if it was just my sick imagination. I was pleased to hear that is what they thought too.

[therealjayknox 26]

 

Also, I think it is fairly clear that the last shot is a real guy wearing an Angela mask. The physique of the person is totally different from Angela's physique. That is not a 13 year old girl with a prosthetic penis.

 

Rhys, I don't claim to have your keenest of all eyes for detail but I would suggest that is not an amazing 'Angela Mask' but a 'special effect' where a still shot of Angela's face is superimposed over what is a man standing in the scene.

 

But I strongly agree with your theory the body is not that of a 13 year old girl but that of a muscular and hairy grown man. (good observation!)

 

and btw.. I'm not sure enough was said about the 'Angela Demon' which does appear to be a kind of 'werewolf' or 'demon' creature with horrifying hell shrieking powers.

Supernatural yes?

[Novato 25]

 

fuck

[CapricaSixSixSix 100]

Also, I think it is fairly clear that the last shot is a real guy wearing an Angela mask. The physique of the person is totally different from Angela's physique. That is not a 13 year old girl with a prosthetic penis.

 

Good point, hence the "frozen" growl on Angela's face. However, I'm not going to watch it again to be sure.

 

Finally watched the actually movie and OH MY GOD Judy's hair is incredible.

[Solid Muldoon 1]

The Bone Zone scene came so long after the opening scene that I didn't recognize either of the guys. My jaw just hit the floor wondering why they threw in a gay sex scene.

 

I was laughing my ass off during the first 20 minutes of the episode because I had no idea why the gang thought that the beach guy was the Dad's lover. Once I got it, it was even funnier.

 

I'm going to listen to this one again tomorrow.

 

Also: Sarah Silverman. Bwah hah ha ha ha!

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

"How Did This Get AIDS?"

 

Oh, come on, how has NO ONE said it?!?!?

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

June should have dedicated the show to her mom, for being a doer.

[DavidPetrison 1]

OK, Angela and Ricky (the main two characters) are about the same age. Therefore, it is obvious that Ricky did not know Angela before the accident, or else he would know Angela's terrifying secret. I think it's pretty clear from the movie that he doesn't. Thus, Ricky's mom was not likely the "Doc" in question at the beginning of the film. It is likely that Ricky's mom and Angela's dad were brother and sister, but did not see each other often enough for their kids to know each other.

 

So, Ricky's mom just happened to have a husband that at one point left, and Angela's dad just happened to have two kids with a woman that was no longer in the picture. I very much doubt that the gay lover was anyone that Ricky's mom knew. He was likely unrelated to the kids in any way, or else he would have probably gotten custody.

 

I also don't think there was any incest in the movie whatsoever. The dad and his lover were just sort of normal, and the kids were laughing at them because it was the 1980s, and two men together was h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s. The scene in the bed between the brother and sister was just a game the two kids were playing, while simultaneously working as an allegory for the brother's gender identity issues. I don't think incest played any part here.

[robinsbruce 4985]

Mom, a doer. Is doer really a word?!?!

 

Spell check says it is so...christ.

[RyanSz 3140]

I also don't think there was any incest in the movie whatsoever. The dad and his lover were just sort of normal, and the kids were laughing at them because it was the 1980s, and two men together was h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s. The scene in the bed between the brother and sister was just a game the two kids were playing, while simultaneously working as an allegory for the brother's gender identity issues. I don't think incest played any part here.

 

It could be argued that it was incest in that the kids were imitating what they were seeing, but they didn't realize that it was sex. We don't know how long they were there watching their dads bone, so while it would be way over the top to show kids in that same scenario, it's not as bad to see them starting foreplay that they were mimicking from the scene prior that we saw with the dads.

[seanotron 2307]

I was listening to this episode today and I felt I had to register to make this comment... Please, please, please, please, PLEASE work out your confusions about the plot beforehand if you're going to bicker and talk over each other for 10 minutes before actually getting to anything funny. I've loved your podcast ever since I discovered it, but all too often lately many episodes have been downright STRESSFUL to listen to. It's not fun, it's not enjoyable, and if it continues being a regular thing instead of a rare occasion, I can't listen anymore.

 

I almost stopped and gave up a few times before it got good. That said, once the confusions were worked out, it was a great episode.

 

To each their own, I was thoroughly entertained. I think this is one of the funniest episodes they've done.

[misterstephanie 0]

Wouldn't it have made more sense for Martha to just have raised the little boy as his sister instead of making up a new Angela persona? Then we wouldn't have to wonder how Ricky never met his cousin before she moved in. He grew up with two cousins, a boy and a girl, and now he has one, a girl. Head trauma kid is confused and young and thinks he is a she with a deformity and a dead brother.

[JacobCrites 4977]

I also don't think there was any incest in the movie whatsoever. The dad and his lover were just sort of normal, and the kids were laughing at them because it was the 1980s, and two men together was h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s. The scene in the bed between the brother and sister was just a game the two kids were playing, while simultaneously working as an allegory for the brother's gender identity issues. I don't think incest played any part here.

Completely disagree (I got Paul, Jason and Zach on my side, brah! The only person with you is June "spaghetti robot" Raphael). What "game" involves two kids sitting on a bed slowly touching each other? I see what you're getting at, but this movie really has a truly awful soul. The point of the gay scene wasn't to be funny, it was to be "shocking." This horrible movie is trying to propose that because the kids witnessed these two dudes, they were warped into commiting incest--which, as you said, plays into "Angela's" gender issues.

[pongo 190]

Completely disagree (I got Paul, Jason and Zach on my side, brah! The only person with you is June "spaghetti robot" Raphael). What "game" involves two kids sitting on a bed slowly touching each other? I see what you're getting at, but this movie really has a truly awful soul. The point of the gay scene wasn't to be funny, it was to be "shocking." This horrible movie is trying to propose that because the kids witnessed these two dudes, they were warped into commiting incest--which, as you said, plays into "Angela's" gender issues.

Ya I was about to say the same thing, because that is a really weird game for a brother and sister to be playing.

[LincolnThurber 1]

I actually watched this movie before the podcast for once...SO WORTH IT. I don't even think how bad this movie is can ruin how GREAT the ending turns out to be. That ending NEEDED to exist in some movie somewhere at some point in history just because humans needed to see that ending and see the movie characters react to that ending.

[Ghost of HST 71]

I'm happy I got to watch this oeuvre also. The cold open and opening scenes are so great. Even the girl water-skiing is being tormented - she cries "can't we stop now!" I also thought the man was a transvestite and didn't check the credits so had some thought that was a thing in the movie. Like maybe the father survived, became a cross-dresser and that figured into the plot. The whole plot was devised by some pretty dumb and hateful people it seems though, which makes it a bit difficult to watch at times. The rooftop water-balloon fight is on a par with the football game in The Room...

[Patrick L 32]

I actually watched this movie before the podcast for once...SO WORTH IT. I don't even think how bad this movie is can ruin how GREAT the ending turns out to be. That ending NEEDED to exist in some movie somewhere at some point in history just because humans needed to see that ending and see the movie characters react to that ending.

 

I watched this after the mini-episode also, and during 99% of this "horror" movie I was thinking this is the dumbest and least scary movie I have ever watched, but that final scene was really upsetting, especially with the noise Angela was making. I will admit to having trouble sleeping after that.

[therealjayknox 26]

Okay I want to settle everything here:

- We actually open with the 'present aftermath': An abandoned campsite, tragic 'funeral' music and one helluva over-turned garbage can. The 'screams of kids' are not 'present moment' but indicate screams that went on 'here'. It's as if we arrive at the devastated camp and ask 'what happened here??'.

 

- The mom and dad brought their kids to the camp. The less-balder guy is just a camp counselor who happens to be minding the beach. He yells at some other camp counselors pulling a camper on water skis "here comes the dock". The brother and sister are injured.

the girl dies but but the boy lives.

 

- Now we go forward (but still in the past). the mom is now adopting a new child to replace her missing daughter. This kid is simply from an orphanage and lost his parents in a tragedy. Indicated by his rubber hat to protect his damaged brain. The boy was the only thing available. So she will turn him into 'Angela'.

 

- The mom is bat-shit crazy because she lost her daughter at that campsite. Not only this but it turned out her husband was having a very romantic homosexual affair with the camp counselor - the very one who was there that day! Him and Dad should have SAVED the kids!

 

- Add to that, her two children (before the accident) even caught the two men in their face-touching 'loving-eyes' bedtime spooning. It warped the children's minds and confused them that they had some incestuous affair with each other. Later one would be killed (by the very neglect of the dad and secret lover/camp counselor).

 

- Dad and lover have run away to a condo together by the time 'replacement daughter' (newly adopted son) arrives.

 

- 'Angela' (really the adopted boy) has essentially been raised by the mom to be their revenge against the camp site. The 'Vicarious Angela' and Ricky too. Ricky as a bodyguard, interference, distraction.

 

- Mom is ready to unleash her revenge - for killing her daughter, for stealing her husband, she sends the powerful 'Angela 2.0' and demented Ricky to the camp to teach them all a lesson and destroy Camp Sleepaway for good!

 

- Now, remember the 'ending' or 'present' was established as an abandoned camp where 'the screams of masses' and the overturned and unattended trash can tell us 'they all died'. There is 'nobody left'. How did we get to this present abomination?

 

- The last scene (in the past) tells us - Angela 2.0 revealed her secret identity and unleashed her unlockable jaw and sonic scream!

- Which, I assume was powered by a spaghetti robot,

however,

This, its implied is how she and the kitchen knife (along with Ricky) mass slaughtered everyone in the camp. At some point toppling a garbage can.

 

We arrive back in the 'present' as the sun rises on the avenged campgrounds. Angela and Ricky have, presumably returned home to mother who revels in her successful revenge.

[aaherter 14]

Thanks for another great episode. I was listening to it on my commute home. I've never heard of this movie but will check it out mostly for the Hot Wet American Summer influence. Oh and the ten minute sideways turn on plot confusion was really funny.

[RyanSz 3140]

After listening to this episode I am so glad I own this whole series (outside of the unfinished 4th film).

[DavidPetrison 1]

Completely disagree (I got Paul, Jason and Zach on my side, brah! The only person with you is June "spaghetti robot" Raphael). What "game" involves two kids sitting on a bed slowly touching each other? I see what you're getting at, but this movie really has a truly awful soul. The point of the gay scene wasn't to be funny, it was to be "shocking." This horrible movie is trying to propose that because the kids witnessed these two dudes, they were warped into commiting incest--which, as you said, plays into "Angela's" gender issues.

 

What are we even talking about here? The flashback to the brother and sister in bed was literally only the young boy pointing at the sister. He never even touched her. I think if we were to infer that the two children were being incestuous, it would have been a little more overt than that, considering how explicit the rest of the film is. The two kids were like 8 years old, so I am choosing to infer that the shot was about the gender identity issues; he is literally pointing at the persona that he is likely to become. I don't think that event, of the two children in bed together, actually ever happened but was an artistic rendering of the two identities merging into one.

 

Ugh...

 

By the way, the most disturbing scene to me was the water balloon fight scene. When the camera cuts back, and you see how high all those boys are up from the ground with no padding or clothing on...I sort of can't believe that someone didn't fall and break their body, considering the roof was wet. It's one thing to make a crappy film, it's worse when you clearly have no regard for your child actors' safety.

[DavidPetrison 1]

Sorry, I was trying to delete this...

[ShaneHebert 12]

 

Rhys, I don't claim to have your keenest of all eyes for detail but I would suggest that is not an amazing 'Angela Mask' but a 'special effect' where a still shot of Angela's face is superimposed over what is a man standing in the scene.

 

 

Check out the major fan sites and they a big piece about this effect. Turns out it was an oversized Angela mask with an extended jaw that they put on a guy from a local college. You can tell it isn't a frozen frame because of that creepy vibration in the back of the mouth that shutters as s/he shrieks.

[therealjayknox 26]

 

Check out the major fan sites and they a big piece about this effect. Turns out it was an oversized Angela mask with an extended jaw that they put on a guy from a local college. You can tell it isn't a frozen frame because of that creepy vibration in the back of the mouth that shutters as s/he shrieks.

 

Can't be a mask.

1.It would be the most amazing life-like mask besting even the Madame Tussaud for fantastic human realism and I would suppose taking up 99% of the Sleepaway budget.

2. The film itself may not be a 'freeze frame' but the superimposed image seems to be a 'still' over top.

3. It just looks like a superimposed image. At one point you can see the image (face only) wash out with light independent of anything else. Even the 'fade-out' shows the 'face only' separate from the background wig.

4. It's not over-sized and this is why it cannot be a mask - in fact, the throat gives that away all the more. The college kid would require a tiny tiny little head. So small as to be a deformity.

5. and finally I submit - the actress really can open her jaw that wide. She does it in 'return' and can be seen opening her mouth that wide and wider in publicity photos too.

 

And finally, the entire process is run by the spaghetti wires themselves. This I submit to the court of public trouncing derp derp!

[wyldride 285]

This movie is so ridiculously confusing that it needs a 90 minute Red Letter Media style review to sort out all the ways society has failed Peter, Ricky and every child at the camp for this plot to have happened. The only logical explanation is every character in the world of Sleepaway Camp is insane. No matter how many layers you try to peel back to find the logic behind the actions of anyone in this movie, you just find more insanity. It's like he had three plot points in mind: boating accident at the beginning, dad's homosexuality in the middle, and Peter's true identity as an ending, but he had no idea whatsoever how to connect any of them into a coherent story that involved anyone acting in a sensible manner.