Being a slasher film aficionado, I typically will settle in to watch every slash movie that passes over my retinas, which sometimes does more harm than good to my brain, I will say. While channel surfing the other night, Sleepaway Camp II happened to cross paths with me. Of course, I wanted to check it out, as I had heard of the Sleepaway Camp franchise, but have never actually seen any of them (for shame, I know). I will note that since I have not seen the original, my criticism should probably not be taken too seriously, because perhaps what I think is wrong with it is totally intentional by the franchise's own design.

Now I'm assuming that the franchise of Sleepaway Camp is, in itself, a joke on itself. Hell, even the name comes off as an intentional joke. Sleep away camp? It's good fun. I can appreciate the film for wanting to just put together something for pure camp horror value, but that's about as far as I can go. The acting in this movie made the cast of the original Friday the 13th look like thespians doing a rendition of Macbeth. Campy requires bad acting, but come on. Pamela Springsteen as the evil out-of-touch-with-reality killer did a better job of killing off my interest than she did killing off the entire cast. As far as comedy goes, there were a few times where I chuckled, but it was few and far between.

Ultimately, SAC II is pretty boring, and I really did want to sleep away the camp. The deaths are so obviously staged and fake that you can barely appreciate them. If you're looking for a slasher film comedy with good camp, I recommend Club Dread. If your channel surfing takes you across this one, check and see what else is on.

Did this review think positively or negatively of the movie?
negative