The original “Sleepaway Camp” is a ridiculous, messy triumph and a breath of fresh air in a subgenre of “Friday the 13th” shenanigans. Featuring real teenagers instead of adults playing ten years younger, there’s a youthful, rebellious spirit to “Sleepaway Camp” that’s unparalleled. And since the film is set at a youth summer camp, this also means that the film makes the shocking decision to kill children, something that even the scariest horror films avoid for fear of upsetting the apple cart. Here are all five films in order of release:
- “Sleeping Camp” (1983)
- “Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers” (1988)
- “Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland” (1989)
- “Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor” (1992/2012)
- “Back to Sleeping Camp” (2008)
“Sleepaway Camp II” and “III” lean much more into the horror-comedy than the original slasher, while “Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor” is very similar to “Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2” in that much of its running time uses footage from previous films. The film crew began shooting new footage for the film in the early 1990s, but the production company went bankrupt before they could finish. The footage was initially released as a special feature in the “Sleepaway Camp” survival kit DVD box set, but 20 years later, director Dustin Ferguson and producer John Klyza of SleepawayCampFilms.com gave the film a proper release.
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