The Hotel California of summer camps...
"Dear Mom and Dad, I've been at Sleepaway Camp for three weeks... and I'm getting very scared."
—Opening line of the trailer.

Sleepaway Camp is a slasher Film Series that started out in The Eighties.

The original Sleepaway Camp was directed by Robert Hiltzik and it was released in 1983 during the heyday of Slasher Movies.

The plot follows two cousins, Angela and Ricky, who are attending a summer camp. Shortly after their arrival, people start to die. Especially those who pick on Angela...

The film is notorious for its Twist Ending and it has amassed a cult following over the years.

Scroll down the page if you want to find about the sequels. But be warned, unmarked spoilers for the first film are abound!

Tropes used in Sleepaway Camp include:

Warning: Unmarked Spoilers!

First patch of sequels follow Angela, who is now fully grown up and is completely nuts. Unlike the first film, the sequels venture into more comedic side of things and have more winking approach on their subject.

First sequel, titled Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers, was released in 1988. Angela has been recently released from the mental institute and is working as a camp counselor. Unfortunately for the campers, she has high moral standards and kills anyone who she deems "a naughty camper".

Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland was released in 1989. Shot back-to-back with its predecessor, it follows Angela infiltrating a group of campers to exact her brand of "niceness".

Another sequel was in works in the early nineties with Jim Markovic as the director, but the company producing it, Double Helix, went bankrupt and the project was scrapped. The existing footage was put together for a short half-hour film Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor and was released as a bonus on the Sleepaway Camp Survival Kit DVD box set in 2002. Ten years later a more cohesive cut was put together, which was then released on DVD. It follows Angela, who has lost her memories and goes to the original camping grounds to find answers to her past.

The series got sudden revival between 2005 and 2009, as the original director, Robert Hiltzik, started to make more sequels, which ignore the three previous films.

Return to Sleepaway Camp, which was released in 2008, follows yet another summer camp where people mysteriously start to turn up dead. Identity of the killer is kept as a mystery just as in the original film, but it still retains some comedic elements from previous films.

The next sequel, Sleepaway Camp Reunion, is waiting for release. Michael A. Simpson, director and producer of the second and third films, intended to create his own sequel, Sleepaway Camp: Berserk, but it appears to have fallen to the wayside. The film would have apparently tied up some loose ends, and, controversially, introduce supernatural elements to the series.

The sequels provide the examples of:

Diane: "Angela, what's really in there?"
Angela: "Dead teenager's brains."

  • Sassy Black Woman: Bella in Return.
  • Serial Killer: Angela, though it doesn't take much to send her spiraling into spree killing.
  • Shout-Out: Jordan and Anthony in Unhappy Campers dress as Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger in an attempt to scare Angela. It backfires as she appears dressed as Leatherface and kills them.
    • In Return, Randy, when Linda thinks someone is following them through the forest, cracks a joke about "the Cropsy maniac".
    • Almost every character in Unhappy Campers is named after a 1970's brat pack members, while the characters in Teenage Wasteland are almost all named after somebody from West Side Story.
  • Sliding Scale of Comedy and Horror
  • The Stinger: Return. It shows Angela killing the real sheriff, explaining how she got all her cop stuff.
  • The Stoner: The Schote Sisters in Unhappy Campers, and Weed and Stan in Return.
  • Stopped Numbering Sequels: Due to the Canon Discontinuity which was started after the fourth movie.
  • Straight Edge Evil: Angela does not smoke, drink, or use illegal drugs and if she catches doing any of those things, look out!
  • Stripperific: For some reason, Angela is wearing a pretty slutty looking getup in Return's post-credits scene.
  • Symbolic Blood: Spilled red paint and syrup in Unhappy Campers.
  • This Is a Drill: And it goes through the head.
  • 3D Movie: The upcoming Sleepaway Camp Reunion.
  • Title Drop
  • Token Minority: Both boy and girl groups in Unhappy Campers include one African-American member.
    • Each group of campers in Teenage Wasteland had at least one.
  • Too Dumb to Live: T.C. and Spaz in the spear sequence in Return. Sure, lets keep looking down the hole someone just shoved a pointy stick through. What happens next is unsurprising.
  • Unwilling Suspension: Angela does this to Cindy in Teenage Wasteland.
  • Urban Legends: The campers are telling these in the opening of Unhappy Campers.
  • Villain Protagonist
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: Provided by Sean in Unhappy Campers.
  • Wet Sari Scene: Provided by Ally in Unhappy Campers.
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