Sleepaway Camp/Analysis: Difference between revisions
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{{Analysis}}{{work}}
''Sleepaway Camp'' was made in 1983, right in the middle of the first slasher boom. It's clear that the makers wanted to do a few things differently, perhaps in an attempt to stand out from the crowd. There's an obvious focus on creative kills: of the six onscreen murders, only one is performed with a conventional blade. On a very basic level, this averts the [[Knife Nut]] that slashers tend to fall into. It's a breath of fresh air, and aside from the obvious, it's part of why a lot of people like the movie. But when you take a closer look at the individual kills, in conjunction with the nature of the killer, a more interesting possible pattern emerges.
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Three of the six on-screen murders involve water directly. Water symbolizes the feminine in classical tradition, and Freud's interpretation of water is very maternal. Falling into water is said to symbolize birth, or acts of femininity.
Unlike most slashers of the day, this one features a female killer. Sort of. Gender ambiguity is definitely at the thematic heart of this movie. We have a killer who we are led to believe is male (Ricky is the foremost of many red herrings), who turns out to be
This reading of the film becomes interesting when you look at the kills. As I mentioned above, this movie gives you more than your boring old [[Knife Nut]], [[Machete Mayhem]], [[Chainsaw Good]], [[Slasher Movie]] staples. There's also the water motif that I pointed out. Beyond even that, though, this movie subverts the phallic-obsessed, male-gaze-laden tropes that everybody who thinks they know everything about slasher movies always trots out.
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The one onscreen murder that does not seem to fit the pattern is when Mel takes an arrow to the throat. There might be more to this one, but I take context into account. Angela just watched Mel kick the shit out of Ricky, her cousin and her constant protector. She saw the bow and arrow and took her opportunity. Likely this was a "crime of passion" and wasn't planned like the other killings were.
The murders of the kids on the camping trip do not seem to fit any pattern at
Angela's psychosis comes to a [[Incredibly Lame Pun|head]] at the end of the movie. As someone who was ''forced'' to be transgender, we can ascribe every murder she commits to the explosion of already-latent homicidal tendencies in response to that trauma, triggered by being forced to confront her confused sexuality. ''Anyone,'' male or female, who sexually objectifies Angela in the movie ends up dead. In Paul, she meets a boy whom she actually
What emerges from all this is a portrait of a traumatized young person who, like [[Jason Voorhees]], is as easy to pity as to fear. Intentional or not, the Freudian symbolism and the complicated gender politics make this one of the most interesting slashers of the 80s. Bad writing, bad acting, bad photography, bad everything else be damned.
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