Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, with queer horror Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma opening in theaters, let’s revisit one of its schlocky slasher inspirations, 1988’s Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers.
This weekend, the highly anticipated Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma opens in theaters across the country. The film comes from visionary trans director Jane Schoenbrun as a follow-up to 2024’s I Saw The TV Glow and their 2021 directorial debut We’re All Going To The World’s Fair—two completely unique movies that deconstruct hope media can shape and consume identity, both of which have gained a devoted following.
How about we take this to the next level?
Subscribe to our newsletter for a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today
Schoenbrun is back to familiar waters (no pun intended) with Camp Miasma, a love letter to—and in many ways, an indictment of—the classic slasher genre and how it imprinted on younger viewers. It stars Hannah Einbinder as a filmmaker who is hired to direct a new entry of a long-in-the-tooth horror franchise, seeking out its original final girl (Gillian Anderson in a hypnotizing & haunting grand dame performance) to convince her to star.
The film pays homage to and borrows directly from many beloved slasher series of the ’80s and their many sequels, reboots, “requels” and re-imaginings. This week, we’ll take a look at a series with a clear influence on Camp Miasma, the follow-up to a film that we covered in this column only a few months ago.
The Set-Up
1983’s Sleepaway Camp is one of the most infamous horror films of the 1980s. Set at a teenage summer camp, it follows a group of campers who get picked off, one by one, by a mysterious killer in gruesome (and often quite ridiculous) fashion. The deranged murderer turns out to be—*spoiler alert!*—Angela Baker, one of the campers we thought was being targeted. As it turns out, Angela was born as a boy and them forcefully raised female by her mentally disturbed aunt after a gruesome accident killed her father and twin sister.
Sleepaway Camp still has one of the most memorable and shocking “twist” endings in slasher history, and its ramifications on trans representation are still highly debated even today; it’s no surprise that it was one of the core inspirations for Camp Miasma. And, as is common for the genre, a sequel did not take long to appear. In 1988, five years after the original, Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers was released.
The film again follows Angela Baker (Pamela Springsteen—yes, the sister of Bruce Springsteen!), the convicted murderer of the first movie, who has escaped the insane asylum where was committed, and is now working at a different summer camp as a counselor. The tale of the camper that went insane and went on a killing spree has become an urban legend among the staff, who dismiss it as mere hearsay. They just want to party, drink, have sex, and enjoy their summers.
However, Angela is a stickler for following rules. So every time someone behaves in a way that she considers less than exemplary (which usually involves dressing in a provocative manner, actively seductive, or having sex), Angela “dismisses” them and sends them away. Which of course means killing them in outrageous, cruel, and honestly quite inventive ways.
Related
With its short-shorts & shocking twist ending, is this slasher problematic or a queer camp classic?
The final reveal of 1983’s ‘Sleepaway Camp’ is still debated to this day.
But Is It Camp?
Sleepaway Camp II is a decidedly more self-aware (and, in a way, much more lighthearted) film than its predecessor. The first Sleepaway Camp took itself entirely too seriously with its complicated backstory, its gruesome killings, and its attempts to create a semi-logical narrative. Of course, that’s a big part of why it’s endured as a camp classic for many; it’s fueled by an earnest desire to create a truly unsettling slasher.
But the sequel throws all of that away, leaning into the absurdity that began to permeate the slasher genre and its culture of endless sequels. For one, it lets audiences in on the identity of the killer right from the beginning. We know Angela’s behind the massacre—we see her setting her fellow counselors on fire, and using various weapons to perforate and kill them. The tension then falls on when—if ever—the rest of the characters will catch up to what we already know. Since our POV is aligned with the antagonist of the story, the film lets us indulge in their brutality more directly.
It also plays with the many themes and tropes that slashers became known for to the point of parody, particularly the direct link between (fittingly!) teenage sex and death. Being killed off as punishment for sexual behavior is not a mere thematic suggestion here—it’s overt text that is hammered over and over, in a way that feels entirely intentional, almost mocking. At one point, characters even dress up as slasher icons Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Leatherface, further highlighting the film’s winking, meta nature.
A Complicated Trans Legacy
The story is episodic and takes a back seat to the inventive death sequences. There’s not much more than “counselor disappears and is killed. Rinse and repeat.” But most interestingly, the “trans twist” that so defined the first one plays a much less prominent role in this one. That’s not to say it’s completely forgotten, swept under the rug, or retconned; there are still many references with their fair share of homophobic and transphobic implications, and we’re still made to understand that Angela is a deranged killer because of it.
But it feels like the movie had to add this on mostly because of existing lore. It’s hard to imagine the first Sleepaway Camp without that particular element, but it’s quite easy to see a version of Sleepaway Camp II that doesn’t include that at all. The fact that Felissa Rose was recast as Angela with Pamela Springsteen for this sequel also makes that point clearer: It’s more about franchise consistency than a considered character trait.
Return To Sleepaway Camp
Sleepaway Camp would go on to have three more sequels, all of which included Angela, and played with her gender identity to some degree or other. These days, it’s mostly remembered for this unique legacy within the slasher genre and queer cinema, for better or for words—which Jane Schoenbrun is all too happy to mine and reference in their own work.
Yet it remains a fascinating product of its era worth revisiting through a modern lens; one whose politics and ideas feel simultaneously regressive and ahead of their time. Is this extreme dichotomy still possible? Maybe Camp Miasma is the place to find that out.
Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers is currently streaming on Tubi & The Roku Channel, and is available for digital rental or purchase via Amazon Prime Video & Apple TV.
Related
No hack jobs: 10 queer slasher movies that are good for a scare—or a laugh
Don’t pick up the phone, don’t answer the door, and—whatever you do—don’t turn off the TV… because there are plenty of queer slasher movies to watch!
Sign up for the Queerty newsletter to stay on top of the hottest stories in LGBTQ+ entertainment, politics, and culture.
