The year was 1999. Or maybe it was 1998. That doesn't really matter, does it?Before we all had cell phones and easily accessible internet info, we used to discover legends on our own. Two friends of mine, Adam and Rob, were really into horror movies.
I wasn't.
Not that I scared easily or anything, but when it came to horror movies I was kind of a little bitch. Ask my wife about how I had to watch Freddy Kruger at 1pm with all the lights on.
My friends and I used to go for walks everywhere, and usually we ended up at Jumbo Video (a Canadian video superstore like Blockbuster used to be except there are still a couple Jumbos open in a few places). Adam and Rob would always want to check out the horror section and I'd tag along, always suggesting we sneak into the back porno room instead. They'd look at these really horrendously stupid horror movies and crack jokes about the titles, the covers, and just how bad the movies looked.
It dawned on me that they actually liked them for how bad they were. That's when I stumbled on this odd looking VHS tape - Sleepaway Camp. Yes, I said VHS... long before we had Blu-Rays and DVDs we had to watch movies on VHS tapes. We even had to be kind and rewind.
I picked up the tape and suggested they check it out. It looked really bad. Really cheesy. In fact, I remember Adam saying something along the lines of how bad camp slashers were and that this one in particular almost looked too bad for even him to watch. Now, Adam does have shitty taste in movies, but when it comes to bad horror movies I'll give him all the credit that is due. He's 99.9% right most of the time.It actually took us a few more visits to Jumbo Video before we rented Sleepaway Camp. That same night I was given a VHS of Ultimate Warrior wrestling matches, but was warned that the previous owner may have recorded porn over it. Either way, I was ready to be entertained.
We took the Sleepaway Camp video to Adam's house with a vast array of snacks that included Pepsi, chips, dip, doritos, popcorn, and probably chocolate bars.
The movie is pretty cheesy, and almost too hard to watch at times. It centers around a young girl named Angela, who is sent to camp with her cousin Ricky. Ricky's the man, and he's protective of Angela because she's really quiet and awkward and all the pretty girls pick on her. Then people start dying. Mind you, they start dying in neat creative ways. A poor teenage girl gets her curling iron shoved up her vagina while being murdered. The camp's cook has a large pot of boiling water dumped on him, and the police give their expert opinion that he was "badly burned to death".
...And I'm not about to give the ending to this movie away. Watch it for yourself. It WILL change your life.
We were in so much shock that we tossed on the Ultimate Warrior video to try and relax our nerves. Then I realized it might really be porn, and none of us were in the mood to see a naked woman after Sleepaway Camp. Luckily, the Ultimate Warrior defeated Papa Shango for our viewing pleasure.
None of us looked at a woman the same for weeks after, and even as we walked home from Adam's house we were afraid of what girls might jump out of the bushes and kill us with their "weapon". We also began telling everyone we knew that they had to watch it just for the ending. And we all vowed never to date a girl named Angela, just in case.
Sleepaway Camp has two sequels that are even cheesier but don't deliver the same shock. Watch them only if you want to say you've seen them all.
- ryan
(*On a side note, Sleepaway Camp isn't really the scariest movie I've ever seen. That was The Ring, which kept me awake for almost two weeks straight afterwards because I was so scared that I nearly shit myself like a little bitch. But Sleepaway Camp holds a very special place in my heart.)
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| "Ay yo, Angela!" |
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