Sleepaway Camp Films

Here’s the trailer to Jeff’s spinoff short, Judy starring Karen Fields and based off her character from Sleepaway Camp (1983). It looks like the curling iron is fired up and ready to go!

Check out superfan Kevin E. Scott’s newly inked and colored tattoo based on the Fright Rags‘ Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers tee!

SleepawayCampFilms will soon be interviewing the beautiful Jill Terashita of Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland and Night of The Demons. You’ll recall she played Arab, who lost her head to Angela’s axe. As is customary where possible, we give the fans the opportunity to get their questions answered. Simply email in your questions or post them in the comments of this article!

Unhappy Campers & Teenage Wasteland producer/director Michael A. Simpson has found great success with the recent US theatrical release Crazy Heart starring Jeff Bridges, which he produced. On Sunday the film won two Golden Globes for Best Actor and Best Original Song. If you haven’t seen it before, click below for the full size poster featuring Simpson’s credit. SleepawayCampFilms and its fans congratulate him on yet another feather in his professional cap!

Over a year after it was released, we must admit Return To Sleepaway Camp has been quite slow to move beyond the USA, but thankfully Region-free DVD players and places like Amazon make that sort of a moot point. We recently learned of the 5th film hitting DVD in Germany, where it has been given a variation of the original cover art.

A new officially licensed t-shirt based on Michael A. Simpson’s Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers is now on sale through Fright-Rags! We think you’ll agree that Jeff Zornow’s artwork is breathtaking! Don’t forget you can also purchase camp replica tees via links in our Store.

No, that doesn’t stand for ProDuction Fast-track, silly! One of the most frequent requests has been to compile the Sleepaway Camp Berserk opening script pages & storyboards into one handy document, and now that wish has been granted. Here’s the whole shebang - carefully collected and formatted into a .pdf file for use with Adobe Reader. It looks great printed out, trust us!

We recently got our greasy mits on a stunning High-Definition broadcast version of the original Sleepaway Camp - and while initial interest was in the uncut scenes re-edited back in (appreciated, but sadly not as seamless as any original theatrical print would easily offer) - the real revelations were found in the enhanced depth of image detail. For example, take a look at the “hatcheted kiddies in sleeping bags” scene of the film, commonly attacked as being shot so dark as to be rendered unwatchable. The HD version, correctly transferred, gives us a much clearer look at the carnage. Click below and feast your eyes.

Longtime associate of Sleepaway Camp Films, Giles Lavery, is seen here at the New Jersey location of Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor (1992), working on some DVD Extras for us.

Sleepaway Camp Films was saddened to hear of John Hughes’ passing last week. The legendary teen comedy/drama auteur had considerable impact upon Michael A. Simpson’s pair of Sleepaway Camp sequels.

It bears repeating that in Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers, writer Fritz Gordon named characters after the so-called ‘brat pack’ and specifically name-checked the cast of The Breakfast Club: Molly [Ringwald], Ally [Sheedy], Emilio [Estevez], Judd [Nelson], Anthony [Michael Hall] and even Uncle John, a reverent position referring to Hughes.

Overall, the atypical character interactions and soap operatic elements of the sequels are in direct response to the direction John Hughes took teenage-centric cinema in the 1980’s.

Interestingly, at some point post-Teenage Wasteland, Gordon extended his appreciation of The Breakfast Club into a never-realized treatment entitled The Angel Of Death which positioned Angela as a teacher in high school bumping off kids stuck in detention.

I urge you all to read this amazing secret story about John Hughes.