Sleepaway Camp may be expanding its movie franchise with an upcoming prequel, but there are several things they must do in order to ensure that it will be successful. The highly controversial contents of the original could ultimately lead to its downfall if not executed properly. While prequel movies can be welcome additions to any horror franchise, they can also lead to a wealth of issues for them that necessitate retcons, additional expansion, and reevaluating entire timelines. Here’s everything that a Sleepaway Camp prequel must do to be successful.
Written and directed by Robert Hiltzik, Sleepaway Camp features a classic slasher setting with a unique killer twist at the end. It stars Felissa Rose as Angela/Peter Baker, an individual who was biologically born male and was raised as a young woman. There is a lot of controversy that surrounds this premise in particular due to its misconception of transgender people and their experiences. It ascribes a set of forcefulness applied to a person’s identity. While it is can be considered an LGBTQIA+ horror classic, it must be noted that the inclusion of Angela’s story was used more as a gimmick than it was as a form of representation. Despite its controversial contents, the series went on to include three sequels, with the most recent releasing in 2008 as Return To Sleepaway Camp.
In recent years, the slasher sub-genre has become increasingly popular with David Gordon Green’s reboot of John Carpenter’s Halloween, the remake of Bob Clark’s Black Christmas in 2019, and the upcoming fifth installment in Wes Craven’s Scream franchise. While it had grown stale and predictable in the 1990s, its been given all new life in the 2010s and 2020. As such, it comes as no surprise that other slasher horror movies are joining in the craze of reboot, remakes, and sequels, including Sleepaway Camp.
There is nearly nothing that can really be done to erase the controversy that came with Angela’s reveal at the end of Sleepaway Camp. The ending remains the same no matter how many times they’ve tried to remedy it. If they truly choose to go the route of a prequel, it may be necessary to revisit the ways that they’ve navigated Angela’s storyline by returning to her origin story. At the same time, this could become a major issue for the series if they do not take into account the experiences of transgender people who lived and navigated the 1970s and 1980s — when Angela would’ve been raised.
Felissa Rose has acknowledged that something will come of Sleepaway Camp in the future. She has mentioned that a prequel would be the most desirable route to take because it offers the opportunity to explore who Aunt Martha is and what propelled her towards treating Angela in such a way. It could give the series a chance to fix some of its plot holes as well, such as why Angela did not go to camp with Ricky the summer before, but for some reason went that year in particular. If a prequel is on the horizon, the filmmakers must be attentive towards what the original movie set up for the sequels and what scenes informed Angela’s origins.
Representation does matter and can offer a lot to a community of people, but, if it is done improperly, can have long term negative effects on them as well. A prequel for Sleepaway Camp will inevitably involve what happened to Angela prior to what Aunt Martha did and, therefore, necessitates someone who has actual knowledge on these experiences to be involved in the project. If not, then a prequel could end up being more controversial than the original movie.
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