Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Scary Movie Month - Week 4 - Tuesday

So... our awesome, exciting plans for tonight have been changed, turns out some folks want The Dude's band to play this really awesome gig tonight so he'll be heading out to do that tonight, rather than tucking in cosily at home.

Bah.

Just as well, I suppose, since I really should be resting for Sunday's race, getting as much sleep as I can possibly can, rather than staying up late to watch scary movies and then staying up later still so I don't go to sleep thinking about those movies.

Well, because I am mostly a good sport (and because I should really be going to bed early), we have created new exciting plans for tonight and then for later this week. Both involving kidlets and therefore taking place earlier in the evening. I'll report back on those once they actually happen.

Yesterday, however, we kept to the original plan which meant watching this soul-sucker:

Sleepaway Camp (1983)
After we finished watching this, we listened to a bit of commentary and were astounded to realize that this was evidently some kind of cult classic. And even more surprised to go online and find out that there were another three, yes three, sequels. Well, I won't give away the twist ending, but will just say that this movie was not scary, not funny, and not enjoyable. And that it is clearly a product of its time (early 80s), so some of its premises were not amusing to me at all. Overall... meh.

I understand that the exact reasons I disliked it are why some people enjoy this type of movie, that it is a type (bad 80's teen slasher movie), and to be enjoyed as camp, as fodder for ridicule, in comparison to others of its type, and so on. I'm just not the right audience for it then. I take my movies too seriously to enjoy watching something just to make fun of it (hence my inability to enjoy "Plan 9 From Outer Space") and yet not seriously enough to dig down into what makes this one better/worse/different from others like it. Oh well. The Dude insists on one teen slasher movie each year (I thought "The Cabin In The Woods" was enough of that trope to count for this year's but I guess not) and so this year "Sleepaway Camp" was it.

2 comments:

  1. Friends of mine LOVE Sleepaway Camp for its campiness...are you a lover or hater of the Scream series? I find they have just the right balance of campy moments and serious-business scares

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    1. I enjoyed "Scream" (I've only seen the first one), but thought it took itself lightly, whereas "Sleepaway Camp" didn't seem to... maybe the sequels are more so.

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