Return to Sleepaway Camp

Return to Sleepaway Camp is a sequel to Robert Hiltzik's original 1983 slasher horror movie. He returned after twenty years as the director, writer, producer and executive producer. The film sees the return of three of the main cast from the first. The movie ignores the two sequels from the 1980's and is a direct sequel to the original story. The film follows a socially awkward teenager with learning disabilities while campers and counselors are murdered around him at a summer camp.

Summary
20 years after the massacre at Camp Arawak, a new string of murders erupts at Camp Manabe. Centered around a teenage boy with learning disabilities named Alan, the killing spree slowly builds up, leaving campers and counselors to wonder if the infamous Angela Baker has returned.

Full Synopsis
In a summer night of 2003, in upstate New York, at the understaffed Camp Manabe, (formally named “Camp Arawak”) a cabin of campers named Eddie, Mark and Billy take a cigarette lighter from a glasses-wearing, skinny and meek camper nicknamed “Pee Pee“ by the boys for being a regular bedwetter.

Pee Pee nervously watches as the three teenagers amuse themselves with his cigarette lighter by lighting their flatulence. A misunderstood social outcast named Alan emerges from the nearby bathroom with a comic book and sees the three boys giggling like girls. He rolls the comic book up and threatens to hit them with it, while angrily asking them if they were gossiping about him.

After being informed that they were lighting their flatulence, Alan becomes intrigued and he says he’d like to try that, so he takes the lighter. Pee Pee however tells Alan not to break the cigarette lighter because it belongs to Pee Pee’s father. Alan mocks Pee Pee for being a habitual urinator and orders him to be quiet. Pee Pee wisely obliges.

Alan then attempts to light his flatulence, only to end up accidentally soiling his underwear. The boys in-turn make fun of him. Alan retaliates by igniting hair spray with the lighter to create a flamethrower. He smiles sadistically as he aims fire in the faces of the boys until their abusive, immature, impatient and self-centered counselor Randy enters the cabin and intervenes.

Randy attempts to overpower Alan, but Alan breaks free, shoves Randy, insults him with what is a catchphrase for Alan (“Your ass stinks!”) and escapes from the cabin.

The next day at supper, the greedy, shady and ineffective camp owner, Frank Kostik, introduces the campers to Sheriff Jerry, who is also an anti-smoking speaker. The sheriff has to use a medical device about the size of a small electric razor to produce clearer speech as a result of losing his voice box to cancer of the larynx. He attempts to educate the minors on the dangers of smoking tobacco. He is heckled by the teens however and opts to end the speech, despite Frank’s support.

Alan flicks a spoonful of mashed potatoes in Pee-Pee’s face. Then Alan argues with Randy about the poor quality of the cheap camp food and declines from eating his chicken dinner. Randy has no patience despite the fact that his job is to work with minors, He also shows zero concern for Alan’s feelings and angrily tells Alan to eat the chicken. Feeling threatened and disrespected, Alan throws his plate on the floor. Randy breaks the law and gets physically abusive with him until Alan shoves him away.

The senior counselor and part-owner of the camp, the kind-hearted and sensible Ronnie Angelo, intervenes. Ronnie chastises Randy for his treatment of a 14-year-old. The unprofessional and short-tempered Randy tells Ronnie that Alan was throwing food at the other kids and that Alan refused to eat his dinner.

Ronnie points out to Alan that he and Alan had previously spoken about Alan’s choices and Alan agreed that he would make an effort to work on his behavior. Alan says that everyone keeps picking on him, suggesting that he is reacting out of fear and frustration. Ronnie is sympathetic to how Alan is treated by others and defends him. However, he also knows Alan has emotional problems, but he deals with this by calmly reasoning with Alan to be nicer, patient and more cooperative with others in turn.

Ronnie allows Alan to go into the kitchen and find something he’d like to eat. On the way, Randy insults Alan’s manhood, even though Alan is only 14. Alan is unfazed by Randy’s childish insult and just smirks at him and comically replies to Randy with Alan’s catchphrase. (“Your ass stinks!”)

Still feeling the adrenaline over the encounter with Randy, Alan pulls on the ponytail of a timid female camper with glasses. Followed up by that incident, a loudmouth camper named Bella punches Alan in the stomach. Alan falls to the ground and Bella high-fives her friends. Alan however gets revenge by taking Bella’s plate of food and dumps it right on her chest. Bella stands up to confront him, but is stopped. Alan is unafraid of her.

The camp is not only understaffed, but the few staff members around are just as immature as some of the teenagers, so when Alan bumps into a rude camp server, the server insults Alan’s weight and he sarcastically apologizes to her.

When Alan walks into the kitchen, he is greeted by the head camp chef Charlie. He calls Alan “the camp problem child”, but he says it in a kind, light-hearted way. When Alan politely asks him for something to eat, Charlie tells him that he is finished for the day and leaves him under the supervision of the immature, ill-tempered and lazy assistant cook, Mickey.

When Alan asks Mickey for ice cream, the cook refuses to give him desert and says that Alan can either have an egg salad sandwich or a tuna salad sandwich. Alan feels both options are awful and requests ice cream. Be that as it may, Mickey does not grant his request. However, with Mickey's back turned, Alan is able to steal an ice cream sandwich out of the freezer. Mickey soon catches Alan raiding the freezer, snatches the ice cream from him and insults him.

As Mickey is leaving the kitchen, Alan insults the cook back. Mickey responds by pelting him on the back of his neck with a raw egg. Alan retaliates by throwing a pan at the cook, but misses. Mickey taunts Alan for his poor aim and pelts him on the back with another egg and at that moment, kind counselor Petey walks in to fetch more orange juice for one of the younger campers and sees this. This time, Alan almost kills Mickey when he throws a butcher knife at him and barely misses him by an inch or two to his right, leaving the cook alarmed. The commotion attracts the attention of the campers and camp staff.

Frank, Ronnie and the sheriff storm into the kitchen just as Alan throws the butcher knife at Mickey. Frank scolds the angry boy and Alan runs away. Frank orders Alan's step-brother, Michael, to bring him back. Michael is ruthless, devilishly warped, cruel, aggressive and a bully.

Michael finds Alan at a secluded spot in the woods he often goes to. Alan claims the frogs there are his friends and that they don't care that he was sick once, alluding to rheumatic fever that may have given him permanent brain damage. Michael kicks one of the frogs and tries to bring Alan back to camp, but Alan furiously refuses and threatens Michael with a knife. Michael washes his hands of his step-brother and returns to the camp alone.

Later that night, Mickey prepares supper for himself alone in the kitchen. He walks over to the grill and flips his burgers, then empties a load of cooked french fries from the deep fryer and proceeds to clean it without even bothering to turn it off. Someone clad in black bursts into the kitchen and walks up from behind Mickey and grabs him by the legs, leaving him clinging onto the edges of the fryer. The person then takes a chair and stands on top of it now hanging Mickey upside down right above the fryer. Mickey loses his balance when he accidentally touches the hot oil with his right thumb, allowing the killer to dunk his head in the hot fryer. He writhes in pain for a while before his brain explodes from the heat and he finally dies. The murderer kicks the chair out of the way and leaves Mickey's lifeless body to fall backwards onto the floor, his head now bald, red and covered in blisters. The murderer stuffs the body in a plastic bag, tosses it into the dumpster and turns on the garbage compactor, destroying the corpse.

Ronnie and Charlie complain to Frank about Mickey, who tells them to fire him if he shows up again. Frank ignores Ronnie's demands that they take care of the rat situation, preoccupied with his prized bird, Matilda.

Alan later returns to the camp to go to the social that night. He steals Pee Pee’s chocolate bar from him. Meanwhile, over in the popular kids section, a beautiful, blonde, shy and popular 17-year-old girl named Karen is talking with Bella and the rest of their friends until Bella spots Alan, smiles at him in a friendly and happy way and waves Alan over to join them. The whole camp knows that Alan has a major crush on Karen. Bella and the other campers purposely ditch Karen at that point as a prank when Alan comes up to chat with her.

Karen is visibly disgusted by Alan's smell. She finds out that neither of them like Mickey. Karen tells Alan that Mickey cornered her in the kitchen when she was assigned duty there, implying that he was trying to be lewd with her. Alan assures her that if he were there, he would have assaulted Mickey for his disrespect towards Karen.

A popular bully named T.C, along with Bella join Karen and Alan. Bella makes a remark and laughs at T.C. after Alan knocks him down for giving him a nipple twist. Karen also laughs at T.C's misfortune.

Bella is eager to get revenge on Alan after he humiliated her during dinner, so she grabs Alan by the testicles. Alan gets into an argument with Bella until Frank gets involved and sends Alan back to his cabin, but not before Alan says his catchphrase to him. (“Your ass stinks!”)

On his way out, Alan encounters campers Weed and Stan. They trick him into smoking dried cow manure. Mistaking it for marijuana, he tries to fit in and acts as if he's getting high. While he coughs, he falls to his knees and hugs Stan. T.C. enters and remarks that it looks like Alan is giving Stan a blowjob, so the homophobic boys nickname Alan “Blowjob”. Sympathetic counselor Petey enters, breaks things up and escorts Alan back to his bunk, threatening to tell Ronnie what the boys were doing. The boys think Alan has left the room, but Alan quietly returns, informs the boys of his presence and gives them all the middle finger.

Later that night, Weed and Stan smoke pot with two girls by the lake. Stan and the girls head inside while Weed passes out. The black-clad killer ties Weed to his chair and squirts gasoline down his throat. The killer then gags him with a "Drugs Are For Dummies" sticker and pokes a hole through it with a lit cigarette, blowing him up. Weed's friend, Stan, is never seen again after Weed's death.

The next morning, Frank and Ronnie meet with Sheriff Jerry to discuss Weed's death. It looks like it could be an accident, which Frank insists on, but Ronnie suspects there is a connection to the Camp Arawak murders from twenty years ago. Frank ignores this to avoid bad publicity, but the sheriff decides to investigate further.

Sheriff Jerry travels nearby to a quarry where Angela Baker's cousin, Ricky Thomas works. He questions Ricky, who informs him Angela can't be the killer because she's locked-up in a psychiatric hospital.

The camp continues on with its normal activities. Some girls are playing croquet. Bella actively complains that the game is stupid. Alan interrupts the girls game and demands to have a date with Karen. Bella threatens to shove her mallet up Alan's butt because he refuses to leave unless Karen agrees to go on a date with him. Bella tries to hit Alan with a red croquet ball after he insults her by calling her a man. Karen initially refuses Alan’s request for a date, but finally agrees to join him later in the day, due to him ruining their croquet game.

After that, Alan moons a large group of female campers. From there, Alan tries to join in a group game of paintball with the boys, but it turns out to be a cruel trick so Michael and the rest of the guys can all gang up on him.

Karen doesn’t wish to meet Alan alone, so she brings her friend Marie with her. The two girls meet up with the distraught Alan at his safe space in the woods. Alan offers them soda, but the date is ruined when they spot several dead frogs and living skinned frogs. They believe Alan is responsible and flee to a counselor named Linda at the lake dock for protection.

Alan discovers Michael and his friend are behind the killing of the helpless frogs. Alan has trouble understanding why anyone would murder defenseless frogs and questions why they would do something so cruel. Michael says they did it because they find torturing and killing “cool”, Alan assures Michael and his friend that they will pay for what they did.

In the mean time, Alan chases after Karen and finds her at the dock with Linda, but he is intercepted by T.C. and his cronies. Randy is with them as well and the unprofessional Randy and Linda do nothing to bring order to the altercation. Linda insults Alan and Alan insults her, which motivates Randy to be immature. Despite being an adult, Randy tells T.C. to give Alan a massive wedgie in front of everyone at the waterfront. Alan falls into the lake and almost drowns. Petey runs in and rescues him when Ronnie enters the scene. Alan wishes death to his enemies. He does not know what he’s doing to cause people to hate him so much.

Alan is not a quitter, so he goes to the social that night. Feeling hurt, humiliated and angry however, he pulls on the ponytail of the same female camper he assaulted in the cafeteria before.

Bella is sitting with some of her friends and shoots spitballs at Alan before he goes to confront her. He takes her cup of soda and splashes her clothes. Before Bella can attempt to retaliate, Frank grabs Alan and yells at him over his parrot, Matilda. Frank has discovered that Matilda has learned Alan's catchphrase, "Your ass stinks!” and she says it repeatedly. Frank believes Alan taught Matilda the catchphrase. Alan however denies the accusation and insults the bird. Frank furiously kicks Alan out of the social and Alan says his catchphrase to him.

At some point, Michael, T.C. and Marie peer pressure Karen into helping them prank Alan. When Alan runs outside of the social after being accosted by Frank, Karen lures Alan to the backstage of the recreational hall under the guise of a game she wants him to join. From there, Michael, T.C. and their friends ambush Alan in the dark and take his clothes off. They bind his arms, blindfold him and push him out on a stage, in front of the entire camp in only his underwear. The kids laugh at him until Petey rushes on stage and comes to his aide. Karen peeks out of the stage curtain with a guilty look on her face as Alan is escorted out. Ronnie is furious over the prank and orders Randy to get to the bottom of the situation. Randy however complains that it's his night off. Petey clothes Alan and brings him to Ronnie's shack. Alan is able to fall asleep.

Growing more paranoid, Ronnie believes that Petey is the killer because she's always there to save Alan whenever he’s in trouble. He confronts her in a rage, but is interrupted by Sheriff Jerry and Frank, who orders Petey to go back to her bunk, which she does. Michael, T.C. and their friends start chanting, "Blowjob" outside the shack. Alan is awoken and is driven mad, so he flees into the woods. Ronnie confines T.C. to his cabin for a week and tries finding Alan while Frank grounds the rest of the campers.

After returning to his office, Frank is knocked unconscious with a hammer and wakes up with his head stuck in his birdcage. The killer opens the birdcage, places two angry rats inside and locks it. The rats eat through Frank's head and exit via his intestines.

Randy and Linda go to the pump house to attempt to have sex. Before that however, Randy is seen urinating in the woods, Linda goes to the back of her Jeep to get something. The killer ties Randy to a tree and wraps a fishing line noose around his penis. Randy, thinking it’s Alan who’s doing this to him, begins to yell at him to let him go. When Linda hears Randy, she becomes frightened. She drives away, unaware that the fishing line is tied to the vehicle. She runs into a pot hole and gets the jeep stuck. She tries to get it out, which pulls hard on Randy’s penis. She continues to make attempts to get out of the pot hole, but with no success, much to Randy’s relief for every attempt left the wire tugging and pulling on his penis. Eventually, Linda notices the 4-wheel-drive function and uses it to escape the pot hole. The fishing line tied to Randy’s penis grows tight as she drives away and gives one final mighty pull to Randy’s penis before ripping it off. Randy eventually bleeds to death. Linda screams that she would be next to die without noticing a barbed wire that was missing from the shed they were parked at. Linda drives through the string of barbed wire placed on the road, crashing the vehicle and wrapping her face in the dangerous material. Linda eventually saw the barbed wire hanging across the road, but it was too late and couldn't stop. The barbed wire gets entangled around her throat and head and she crashes into a tree. She stays alive for a long time, but finally bleeds to death in the jeep after Karen ran off in terror upon finding her.

Ronnie returns from searching for Alan and checks on T.C every 15 minutes to make sure he’s still in his cabin. When the other boys invite T.C. to join them on a panty raid in the girls' cabin, they are all stopped by Ronnie waiting outside, who orders T.C. back inside. T.C. looks at a dirty magazine alone in his cabin. All of a sudden, a wooden spear pops up through a hole in the floor and pokes a hole through the magazine, startling him. As Spaz enters the cabin from a panty raid to inform T.C. on what he missed out on, T.C. tries to explain to his friend what he just witnessed. Spaz looks through the hole and spots the spear laying on the floor below, shrugging it off soon afterwards. T.C. is more serious about the matter as the object is as sharp as a spike. Spaz looks through the hole a second time and admits that it is too dark for him to see anything down there. Amazed at his friend's apparent stupidity, T.C. tells him that he can see it perfectly and peers into the hole to prove it. Without warning, the spear gouges his right eye out. In a panic, T.C. stumbles around screaming in pain with the spear still wedged in his socket until he walks into a wall and forces the stick right through his head. T.C. shakes from the trauma, then drops dead. Then Spaz screams in horror like a little girl screaming in pain. He is not seen again.

As Bella walks to her cabin, she sees someone has tampered with her private stash of candies. Fixing her stash, she then lays on her bed to read a comic book, The killer has tied one end of a small wire to a blanket hanging below a camper named Marie's bunk and waits quietly somewhere, holding the other end. She pulls the wire causing the blanket hanging below Marie's bunk to fall on Bella, who angrily removes the cover. Upon noticing a board of sharp nails above her, she exclaims a quick "What the fuck?" The killer then jumps onto Marie's bed, causing it and the board of nails to fall on the victim. Bella suddenly felt Marie's bunk cave in on her and gasped while trying in vain to shield herself, but the bunk crushed and impaled Bella, killing her. Karen and Marie would later find Bella's body complete with a pool of blood on the floor surrounding her stash of candies, finally prompting Karen to believe that Alan is responsible and that she’s next, so screams that Alan is going to kill her and she flees into the woods.

Ronnie and Jenny find Frank's body in his office and realize there is a murderer on the loose. T.C.'s corpse is found as well, sending the kids and teens in a chaotic frenzy. Ronnie and a counselor named Jenny round up the counselors to protect their campers. Sheriff Jerry arrives, as well as Ricky Thomas, claiming the sheriff called him, but Jerry denies it. Michael learns about the killings and runs from the counselors to find Karen.

Karen stumbles into the killer in the woods and faints. She wakes up at the Rec. Hall with a rope hanging from a basketball hoop tied around her neck. The killer flips a switch to raise the net, causing Karen to lift off the ground. Michael comes in before Karen hangs to death. The Sheriff arrives and lowers the net. Michael is enraged, grabs a mallet and vows to take care of Alan once and for all.

Michael finds Alan in the woods with frogs and savagely beats him, until the killer appears behind Michael.

Ronnie, Ricky and Jenny find the badly wounded Alan on the ground. Alan learned that someone committed murders at camp on his behalf. Alan wished that the murderer killed all the campers and camp staff that abused and tortured him, but is glad the murderer killed most of them, as he hated them.

As Ronnie gets information from Alan, Sheriff Jerry comes up behind Ronnie and Ricky, explaining that he's been waiting a long time for this. They discover Michael nearby: he's been skinned alive and murdered for what he did to Alan and his frogs. Jenny flees in fright.

Jerry removes his hat, sunglasses and stage make-up, revealing himself to be the escaped Angela Baker. Alan learned about his step brother's death. It is unknown whether he and Karen made up after they learned that Angela was behind all the murders.

Angela laughs maniacally until she stops and looks directly at the camera with a vicious blank expression before the screen blacks out.

A flashback shows Angela weeks earlier, after she's escaped from the mental institute. She fakes car problems and flags down Sheriff Pete. She acts frantically and tricks him into looking under the car, enabling her to drop the vehicle down on his head, explaining how she became the hero of the movie.

Cast
Felissa Rose as Angela Baker/"Sheriff Jerry"

Vincent Pastore as Frank Kostic

Michael Gibney as Alan Chambers

Paul DeAngelo as Ronnie

Jonathan Tiersten as Ricky Thomas

Isaac Hayes as Charlie

Lenny Venito as Mickey

Erin Broderick as Karen

Adam Wylie as Weed Williams

Kate Simses as Petey

Brye Cooper as Randy Jillani

Michael Werner as Michael Dam

Christopher Shand as T.C. Dimas

Jaime Radow as Jenny

Shadidah McIntosh as Bella Boyd

Jackie Tohn as Linda O'Casey

Paul Iacono as Pee

Chaz Brewer as Stan

Ashley Carin as Alex

Samantha Hahn as Marie

Jake O'Conner as Spaz

Lucas Blondheim as Chooch

Lauren Taub as Joanie

Samantha Hiltzik as Carly

Emily Hiltzik as Tracey

Lindsey Hiltzik as Toby

Miles Thompson as Eddie

Tommy John Riccardo as Mark

Carlo Vogel as Sheriff Pete

Kole Evans as Dina

Mary Elizabeth King as Sue Meyers

Dee Dee Friedman as Aunt Gracie

Reggie Shawn Harris as Louie

Tony Ray Rossi as Camp Counselor

Jess Margera as Camp Counselor

Deron Miller as Camp Counselor

Chad Ginsburg as Camp Counselor

Vern Zaborowski as Camp Counselor

Greg Raposo as Gary

Dino Roscigno as Billy

Mike Tatosian as Cook

Judy Unger as Ellen

Charles Sammarco as Fire Chief

Melissa West as Evey

Christian Hess as Vinny

Stefani Milanese as Tammy

Matt Rivers as Joey

Tony Luke Jr. as Bo

Webster P. Whinnery Jr. as Zip Line Boy

Drake Bell (uncredited) as a Camper named Barney Fife

Jenny Coyle (uncredited) as Jess Lanmer

Robert V. Galluzzo (uncredited) as a Counselor

Paul LeToy (uncredited) as a Counselor

Daniel McGraw (uncredited) as a Camper named Luis

Christopher Piccione (uncredited) as a Counselor

Sue Sadik (uncredited) as a Counselor

Chris Violette (uncredited) as a Ken Bachman

https://www.autismspeaks.org/

https://www.stopbullying.gov/

Mystery
Returning to the themes of the original, this film also included the whodunit? aspect of the first film. The killer is seen wearing all black, his or her identity obscured from the viewer. The audience is presented with the mystery of who the killer could be. Candidates include the long locked-up Angela Baker, her conveniently close cousin Ricky, the kind counselor Petey or the misunderstood teenager, Alan.

Theories
This film adds fire to some fan theories. Those who believe Ricky assisted in the original killing cite that he defends Angela and says that he visited her shortly before the "Sheriff" visits. The timeline is tight, but she may have escaped after that and had enough time to make it to Camp Manabe and killed Mickey.

Some fans have also speculated that there are two Angelas. They believe Felissa Rose's Angela and Pamela Springsteen's Angela to be different characters. Because this film ignores the first two sequels, and dialogue suggests that Felissa Rose's Angela has been locked up for twenty years, this may be the case, but it is still ambiguous.

Remake Aspect
Return to Sleepaway Camp is part remake, filmed when horror remakes were the craze. Many characters are analogues to original Sleepaway Camp characters by being similar or opposite.


 * Protagonist Alan is the polar opposite of the original Angela. She is a shy girl, while he tries to be social. In both films, those who bully them are murdered.


 * Michael is related to the protagonist but bullies him, whereas Ricky was related to his protagonist, but protected her. Both had anger management issues.


 * Frank and Mel Kostic are similar camp owners, seeming to care more about making a buck than protecting their charges.


 * In both films, Ronnie, the head counselor, acts as a moral compass.


 * There are mean counselors (Meg and Linda) and kind counselors who protect the protagonist (Susie and Petey).


 * In both films a nasty chef (Artie and Mickey) are killed after bothering the protagonist, and a second, African American chef (Ben and Charlie) played by well known actors (Robert Earl Jones and Isaac Hayes) are friendly and disappear half way through the film.


 * In both films the protagonist is bothered by a bitchy camper his or her own gender (Judy and T.C.) and have feelings for a kind-hearted fellow camper (Paul and Karen).


 * Mel nearly beats Ricky to death after Meg was killed; Michael nearly beats Alan to death with a mallet when Karen was almost killed. Both Mel and Michael also call the protagonist a liar.
 * Both films feature a police officer with fake facial hair.

For further similarities, see Remake Connections.

Sequel
Robert Hiltzik announced plans for this to be the second part of his Sleepaway Camp trilogy. The next film would be Sleepaway Camp: Reunion, and see the highly anticipated return of Aunt Martha, a character referenced in each sequel but not seen since the original. However, due to this film being a financial failure that received horrible reviews, the sequel was never made.

Trivia

 * There may be a timeline problem. The night of the finale appears to be the same day as Alan showing Karen his frogs and getting a wedgie because nearly every character appears to be wearing the same clothes. In between this, however, 'Sheriff Jerry' talks to Ricky. When Ricky reappears at the end, it is mentioned that they haven't seen each other since 'last week.' This means the night of the finale must take place several days later and everyone happens to be dressed the same way as before, proving that Alan wasn’t the only slob.


 * Scripts were circulated with fake endings to avoid spoilers leaking.
 * The line Alan yells to a group of campers, “I hope you all die” was said before by Danny Devito as Louie De Palma in the television show, “Taxi”, season two, episode 8, titled “The Great Race”.
 * There was bad karma during the making of this film. Director Robert Hiltzik said in an interview that there were a lot of natural disasters during the filming of the movie, such as rain, thunder and hail. There was even snow, despite it being summer time when this film was shot. The crew also lost electricity several times.