The Burning And Sleepaway Camp Are The Most Underrated Summer Slasher Flicks

We all know Friday the 13th as the quintessential summer slasher flick. Take the isolation of a campground, mix in some clueless councilors and a hidden killer, and you have a recipe for a classic horror film. Following its release, a whole slew of slasher films were released, all of mostly dithering quality. But from Friday’s shadow arose two highly underrated flicks—The Burning and Sleepaway Camp.

The Burning centers on a camp caretaker who is burned severely in a prank gone wrong and returns to wreak his vengeance, while Sleepaway Camp follows two siblings as they go to summer camp following a family tragedy, only for mysterious murders to occur. While these two films follow a central premise, they couldn’t be more different in their execution, and I argue that both are even better than Friday the 13th. The Burning and Sleepaway Camp’s protagonists are both introverted and soft-spoken, and I immediately sympathized with them. Alfred, protagonist of The Burning, is a loner with no friends, whom one of the camp councilors takes under his wing, while Sleepaway Camp’s Angela Baker is mostly silent, with only her cousin to confide in.

Slasher films are known for their apathetic characters, or at least those that we delight in seeing get cut down, but that’s not the case with these films. Sure, there are at least one or two characters that draw your ire, but a majority of the folks in these films weren’t ones I detested. There aren’t any stellar performances to be had here (these are slasher flicks after all), but they were believable enough for me to be somewhat interested in them, or at least be horrified when their eventual deaths appear on-screen. While the kills are the highlight of these films, their presentation also makes them unique.

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Which brings me to the killers in each film. While Friday the 13th’s murderer was hidden until the very end, we all know who The Burning’s slasher is. Our initial introduction to Cropsy is him being horribly pranked, only for the prank to go haywire and his body being set alight. After undergoing surgery for skin-grafts that fail, he makes his way to enact his revenge on the unlucky campers there five years later. We never get to see what his face looks like, but when his first victim sees him and is repulsed, there’s a feeling that it ain’t pretty. His murder-weapon is garden shears, and they’re used to macabre effect. Each of his kills follows a wicked synth score, hammering that 80s atmosphere.

The killer in Sleepaway Camp remains hidden until the very end, which packs one hell of a punch that eclipses Friday’s twist ending. Unlike The Burning, Sleepaway Camp’s death scenes are slower and drawn out, taking a slow-burn approach to its horror. At the beginning, Angela Baker, her brother Peter, and their father are taking a swim. Tragedy strikes as they swim into the path of a reckless boat, killing Peter and their father. Like Friday the 13th and The Burning, a timeskip occurs, with eight years passing. Angela, traumatized and now living with her eccentric aunt, is sent alongside her cousin Ricky to summer camp. Due to her quiet nature, Angela is bullied relentlessly, only for her tormentors to meet some kind of bloody retribution by an unknown force.

This brings me to the kills. The aforementioned garden shears are the main tool of destruction, and never is that more relevant than in the infamous ‘kayak scene.’ After a kayak goes missing, a group of campers take off in search of it. They spot it and row towards it. The camera slowly zooms in on the lone boat, and just as the campers reach it, Cropsy explodes from it with a loud roar. His silhouette rises up from the boat, shears raised above his head. He quickly dispatches the campers one by one, the camera quick-cutting on the impressive practical gore effects. It’s a bloody good payoff to one hell of a build-up.

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Sleepaway Camp doesn’t skimp out on the carnage, but it separates itself from The Burning by being more subtle. Each kill is drawn out, allowing you to take in the killer’s contempt. One victim named Meg, who previously tormented Angela, is taking a shower. She enters the stall and lathers up, humming a tune. Suddenly a knife plunges through the wall she’s leaning against, drawing blood. Finally, we cut to the knife being washed under that same shower head before the water’s turned off (because even killers care about water wastage.)

SPOILERS

Finally, we arrive at each film’s distinct ending. We’ve been dropped hints and clues to what Cropsy looks like after his disfigurement, but never a full picture. After Alfred is captured by the killer, the councilor named Todd gives chase, and he ends up in an abandoned mineshaft. After searching the location in silence, we are jumpscared by Cropsy’s true face, which is as horrific as we thought. Alfred frees himself and after wounding the killer with his own shears, and Todd kills him with an ax. Alfred than sets his body alight with his own flamethrower, and the camera pans out on Cropsy’s flaming corpse. This turns the ‘killler jumping out for a last scare’ trope on its head, resorting more for a concrete ending.

Sleepaway Camp’s ending is even more shocking. After meeting with her friend Paul at the beach, the councilors who were sympathetic towards Angela come across her, only to find her cradling Paul’s severed head. Seeing them, Angela raises up, only to reveal she’s not who she appears to be. It’s discovered that the real Angela Baker died in that boating accident, and their auntie forced her brother into the role of his sister. It’s unlike anything seen in the genre, and witnessing a bloodied Angela growling unnaturally is nightmare fuel.

If you’re a horror fan looking for the next bloody, ’80s-synth scored, gorey meal, give The Burning and Sleepaway Camp a shot. You won’t be disappointed.

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