Spooky Penis Month begins, perfectly, on Friday the 13th with SLEEPAWAY CAMP!
This is our 3rd year of Halloween content. Even to this day, we can't decide on what to call it. Is it "Spooky Penis Month"? Is it "Halloweiners"? It can probably be a combination of both.
Either way, we're starting off our favourite season right with a film we're a little embarrassed to have not seen before. Yeah, it's Robert Hiltzik's cult classic SLEEPAWAY CAMP. I mean, we're glad we waited to cover this film as adults as it's easily one of the best horror films we've seen with an ending that honestly leaves you haunted but also, one of the most important scenes we've covered on this podcast.
You honestly won't want to miss our commentary on this classic but if you have yet to see the film, please don't allow it to be spoiled for you. You have been warned!
Laura: It's October and it's Spooky Penis Month. It's my favorite month. It's the time of the season where we get down to seeing some penis.
Ryan: Wow. I should just change the theme song.
Laura: Hello there. Welcome to On the Beat, the podcast that uncovers shh full frontal male nudity in cinema. And welcome to Spooky Penis Month Halloween.
Ryan: Um I don't know. Well, we've had this conversation on every single every single time we've released a, uh, Halloween episode, we've decided I think we always settled on Spooky Penis Month. Right?
Laura: It doesn't sound great.
Ryan: It doesn't sound good. Halloweeners, I guess.
Laura: I think he did Mcqueeners.
Ryan: Yeah, but this is Halloweeners. I'm not saying that we're going yeah. I mean, we keep on going back to the well, it really doesn't keep penis Month. Uh, yeah. A fog is rolling in.
Laura: Did I see the part where this.
Ryan: Is the witches and the goblins? What's that? Oh, yeah, all the werewolves and the dick suckers. The blood suckers.
Laura: Totally.
Ryan: All of the things that you find scary. Politicians, I guess, is another thing that's really scary.
Laura: Say that in this house. Um, as you know, as you have probably listened to this podcast before, we are the podcasts that uncover full frontal male nudity in cinema, in Spooky Penis movies. And I am Laura, and I'm joined, as you heard by my co host, Ryan.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Wow.
Ryan: Isn't the horror genre a blessed thing? It is, yes.
Laura: The only films I have logged on my letterboxd for the past week have been horror movies.
Ryan: OOH, horror movies.
Laura: We've been dipping our toes into Halloween horror nights for about a month already. So I am pretty much well ready for this.
Laura: And we are going to talk about a film today that has been requested several times, actually. So I hope you guys enjoy. We are going to be talking about the 1983 slasher film Sleepaway Camp starring Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tierston, Karen Field and Christopher Colette. Written and Directed by Robert Hiltzick yes. I'm almost embarrassed to say that today was the first time either of us have watched this film.
Ryan: Yes. Um, I don't know why I hadn't seen the film. I always felt like and this was me being incredibly ignorant and this isn't really the case, but I thought it was like, um, a Friday the 13th rip off, basically because it's set in a camp and it's by a lake. And obviously that's the staple of the Friday the 13th movie. Or at least that first one, to be fair.
Laura: I don't know why I hadn't watched it. But people have told me to watch it. And I think it just got to a point where I knew that this was going to be a part of the podcast. So I was holding off and holding off. And it had been recommended. And I go, I'm going to wait until it's the day that we are recording the episode and then we're just going to dig into it until it's.
Ryan: The time for Sleepaway Camp to bust your cherry wide open, which is basically what this film does. This film's better than Friday the 13th? It's better than that first movie, I think.
Laura: Oh, I didn't know we were going to do this. I don't have a rebuttal for that. I don't know what to say. I haven't watched Friday the 13th in a long time. But that was one of my favorite series of films for when I was a kid growing up.
Ryan: Well, that first movie is very different from obviously what came after it.
Laura: That typically happens.
Ryan: Yeah. Uh, I haven't seen the other Sleep away camp movies, of which there are another four so far.
Laura: Um, well, this director only directed the more recent one. I think it came out in 2008.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: So let's just get into Robert. Um, so basically, Robert Hiltzick is a director of sleepaway camp. And that's kind of effectively what he's done. Um, he kind of sacrificed his film career for his children. And that's what he said in the making of documentary. Um, and he's an attorney now.
Laura: I don't think he's the first of our directors who directed one horror movie and then went into law.
Ryan: I just seem to remember, um, wasn't.
Laura: That the same as The Night of the Demon?
Ryan: Yeah, I can't remember I can't remember his name, though, because he literally james.
Laura: C. Wassen I think James wassen something like that. Yeah.
Ryan: Right, okay. I think you're correct. Um, yeah, this guy's more of a personality, though, Hiltzick. I don't know if there's a cult following for, ah, Night of the Demon.
Laura: Uh, the one you started?
Ryan: Yeah. Well, I fucking I think that movie's stupendous because of how stupid is it's? Great. But yeah, I mean, Robert Hiltzick has effectively he's created a film that has quite a significant cult following that's kind of been followed and stuff. You wouldn't expect it from, I guess a film that I mean, on the face of it, like Sleepaway Camp could be perceived as being relatively quite kind of run of the mill, a little bit mediocre. But it has some very special touches in it that I think kind of set it apart. And I fucking love it. But I think Hiltzick, in terms of his filmography, like I say, he hasn't really done an awful lot. He's written he's directed sleepaway camp. Um, and that was in 1983. And then he also did Return to Sleepaway Camp, which was released in 2008. Now this isn't to say that he didn't have anything else in between. It was just basically like he made Sleepaway Camp. He had a few other scripts that he wanted to make. And there just wasn't any momentum for them whatsoever. And nothing ever kind of came about them. So he literally had a family and he had to start making money doing something. So he's an attorney, but obviously he still has obviously, uh, this following on the back of this relatively quite small budgeted, um, little horror movie, um, made in next to nowhere at ah, a camp. And uh, uh, it was kind of silly successful, and it has continued its following up until this day. Um, so he directed the and wrote the original. And then obviously after three sequels, two and Three were directed by Michael A. Simpson. And Four was directed by Jim Mcevick. Um, he did release his follow up in 2008, which kind of disregarded those earlier sequels. So Two, Three, and Four don't really exist in the pantheon that he's created here. Now, the weird thing about his sequel, Return to Sleepaway Camp was that it was completed in 2003. And basically there wasn't much in the way the VFX that they were doing for the film, um, they weren't finished. And he was like running out of money and stuff that I think. So effectively, it took five years after the completion of the film for the film to finally be released in 2008.
Laura: Wow.
Ryan: Um, I don't want to compare him to uh, David Gordon Green or anything. But uh, obviously uh, David Gordon Green's Halloween trilogy kind of did the same thing, where it negated all of the film before it. And it only concentrated on the first original, which was the John Carpenter thing. And effectively DGG just made himself a big Halloween shitcake. But anyway, um, following the sequels, um, I'll just name them off here. Sleepaway. Uh, Camp Two was unhappy. Campers Sleepaway. Camp three was teenage wasteland. And then sleepaway. Camp Four was the survivor. Now there is reportedly a final film called Sleepaway Camp Reunion, um, which was in the works. But that was as of 2020 and there hasn't really been anything else for that. Michael Simpson also wrote another Sleepaway Camp film and he called it Berserk. Um, but I don't know if that ever kind of came to be. And the only other thing that's kind of worth noting is Jeff Hayes. Now Jeff Hayes runs effectively the website that's kind of like the hub for the cult following for Sleepaway Camp, which is uh, Sleepawaycampmovies.com. And um, Jeff Hayes also directed a tiny little short film called Judy, which basically took the Judy character from the original and used the original actress for this kind of weird pseudo sequel thing. Um, spin off, perhaps.
Laura: It's a fan film.
Ryan: Yeah. Karen Fields reprises her role. And I think it's a nice little thing where it's like if you go to a sleepaway camp, say, convention, if they're doing like a reunion or something, it's like a nice little thing that you can show that's like a 16 minutes little uh, piece of trash that kind of precedes the movie, um, before it shows. Uh, but yeah, the abilities not really a sequel because obviously certain things happen in Sleepaway Camp that would make it very difficult for Judy to actually be able to do the things that she does in the short film as an older person. But anyway, um, there is a lot of New Yorker in, uh, that Judy film as well. There's a great scene with, uh, the dad with the wife beater on drinking Diet Coke and rum. Um, going where talking about how he doesn't pay child support and stuff with his abusive, uh, new wife.
Laura: It's pretty terrible.
Ryan: It's not very good.
Laura: Not recommending it.
Ryan: There's some fantastic imovie transitions in it, though. It's worth it just to see those in. Not yeah. All right.
Ryan: Okay. Well, either way, uh well, I was going to say Laura hasn't made a film. But you have. You have made films. You've made films with me.
Laura: I am a worldwide superstar. I don't think you're recognizing that you've.
Ryan: Starred in so yeah, we've already had a screening at City Arts for our previous film that we made in 2020 called, um, Flash. Can't wait for the multi awards to start rolling in the multi award winning film Flash, uh, that I made in.
Laura: 2020, but still, uh, waiting on my Best Actor award.
Ryan: But yes.
Laura: Well, we will see.
Ryan: We shall see. But yeah, that kind of wraps up the sleep away camp. Uh, I guess the phenomenon really.
Laura: I forgot to pop the synopsis in before we started talking about Robert, but here we go.
Laura: Pulled from Letterboxd, slightly disturbed and painfully shy, angela Baker is sent away to summer camp with her cousin. Not long after Angela's arrival, things start to go horribly wrong for anyone with sinister or less than honorable intentions.
Ryan: Angela's a little bit steady like, she kind of does a lot of steering.
Laura: I love it.
Ryan: She's a very quiet, um very quiet. There's a lot of weird, backstory stuff that kind of precedes the actual events of the sleepaway camp. Yeah. So there's a lot of kind of weird things because obviously the film opens with the hot daddy on the boat, right? Obviously, his two kids, they are twins, right? And there's the not necessarily, but I think they're meant to be twins. I think they were meant to be. Either way, they don't look like twins. But I just I said they were twins. Either way, they're a brother and a sister, right. And there's a horrible speedboat accident.
Laura: Yeah. It's pretty funny and pretty horrible. But it really sets off the hot shorts. Like the hot little tiny shorts of the 80s, which I wish I could live in that world again, of men wearing the shortest shorts I've ever seen, where you can see, uh, the outline of their junk at all times, along with the shortest cropped shirts. That just reminds me of how my dad used to dress in the remember my mother telling me she threw away all of his little half shirts, which I think is a shame, but it was a style that needs a comeback. I'm ready.
Ryan: This is 80s as fuck.
Laura: I just couldn't stop talking about their clothes. I love everyone's clothes. The shorts, the colors, the style, everything. I'm obsessed.
Ryan: You're all over it. There's a lot of, uh yeah, this is also I mean, it must be set in New York State or something. Or it's up in New Jersey. But yeah, there is a lot of New York chatter going on in this movie. And it kind of makes the film slightly better. Like our middle America wouldn't just have the same twang to it because there's some fucking line delivery in this movie that is amazing. Absolutely amazing. And it's like right from the off as well. Anyway, the speedboat incident happens and basically we're left with one surviving child, but we don't know which child it is. So there's the clincher right there. And then eight years later, everyone's grown up and we're basically thrust into what becomes the moment where the kids are getting sent off to camp.
Laura: I think everyone knows at this point that this podcast will, um, speak about the whole movie. So if you haven't seen this and want to be surprised and don't know what happens in this iconic horror film, you should probably just watch it and not be angry. Because we're going to tell you what happens.
Ryan: Oh, we're going to spoil the fuck out of this. And this is one of the big ones. I think we've covered a couple of movies where the spoilers are, like, really big and bad. But this is quite an accessible film in general. I think it's really available.
Laura: World Wide Web. Um, I mean, it came out 40 years ago.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, if you haven't heard of it. But thing is, we hadn't watched it. I hadn't even heard of what happens. Obviously, there's a big thing that happens at the end of the movie. And, uh, yeah, I was fucking blown away. And I honestly don't want people to feel like that's ruined for them because I think it's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Laura, have you ever gone to camp?
Laura: You know what? I went to church camp over a weekend when I was in middle school, I think. And what a bunch of horrible bitches. It was a church camp as well.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: And I was sent there. And my parents thought I would have a good time or thought maybe we'll get a weekend alone without our annoying daughter, which I sure was still, um, am to this day. I like to hold on to that.
Ryan: Yeah, but you like to hold on to your level of annoyance that you have around with people.
Laura: Correct.
Ryan: Thing is, the only people that don't find you annoying are, like your two best friends.
Laura: Well, that's also not true all the time. But they love we, uh do.
Ryan: We do love you.
Laura: Thank you, dear. Yeah, but I went to that camp, and I remember there was a girl named Laura, and she didn't have a U in her name. And she was such a super bitch, like Highlander, that can be only one. And she said I spelled my name wrong. And I go, I have nothing to do with how I was named, you fucking idiot. She was mean to me the whole time. And she had a weird gang of assholes that just tortured me the whole weekend.
Ryan: Yeah. This seems obviously indicative of, um, feel.
Laura: Angela's plight, all right, where you just get bullied around and then I came out stronger.
Ryan: I think if you make horrible choices and you decide to have I hope.
Laura: Laura's having a horrible life.
Ryan: Okay, that's fine. I think, well, this is going to coincide with that, because you're going to be like, well, yeah, obviously. Ryan, we'd say this, but I think if you make horrible choices in your life and you decide that you're going to have children, I think the best case scenario for what you do is to quickly get them through school and then immediately get them to college. Because primary school and high school is easily the worst experience of most children's fucking lives. I think it's horrendous. And this all this stuff where it's just like, oh, you just send your kids to camp for six weeks and you're just kind of like completely oblivious as to what they're doing. And they're kind of just like living their lives and things like that. I just think that's unfathomable. My mother would never have done that back in the day.
Laura: It's probably cool for a kid because you get to be away from your parents and you get to go seemingly have a good time. The intentions are good because it's positive for the parents and it's positive for the kids in the intention what actually happens.
Ryan: Also, they're like returning kids. So it's like they're hanging out with their friends and doing activities and stuff for six weeks. So I can understand it. I just still think it's a bit unfathomable.
Laura: It doesn't compute, especially when all these kids are showing up to camp in the film and all of the kitchen staff is standing outside and there's an outright full on pedophile.
Ryan: He's an outward pedo. Like, he's just going out there being like, because I swear to surrounded by kids between like eleven and 17 or something like that. And it's just like, oh, I could show them a good time. It's like, whoa, hold on. What did you say? I know this is the age.
Laura: I think he said there's no such thing as too young. You're just too old.
Ryan: Yeah, like ages. I vomited in my mouth a little bit. It was pretty rough.
Laura: Uh, on his application to work in the kitchen, he probably wrote his previous experience, convicted pedophile, and they thought, perfect, this guy will know how to shuck some corn.
Ryan: He will do this. Yeah, well, I shuck some corn. There that fucking pile of corn he's dealing with just before he dies.
Laura: Also, the first opportunity that this cook has to rape a child. He's like, yep, I'm on it. I'm so on it.
Ryan: Why don't you come into the back fridge and I'll just take my pants off.
Laura: I'll find something you can eat.
Ryan: It's like, what what the fuck?
Laura: Is it's like day one of camp or day three? And he's like, all right, time to get to it. Time to get down to business.
Ryan: But I will kind of say this, Tonally. The film kind of skirts on a comedic, um, slant. You're not supposed to take the film too seriously. Like all these kind of other horror films are because even from the opening with the speedboat thing and running over the other family members and stuff like that, speedboat you're not really supposed to take, uh, it too seriously. It's one of those sorts of movies.
Laura: Although there is a serious and it's not even an undertone. It's just a tone of the film of child abuse.
Ryan: Oh, fuck. Yeah.
Laura: Uh, throughout the whole film, there is.
Ryan: Bullying and stuff that goes on. And bullying rough. Yeah.
Laura: By parental figures. Extreme abuse.
Ryan: But you also want to watch kids who are like, obviously like the actors and stuff. But they're playing people who are probably younger. If you want to just see a bunch of kids, like, cursing at each other constantly for about 80 minutes, this is obviously the film for you. There is that also that one bit. And I don't know why. Because, again, this is incredibly New Yorker. And I think it's Paul, isn't it? Paul talks about, like, well, Judy's back this year. And Judy is obviously Karen, uh, fields, right? And she's the I mean, what's a nice way of putting it. The hot piece of ass. Like, she's the returning ass. And all the boys. Yeah, she's a horrible cunt. She's going to camp.
Laura: And then next year what happens is puberty.
Ryan: Uh, well, Paul's going on about the size of her bazungas, like her boobies. She's like, oh, she's come to camp and he's like juggling his chest. Like he's the boobies and stuff like that. So you know what? These folk are interested, like, all varying ages. Some of them are really kind of cast relatively quite well, I think. Uh, is it Billy who's like the cousin? I think it oh, Ricky. Ricky. I think he's very good in the film. And there's a like, when he starts cursing and swearing at the guys who are, like, throwing the water balloons from the rooftop. I thought he was fucking awesome.
Laura: Well, they were all I mean, all of these the kids that are cast are kids.
Ryan: They are kids.
Laura: And, um, they made that decision to and it's a more of a difficult decision because you have work restrictions on kids. They can have an eight hour day, but four of those hours are tutoring for school. So they only have like 4 hours a day to actually film with these kids. And a lot of it's improvised, but they didn't want which was more typical of the time. And kind of also typical now is to have adults playing kids.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: So you have our main actor playing Angela, who's she's 13 m, actually. And she just turned 30.
Ryan: She just turned 30.
Laura: And Ricky, who plays her cousin, is actually 17. But he looks very young.
Ryan: He does look young. Yeah. He also has like two or three times some of the best line deliveries in the entire film. 100%. He is written to perfection for the most part. And he does a very good job. I mean, one of his lines was like, well, excuse me, bitch, when he talks to Judy. And she just kind of fucking ignores him because obviously she's got a higher elevated sense of herself. Um, but yeah, I guess you're talking about the child abuse and things like like the camp counselors aren't very nice to Angela. There's only a handful of people who aren't very nice to Angela. They just think she's a little bit weird. There's something off about her. And it's because she's quiet and she basically does a lot of Staling. That's effectively what she does for 90% of the film.
Laura: Yeah. That's called trauma.
Ryan: Yeah. She's troubled. She's a troubled child. I mean, she did grow up with a woman who looks like a fucking vampire.
Laura: Aunt Martha would be a wonderful Halloween costume.
Ryan: Jesus Christ.
Laura: She's terrified, she says, and absolutely looks like a vampire. Even to this day. She looks like a vampire.
Ryan: Yeah. Um, but I guess from the making of and stuff, this is what you kind of realize. You didn't really get it too much from the movie. But it's obvious that Martha has been, I guess she's like this self proclaimed, like, doctor, like physician or something. And she's been doing things to Angela to try and keep her feeling the way that she is. Keeping her within know, looking like a girl, basically, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Um, she's done certain things that we're not really aware of, but she's done certain things that are, uh, to try and keep Angela's ah, visage or, uh visage. Sorry, visage. Visage. Uh, uh, intact to, uh, the rest of the world. But I mean, there's also that butch dude with the tight shorts. Remember seeing his meat and two veg in those fucking tiny shorts?
Laura: I do remember that very clearly. He is the only one of the adultish people in that camp. That is nice.
Ryan: Yes. You do find that the people who are dispatched in this story are the folk who aren't very nice to either Ricky or, um, kind of that's mostly the way that it goes. And to be fair, that's probably a way that we should all kind of just take ourselves in life. And that you should just be nice to people. Because you never know, they might just turn around and kill you. Um, but I did worry about the butch guy because obviously where he's got his shorts and how tall he is and stuff. And some of these kids aren't tall either. His meat and two veg is at their eye level when they're sat down, like when they're in that lunchroom and stuff like that. And that always made me feel that, uh made me feel to be fair.
Laura: It'S always there, regardless of what kind of trousers or shorts he decides to put on.
Ryan: Very exceptional.
Laura: He is putting it on show with those shorts that I loved.
Ryan: That's what I'm saying. Yeah. I'm not expecting, like, he's going to have his fly open if he's wearing trousers or stuff. He's just wearing very revealing tiny little shorts and a cut off top exposing his guns.
Ryan: Um, but this kind of leads us into because I think well, the only reason we meet him is that he speaks to Angela. And Angela's not eating anything. Um, and this is where she almost gets almost raped, um, by the chef. And, uh, Ricky saves her. Um, but at the same time yeah, this obviously horrible things happen to these two kids, either one or the other or together. Right. And what you find then is that that horrible person gets murdered.
Laura: It's almost at least with this particular incident, it's immediate retribution.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: He is trying to do a raping. She gets saved. And immediately after that, he's got scalding.
Ryan: Hot water poured all over him.
Laura: It's incredible. It makes me feel so good.
Ryan: I got to go work on this corn. I have to boil have to boil this corn.
Laura: 132 years of corn.
Ryan: Well, that pot's like, five foot tall. It's huge.
Laura: It's crazy. Also, in a camp kitchen like that, you wouldn't have some sort of stool rather than just a random wooden chair.
Ryan: Yeah. Well, obviously they're cutting I didn't know.
Laura: That they made pots that big either.
Ryan: I don't know either. But either way, they had to make sure that there was a pot big enough so that when well, this is the introduction of the hands. Right. And we say that in advericomas, like the hands. And there's a few theories and stuff. Like, people have theories as to how many killers there are, but visually, there's two killers. So there's Angela. You don't know Angela is the killer. But spoiler alert. Um, but then there's also the hands that do, like, the holding of the knife. And in this case, it's the sliding of the chair. And, you know, they're not female hands because they're very much masculine hands.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: Um, because there's veins on them. And obviously they've got chubbier fingers, all this sort of thing. They're not very dainty like, as you would say, m more feminine features and stuff like that. But effectively, every single one of the kills and we'll kind of mention this, is like, they all have fantastic practical effects attached to them as well. And this scalding is one of them. Um, which I think is very clever. It's very slight. And I think they're all relatively quite gruesome. And they all make sense.
Laura: Yeah. They're all deserving. I mean, not that anyone deserves to die, but it's a horror movie if.
Ryan: You'Re a child rapist. I don't think it's too much of a spell to be like, yeah, you maybe don't deserve to live.
Laura: That guy was a piece of shit.
Ryan: Yeah. Probably shouldn't be raping kids. And as a virtue, you shouldn't probably be living if you're raping kids.
Laura: Fair.
Ryan: I put that out there.
Laura: But with the other one, agree in the film, there's also other murders that are not cool. There's not cool ones, but it makes sense. And it is very satisfying, especially this first one, I think. And the practical effects, the visual effects, the makeup on this guy after he is scalded with 100, maybe 300 gallons of boiling water all over his body, and he screams for approximately four and a half minutes straight.
Ryan: Pretty much. Yeah. He's still cooking. I mean, you know, the thing that I really like, the thing I thought about was, like, they had that 300 gallon, um, pot, like, sitting on the oven. I want that oven. Because he just goes off to go do something else. And then he looks at it again. He's like, it's boiling. And I'm like, it boiled. The water that quickly.
Laura: Put it on the stove and then get a hose in.
Ryan: You'd have to yeah. You're not carrying.
Laura: How do you drain that? It's very impractical. No one could pick that up.
Ryan: No, it's not very good. But anyway, cooking anyway, they find him, um, and he's like, scalded, and layers of skin are taken off and he looks fucked. And he's got these pulsating blisters all over his face. It's a really good setup. It's great. And the doctor comes in and he leaves. And then suddenly, obviously, after four minutes, the screaming stops. And the guy who runs the camp, he goes, so, Doc, what's the prognosis? And the doc goes, well, he's badly burned.
Laura: Some of the other and probably the best couple of lines in cinema history are, uh, right after that, when all the boys are playing softball.
Ryan: Softball game is so good, so great. There's so much shit talking as well. And I'm just so fun. I'm enthralled by the whole thing. But, yeah, they do a softball game, and effectively, we almost see the softball from when it starts to effectively, when it finishes full game, we see the full game to the point where you could consider it being slightly overlong. But if it wasn't for the fact that some of the line delivery and some of the things that are said are so entertaining, then you kind of just let it pass. Um, but also, it's kind of like a bonding moment, because you have to establish the fact that there's these different dorms right. At, uh, the camp. And they're opposing dorms. And one of the dorms has obviously got Ricky and stuff in it and the nice boys. And then the other one is basically the other cunts. And there's this horrible little blonde boy with this shorty middle finger that he shows sometimes. And I'm just like, yeah, you're just like he looks like Albino Chunk, uh, from The Goonies. That's what he kind of reminded me of.
Laura: Do you want to do the line with me? Do you remember the line from the softball game?
Ryan: Oh, God. Eat shit and die.
Laura: Oh, I think you're going to say, Ricky, that's fine.
Ryan: Well, what, do you want me to try it again? I only have the line that I like.
Laura: Is that the one?
Ryan: No?
Laura: Okay, I'll say it. Eat shit and die, Ricky.
Ryan: Eat shit and live. Bill.
Laura: I think I posted that on our Instagram like a couple of weeks ago.
Ryan: It's honestly a perfect fucking retort.
Laura: It just reminds me of just the macabre type of humor we have nowadays that was still in existence 40 years ago. I, uh, love it. Another line right after that when they're all at that kind of like a dance party.
Ryan: Well, they call it like the Social. So Ricky's not well. So Ricky got sick after dinner because fuck knows, we saw the kitchen as well. It looks gross as like obviously he know, got a bit probably a touch of the diarrheas. And he's lying down. So they all go to this thing. And obviously, uh, Ricky's friends with this guy Paul. Paul who we've mentioned earlier. He was going on about the gazungas and shit. He doesn't actually say that. That's just my word. But, um, Paul has a little bit of a thing for Angela. So they're kind of like talking and stuff. Or he's trying to talk to her, like trying to open her up and things and trying to get to know her a little bit better. But she is continually being picked on by everybody. The girls can't fucking stand her because there's like Meg, who's like one of the let's say the camp counselor, right? And obviously, you know, there's other girls there who are like trying to defend her and be like, well, hopefully she's not having the worst fucking time of her life. Because she's obviously struggling. She's visibly struggling with the situation. But she's just getting berated continually.
Laura: She hasn't said a word.
Ryan: Hasn't said a single fucking and she's.
Laura: Just with her big old eyes staring at everybody. But I would have just left her alone.
Ryan: Well, yeah, of course you would have. Like in normality. But kids are horrible. Yes, kids are mean. If you've got kids, they're probably going to be mean to another kid at some point. And guess what? Parents, that's your, uh, mean. It's horrible when it's happening. But they're like trying to talk to her. She's not saying anything.
Ryan: And it's like, Angela, how come you're so fucked up?
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Isn't this the guys isn't this the pair who get stoned later on as well?
Laura: There's so many kids.
Ryan: I don't so many different kids. And we can't remember all of their names. But there is this I'm going to say these are probably maybe the stoner kids. If not, it's a completely separate thing. But when he says that, that's pretty much him setting his own death sentence because he eventually dies as well. But what follows that moment is obviously they get bit stoned. And it's easily like that scene playing out, uh, where he's stoned and they're talking to the other girls. Because this is a group of women who they're more of age. I don't know who they are. There's this big group. And the men are like, well, you're going to come in the war, you're going to jump in the lake. And they all get down into their starkers and they all jump in the lake and stuff.
Laura: All m the men.
Ryan: All the men. Now they're definitely men, but I'm assuming it's because obviously there's some nudity involved. So they had to kind of bring in people who were more like of age, like 1819 year olds, um, to obviously go through with the mild nudity. That kind of happens here. Um, yeah, this is where, uh, one of the poor boys, one of the poor stoner boys, I think he said, uh, how come you're so fucked up to Angela? He drowns.
Laura: So apparently there would have been a lot more frontal male nudity in this movie. So during this scene, the skinny dipping scene with all the men, uh, you see them all rushing into the water. And there wasn't any intentional planned frontal nudity during that scene. It was exactly what it was meant to be. They're running. Their little tushes are, um, jumping into the water. But what happened is that the production got pushed, or at least the filming of that scene got pushed further into the autumn. So it's freezing cold and it's like one in the morning. And the guy who plays Billy ended up after that, just because of the situation, the shenanigans. He walked off the set. So there's a scene or kind of like a shot right after that, they get out of the water and the girls are kind of walking away, saying like, you guys are idiots. He was meant to do this particular part naked after this thing. And the director got him back on set. Um, do you remember that guy, like when the women are walking away and he kind of says something stupid like grabs his dick. Ah, jiggles it around.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: He was meant to be naked because they were all naked running into the water. So they would typically be naked getting out.
Ryan: Yeah, they were all wearing their underpants.
Laura: They were all wearing their dry underwear.
Ryan: They're all wearing dry underwear.
Laura: But, uh, originally agreed that he would do it nude. But he was so annoyed with the skinny dipping scene that he goes, now, um, I'm going to put my underwear on. If you want me to do this, I'm putting my underwear on.
Ryan: We've been in scenarios. I remember we went to North Carolina and it was like snowing. And we were in the hot tub and stuff like that. That is the coldest I feel my body has ever been. And I couldn't imagine being out there being naked and stuff like that, going into cold water and stuff. It's not going to do your jimmy any good. It's not going to look good on screen, um, when you're dealing with those levels of conditions. So I'm kind of in support of the guy. But obviously you can tell that there's a lot of crotch gabbing from some of the guys in this movie, though. It happens a number of times where he's like grabbing at their crotch and they're just like showing off their junk and stuff like that. Their handful to whoever they've got, like.
Laura: An issue with teenagers.
Ryan: I guess so. But it's not your fucking go to really just kind of like start to grab your jungle. Look at this. It's not great. But, uh yeah.
Laura: You were about to talk about the guy.
Ryan: Another great practical effect in the movie.
Laura: Yeah. I think the second dead body.
Ryan: Because not second dead one.
Laura: It's interesting. What I like another thing I like about this film is that not everybody dies. Not everyone that the killer is going after kills them. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they're horribly maimed. Sometimes they're horribly injured. But sometimes they die.
Ryan: Yeah. Well, who gets horribly maimed?
Laura: Um, the first guy, the pedo rapist.
Ryan: Oh. I mean, I'm under the impression he's going to die. Yeah, he's going to die. That's like almost 100% coverage of burns.
Laura: All over his body with the curling iron. I don't think she died.
Ryan: I think she died.
Laura: See her later.
Ryan: But, uh, I think she died. I mean, she took a fucking curling iron to the cooch.
Laura: Like, I'm pretty sure a hot curling iron to the cooch is not going to murder you. You won't die.
Ryan: It goes all the way inside her.
Laura: Yeah, that's fine.
Ryan: And also that's implied. You don't see that happen. But it's definitely implied from the way that it's because you know how many films we've watched that's how you do that implication. Um, without it hitting like an X rating. Um, yeah. No, I think well, the thing is because obviously the man who runs the camp, he's just like, let's try and keep these murders quiet.
Laura: Because shut down my camp.
Ryan: They're going to shut down the goddamn camp. It was an accident, all this stuff. Um, but they do find that body. They do find that kid's body. And I do like the justification from the makeup department where they were like, well, yeah. No, we had to make that cast of the face and paint it and do all this sort of thing. And it looks great. Um, because a live snake crawls out of the kid's mouth in that shot.
Laura: Great and disgusting.
Ryan: It's very good. It's very good.
Ryan: M. But we do this and then this is when we were introduced to mustache Cop. He turns up, um, and we only ever see him twice. And this is where we see probably one of the most glaring continuity editors ever in cinema. And it is fucking hilarious. And it does nothing but add to the film's appeal, in my opinion. But we see him with his actual mustache the first time. And the thing is, because you pointed that, uh, out, if they didn't show him, say, his line in a close up, you never would have fucking noticed.
Laura: Of course not.
Ryan: You never would have noticed in a million years. Because the next close up he gets later on in the film is necessary. It's genuinely necessary. Has to be there. It's a close up, dramatic reaction shot of his face. And you see that obviously, he's shaved his mustache off and they've gave him what was effectively they referred to as the groucho marks. And they plastered this thing over his top lip. And it looks ridiculous. And it's, um, amazing.
Laura: It looks fantastic. His original mustache was glorious. And then his fake mustache was even better. But apparently he shaved it off after the first scene because he thought he was done filming the movie and he.
Ryan: Did a different job. Yeah.
Laura: And then they go, you need to come back. And he's like, fuck, I don't have time to grow a glorious mustache, so just paint this thing on my lip.
Ryan: Yeah, here's the thing. It's better than what they did for, uh, the VFX stuff for Henry Cavill in that Justice League movie where he just looked like he had like a bloated lip, because obviously he had the mustache for, uh, I think it was Mission Impossible Fallout. He had that glorious fucking mustache where he looked like fucking Buster Brown. Like punching Tom Cruise in the face in that toilet. Like that fucking oh, so good. So good.
Ryan: There's also, I mean, talking about things that are good in the movie, there's a lot of good stuff in the movie is, uh, the t shirts, obviously, the clothing's very good. Have you ever thought about just wearing your name on your shirt? I think I should, because that's what Judy does. I don't know who that fuck she is. Well, it's Judy wearing a Judy t shirt, which I thought was brilliant. I thought, well, maybe I should just wear a Ryan t shirt.
Laura: Absolutely.
Ryan: Just as a think. I don't know. I honestly thought that was I thought that was fucking funny. I mean, there was also a kid who had an Asia t shirt.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: As well. It was like, holy shit. Fucking Asia. The clothes are amazing.
Laura: And you know, these are all like the kids own clothes.
Ryan: Of course.
Laura: I'm sure they had some sort of costume department. But not for all of the children.
Ryan: Yeah. Amazing. Well, it just reminded me of that line, I think it's 40 year old version, right, where they all like, paul Rudd goes into his, uh, house and he goes, who frames an Asia poster? Um, which yeah, just fucking reminds me. It's great. Um, it's like, well, no, he gives him that box of porn.
Laura: Stop trying to give me your gigantic box of porn.
Ryan: This will blind you. You can see that box from space. A big moment that happens is right at the very end.
Laura: Yeah. Um, beautifully short film.
Ryan: Yeah. Because it's only 85 minutes or some 88 minutes really short. And it just like it gets there and it well, the last eight doesn't.
Laura: Waste its time, are just the credits anyway. So it's only really an 80 minutes film.
Ryan: Perfect. But I mean, you're kind of expecting to get certain things. There are certain cliched things in it. Because obviously there are certain boyish pranks that you'd probably see from some of these guys. Like there's that weird one they do where, uh, they do the motivational speech and they blindfold the kid. And then they get him to sit up and he sits up right into a bed. Arse.
Laura: All the boys pranks are kind of.
Ryan: All the boys pranks are funny.
Laura: Shaving cream.
Ryan: They did do that. But then also, the kid was so fucking enraged that he grabs a knife.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Starts chasing him. Chasing, uh, I think is it Billy starts chasing him around? Or Ricky? Sorry, I keep on calling him Billy, chasing, um, him around with the fucking knife. Which I feel like that scene's meant to be more than what it actually is. But I think it literally is just, ah, no, I've got a fucking knife.
Laura: When you really think back on it, you can see them trying to maybe misdirect you in a way a little bit.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: They go, this kid is also being bullied. So who is the killer? Um, I knew going in, I honestly didn't think about it. But yeah.
Ryan: There's also wouldn't have looked at that moment where that kid's getting viciously bullied. Because Angela is like the outlier in this whole thing. Angela is getting 100% of the shit as far as anyone else from the.
Laura: Boys and from the girls.
Ryan: Yeah. And she's obviously taking center stage. Yeah. I do think her performance as Angela ah, what's her name again? Um oh.
Laura: Felissa rose.
Ryan: Felissa Rose. Um, yeah. I mean, she's got she's off the back of this movie alone, she's worked on over almost 130 films. Just off the back of being the child star of sleepaway camp. I don't know why I say child star, but yeah, she's the child star of sleepaway camp. Um, like working in I'd say, like the B movie horror scene. And slightly more illustrious projects and stuff like that. But, uh, yeah.
Ryan: Um, the one death that I think is kind of weird is the one with the bees, which is funny because.
Laura: That'S the director's favorite one.
Ryan: Yeah, it's good. I think it's fine within the context of the film. Because this film's a little batshit crazy. It's kind of strange. Um, because you talk about Sleepy Week camp. And I see the parallels to Friday the 13th movies and stuff like that. Because Friday the 13th films, they went into some really weird fucking directions as well. Really kind of took the film into a completely different zone. This is kind of obviously a little bit slightly more grounded. But obviously Tonally like it's something else. But yeah, the bees thing where it's like, well, the guy's an asshole. There's like the rooftop, like balloon fight guy. It's the main guy out of that bunch. And he's a complete prick. And, uh, he grabs a newspaper and he just tells his budy when the dorm and he's just going to I got to take a wicked dump, obviously in a New Yorker accent. And uh, that's what he goes to do. Um, but yeah, he's locked in there. And then a beehive is popped into the dorm. And then he's stung to death by bees.
Laura: Yeah, it was weird. But I liked the ingenuity.
Ryan: I thought it was interesting.
Laura: I mean, a beekeeper brought in all these bees. And I'm sure a bunch of those bees died. And that sucks.
Ryan: Yeah. You have to just run with it at a certain point because it's a horror movie. It's not like we're a dick podcast. We're not uh, how do these deaths stack up against other deaths in other movies? Podcasts? That's not what we do. But, um, it's all going to make sense when we get there.
Ryan: Ricky gets beat up by the guy who runs the camp because he is adamant that Ricky is the M murder doesn't want to go in the water because she's afraid of the water under fucking standably. After the accident that saw her dad, who she starts having yeah. I mean, she starts having visions of her dad being with other men and stuff.
Laura: Like a very interesting part of the movie where she has that memory flashback. And it happens when she's kissing Paul.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Which the guy that's been pursuing her. And as soon as they kiss, she has the flashback foreshadowing of her father in an intimate position with another man. And then this kind of moment where she and her brother are it's almost like I don't know. You, uh, can put anything you want onto that. But it's almost like they're trying to figure out what that means. These two little kids are seeing something that they maybe weren't meant to see. And it's something that they don't understand. And they're trying to figure that out between themselves. Like what is love? I don't know what is gender. What does this mean? And it's very, I'm sure, very confusing for them as children.
Ryan: There's a lot of foreshadowing. Yeah. There's a lot of very, um, kind of deep meanings and kind of subtle understandings kind of going on within the film as well. And I guess it all will make sense.
Laura: Will it make sense right now? Would you like to get into it?
Ryan: The only other thing of note I wanted to point out and I talked about the guy who owns the camp is the fucking arrow effect, which I thought was super fucking clever. And I hadn't seen it before, because people go on again, Friday 13th, I keep on fucking bringing it up, is that there's the Kevin Bacon death in that, uh, original Friday the 13th, where the arrow comes out and through his neck. And I think it was Tom Savini did all those effects as well for that original Friday the 13th. They all look fucking great. But obviously with this, because it's all done technically within the same shot, an arrow goes into this guy's throat as if it's actually a real arrow going into his throat, because he says something and then it goes plump and it just goes right into his neck. And the way that they do it and I recommend people grab the Shout Factory Blu ray, which is like a double disc set and stuff like that. You should fucking pick that bad boy up because it's got that Judy short film in it as well. And it's definitely worth watching. But, uh, yeah, no, you should grab that. You see the making of and you see how they made all that sort of stuff as well. Um, because it looks really convincing.
Ryan: Let's talk about because we're getting to the end. Um, people are dying left, right, and center. There's all sorts of deaths kicking off. It's kicking off. Uh, the guy who owns the camp is dead. Meg, the camp counselor, is also dead. She got stabbed in the back. It's not very inventive. Um, obviously, Judy, uh, she's died. Well, I'm pretty sure she has. She's taken a curling iron to the vagina. And, uh, also there was that other camp counselor who took those young kids out into the forest. And again, this is kind of an outlying thing, so it's kind of weird. There was kids after, uh, Angela got through in the water who were like, throwing sand at her back and stuff like that. And they're like, oh, what you doing? Um, it looks like all these young little kids have been murdered in the woods with a fucking hatchet as well.
Laura: That was the strangest part. And what we understood from the director was that if he were to change anything in the film, he would have taken that part out of all those little kids getting brutally murdered.
Ryan: It doesn't need to be in the film. It's just there's already, um, leveling up.
Laura: How brutal the whole situation is because it starts really, like going crazy.
Ryan: Basically, it spirals out of control. So much so that the cop as mustache changes.
Laura: Right towards the end of the film where we learn what happened, what is going on. And so I think this is when the Hulking camp, uh, counselor guy, the one guy that's been nice to Angela, the whole, um, he's they're trying to figure out what's happening. So they are walking towards the lakeside beach area where they see Angela. And she is naked, sitting kind of on the beach. And there's someone kind of laying it's dark and you don't know what's going on.
Ryan: Um, there's been a scene previous to this where Paul goes to the water and sees Angela. And Angela, she's coaxed him out there and said, do you want to go swimming? Okay, Paul, take your clothes off. And Paul takes his clothes off. And then we're back to so you.
Laura: Get another flashback here. Um, and so this is kind of the final here's what's going on? Reveal. The big reveal, basically, where you see that you understand that the child who actually survived that boat accident wasn't the daughter, but it was the little boy, the brother, Peter, who, um, Aunt Martha decided should be a girl because she's unhinged and already had a son, Ricky. So when she kind of takes charge of this young boy, she's like, I already have a boy. And if my husband hadn't have left me, I would have had another kid and it would have been a girl. Not that she has any choice in the matter, but she is mentally disturbed and decides to, in an extreme case of child abuse, force a gender identity upon this child that they did not choose.
Ryan: Basically capitalizing on the trauma that Angela or at least this child had already faced from Peter. Yeah, fuck. Uh, from seeing his sibling and father die in the accident.
Laura: Right. To add insult to injury, peter now has to live as a girl.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Um, so obviously you can see trauma stacked upon trauma ah. Culminating in this situation.
Ryan: Probably one of the most haunting and disturbing scenes in a horror movie that anyone will ever see. Ever. Yeah, I think. Um, and this also again, this is.
Laura: The dick scene at 1 hour, 20 minutes and 30 seconds.
Ryan: This also is one of the most important pieces of full frontal nudity, male nudity, in any horror film that we're ever going to cover on, um, this podcast, probably this is on par with Bad Lieutenant levels of how disturbed it is and how essential it feels. Memorable and memorable.
Laura: Shocking.
Ryan: The thing that gets me obviously, we'll get to the big reveal and this is classic horror cinema moment. People say possession might be like the greatest horror film ever, but the ending of Sleepaway Camp is up there with everything. Um, it's incredible. One of the most haunting things in this part is when they see her back, or no one sees her back. She's just Angela's on the floor, and she's cradling Paul's head, like, on her lap. Now, at this point, you don't know that head's been severed.
Laura: Correct.
Ryan: So, spoiler alert. Head's been severed off of Paul. And the thing is, the thing that makes this even more haunting is the fact that Paul did a bad thing to her. He ended up kissing Judy, but he was kind of, like, cajueled into it, and he felt very guilty about it. He didn't want to make Angela feel so, like, when this kill happens, you're just like it's really sad because I.
Laura: Didn'T feel that sad.
Ryan: You didn't feel that sad?
Laura: No, because anyone that has done anything mildly wrong gets murdered.
Ryan: That's very true.
Laura: He hurt her.
Ryan: He did. But even then, he did apologize to her, though. Like, he did try to make amends. Yeah. Either way, what you get yeah.
Laura: You get this moment, his severed head. And they go, oh, Angela. Angela, are you okay? And she stands up and turns around.
Ryan: The head rolls on the grass, and it's obviously severed because it's not attached to the head, uh, the body anymore.
Laura: You have to see it to understand how fucking horrible it is.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: But she's standing there completely naked, um, covered in blood. And then when you get kind of a wide shot, you realize, oh, uh, that's a man's body.
Ryan: Well, the thing is the camp counselor already because it's a very visual thing, but at the same time, the dialogue that's been that he goes, oh, you're a boy. He already kind of says it before. You see, um, either it's either before or just after. But I feel like he says it because it makes more sense within a kind of Hollywood style, is that he would say it, then you would show it, and then you see how horrific it is. Because again, it's like it's this naked male form covered in blood, completely naked. You see their penis. It's completely wide. They're holding a knife, but they have the face of the young Angela and the hair. And you're like, uh and this isn't.
Laura: To be misinterpreted as know, this is someone with a mean in real life. It actually but this is meant to be like, Angela has been living as a girl, but she is a male. But then that comes into a whole other conversation.
Ryan: Yeah, I guess you could either see like this because we're going to probably bring up The Crying Game as well, because it's part of the argument, but certainly there is an argument to be made about what is this moment trying to illustrate. And it's either this film is incredibly ahead of its time. I'm trying to think of other films that did this that weren't obviously within ah know, we had films like Some Like It Hot, where it's like you had Tony Curtis and Jack lemmon dressing up as women to obviously, um, uh, get closer to, uh, Marilyn Monroe in a comedy session with that. So we've seen men in drag and pretending to be women and things like that. With this, there's obviously the added baggage and the emotional trauma. Know this person has been effectively forced into a gender not of their choosing.
Laura: It's an interesting case study of abuse as well, because who knows? You didn't get to have that conversation with Angela, with Peter. Was Peter trans and dealing with these emotions, or was he just abused by his aunt and wasn't trans at like the choice wasn't put there. So there's a huge kind of emotional struggle with this person. Like, am I female? Am, um I Male. Was this forced upon me, or was this something that happened but was going to was this always me? Or was it like, it's it's abuse regardless, it's a wild thing. So I know there is a lot of modern controversy about this for being potentially transphobic.
Ryan: Um, I'd say within the sphere of how transphobia has been weaponized by, I guess, the current Western governments, like, at the moment, this could be seen as a very kind of negative thing. You can look at this and be like, well, of course this trans person has done all this murdering when really it's not so much like a trans issue as it is a mental health issue within the case of this film, I think.
Laura: And I'm certainly not an expert because I am not trans, so I probably don't have any authority whatsoever.
Ryan: Neither one of us are. But at least we can kind of look at the modern day situation and how this screams to the narrative that certain people are putting, uh, out there for their own kind of political gain as it is at the moment.
Laura: So there was an interview earlier this year with Felissa Rose, uh, where someone had asked her about it being transphobic, and she disagreed, didn't think it was transphobic. She said, I feel as though Angela was a typical adolescent trying to find her gender identification and sexual orientation, um, which was exciting for 1982, being ahead of its time. And you can kind of see with her father and his lover, as well as her relationship with Paul, who she was trying to understand her relationship with. And she said, I feel like it was an adolescent story of a young person coming of age. So obviously there's different ways you can look at it. I didn't feel offended by it. I thought it was really interesting.
Ryan: Um, no, I do think to us it's interesting. I think to someone who's maybe struggled with their identity and what they associate themselves with. And it's about trying to find who you are as a person, right? Because then if you never feel like, completely whole, you're never able to live life to the fullest, because it's always a baggage, it's always. That feeling in the back of your mind that you're not complete as a person.
Laura: I don't think this is even a trans issue. I think it's more an issue of abuse. And like you said, mental health.
Ryan: This is a mental health, like, child abuse thing. Yeah, um, pretty much. But the problem is that obviously, because of the way that it's staged, you can quite easily, um, fix that staging to our present modern day. So I agree with Felissa, and I think that the film is wildly ahead of its time. It does certain things that certainly there's the gay subtext with, obviously, the father and the child abuse and all this sort of thing. And it's kind of like what the best sort of horror movies are able to achieve, where it's a lot deeper than it is, just at face value. Because that's what I feel like, where the horror comes in. It's where the horror comes as opposed to being like blood and gore, things kind of happening and stuff like that. That's where the genuine feelings in the pit of your stomach start to kind of take heed. And I think visually, this m moment, uh, it's extraordinary. That face is haunting.
Laura: That face. It's just wide. Her mouth is wide. Her eyes are crazed. She's Rasping just m making noises, animal noises, not screaming. It's just like this it's just a horrible noise, just standing there completely still while these people are just watching. And the movie then, uh, we had to watch it, like, four times, but it ends in kind of a freeze on her face in this horrible contortion and then changes kind of to a green. And the Bespoke song comes on at the end of the movie.
Ryan: It's called Angela's Theme. Angela's Theme.
Laura: But I there's a few original songs.
Ryan: In the movie as well.
Laura: Yeah, I did want to bring up that because I was curious, because there's a lot going on in terms of this dick scene. So originally the plan was to get a strap on created and to put it on the young actor on Melissa.
Ryan: Yeah. Wild.
Laura: Uh, so the special effects guy was asked to construct this strap on, but the mom was like, no, you're not putting a strap on on my 13 year old daughter. So what they ended up doing is they hired a local college kid. And I think it was like a couple of the makeup people or the costume people shaved this young guy head just chest down. Like, shaved this guy, made him hairless.
Ryan: So he appeared to be younger.
Laura: Except for his pubes.
Ryan: Except for his pubics, yeah.
Laura: Um, and they were giving him beers. Um, and he was just chugging beers. And then they ended up going over down by the water. It was really, really cold. And he just starts crying. And he's wearing this mask of this young girl's face and crying. Um, and no one ever heard from him again after that. He's never come forward to say, that's me. That's my penis in this film.
Ryan: Um.
Laura: And it's interesting that the director called this A Crying Game rip off when this movie basically came out ten years before The Crying Game. Yeah, that is not even close to.
Ryan: And they're also yeah, they're two completely different films, two completely different things kind of going on and stuff like that. The Crying Game does so much other things other than there's so many different.
Laura: Things kind of going on, even comparable in my book. But that's the Dixie. And it is all really on high, high up on my list of favorites. I'm glad I waited to watch this movie because it's real treat. Yeah, real treat.
Ryan: Um no other boy will love you more.
Laura: A couple of things that I wanted to bring up because I have all my little trivia tidbits that I waited for. So, ah, Felissa and Jonathan Tearston, who plays Ricky, her cousin, they developed kind of a cute little crush romance type thing during the filming. Um, but he was 17 years old and this girl had just turned 13. Um, that is problematic. Ah, it's not because it's the 80s, it's just because he's too old. So I'm glad that they broke up. Um, it looks like they've remained very good friends, which is really nice. Um, and something I found really interesting is that during one of these kind of commercial segments from the Last Drive In with Joe Bob Briggs, he called up Felissa Rose because she is kind of like a staple of genre at this point. Um, and he consulted her as a mangled dick expert. He has done so several times.
Ryan: Jeez.
Laura: Um, just, ah, some production information, if you're interested. It was filmed over five weeks. They had a budget of $350,000.
Ryan: Amazing.
Laura: But this movie grossed over $11 million.
Ryan: No surprises there.
Laura: Uh, the movie was sponsored by products such as Seven Up and Miller Beer. And the director said they brought in tons of beer and tons of soda and beer makes a crew run.
Ryan: Um, yeah, it looked like they had a fun time making the movie, which is for the most part. We've made a few horror movies and stuff and things like that. Ah, they are the most fun to make. Oh, yeah, they are the most fun to make. And they tend to be because obviously with dramas and stuff like that, you can kind of get lost in it a wee bit. Um, the one thing I will say is sleepaway Camp is certainly, uh, one of the front runners, one of the staples of the genre. And for, uh, I guess the template for these kind of low budget horrors, making tons and tons of money, that's effectively kind of what spurred this is that the 80s horror scene is effectively full of those films that just make tons and tons and tons of fucking money. So good from being made from so little. Um, basically taking the B M movie idea and kind of filtering it into more of a mainstream, kind know, theater thing. Taking it out of the drive ins and putting them into theaters to make tons and tons of money. And it's still being done, obviously, to this.
Laura: Um uh, rose. I found out today that she's married to Darren Miller, who was the lead singer of the band CKY. So if you're ever familiar with the Jackass movies or The Jackass show or CKY. CKY. Obviously, the skate videos.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Um, so good. That made me laugh.
Laura: The last thing I want to bring up before we end this and I'm really sorry, but I was just blown away by the practical effects with the makeup, with, um, just all of that stuff. But Edward French, Ed French, who was the makeup illusionist, um, is that what.
Ryan: He referred to himself?
Laura: Uh, he was on the Makeup Illusions team. Yes.
Ryan: But he's worked on I'm not a magician. I'm not an illusionist. I'm a magician.
Laura: I'm an illusionist. Michael, he's worked on over 70 projects. He's still working today. And he's worked on a couple of films that we've done on this podcast.
Ryan: Oh, shit.
Laura: He worked on Blood Rage.
Ryan: Oh, nice. Yeah.
Laura: He also worked on Walk Hard the Dewey Cox story. Um, he worked on, most recently, the new Dungeons and Dragons film.
Ryan: Yeah, that movie is pretty good. That's a good one.
Laura: Cooties, which we just rewatched recently.
Ryan: Yeah, Cooties is all right.
Laura: Worked on terminator two.
Ryan: Okay, well, no surprises there.
Laura: Um, William Friedkin's, the guardian. He worked on Vampire's Kiss and Chud. Those are just my favorite ones that I chud?
Ryan: Yeah. I like chud.
Laura: I love Chud.
Ryan: Yeah. What's the abbreviation for Chud? Is it, um oh, no, it's, uh, Underground Dweller.
Laura: Right?
Ryan: Uh, City.
Laura: Cannibalistic.
Ryan: Cannibalistic humanoid. I think it's cannibalistic. Um why don't you look it up? I'm going to look it up.
Laura: I'm going to jump into my ratings here, and I'm just going to explain maybe a couple of things that I liked. So in terms of visibility and context in this digstine is a big fat five. It does not shy away from the situation because this is a pivotal moment in the whole film, and it is the very end. So it really does stick with you. And I know it is for shock value, and I typically don't like that, but I think when you're building upon a trauma and you're building upon that as someone's story, I think it's really interesting. And another thing that I like about this movie is something that you almost never see is full frontal male nudity. Male nudity in general, and not a single piece of female nudity.
Ryan: Yeah. You were expecting to see some boobies and stuff. You see nothing.
Laura: Zero.
Ryan: Absolutely nothing.
Laura: Not like you miss it. And it's not that I did think about it at one point because there is a shower scene with Meg, right?
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: And you're like, HM, I'm going to see a boobie. No, no boobies.
Ryan: You don't know.
Laura: And I found it really exciting. And I know that when the director went to the ratings, submitted it for a rating, and he was like, we're going to get an X rating. We're totally going to get an X rating. And they came back and go, we have some really bad news. We had to give you an R. And he's like, oh, okay. But was thrilled.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Um, I really thought it was great. Um, and for the film itself, I gave it a four and a half because I really, really liked it. And I thought it was funny. And the costumes are incredible. And I love the nudity. I love this fucking movie. It's really cool.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: So go ahead, tell me what Chud stands for.
Ryan: So Chud stands for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers.
Laura: Oh, yeah, that's what we had.
Ryan: Yeah, that's what we kind of said.
Laura: Great.
Ryan: Anyway, um, I'm kind of with mean, but for me it's like five stars all like it's like one of the most haunting moments in the movie. And then the movie itself. I had so much fun watching it. And then there's like this huge tonal shift when you get towards the end in terms of the deeper conversation for the movie. I don't know if that's something other than what we just kind of spoke about that we can kind of look to. But, uh, I think this is great. I love this movie. I love stuff like this all the time. But that last scene is like just stellar. Five stars just on its own.
Laura: Welcome to a spooky penis season. It's my favorite time of year.
Ryan: Halloweeners.
Laura: The depth of the well for movies we get to pull from is deep. So I'm thrilled about that.
Laura: Coming, um, to you from Camp Arawak, I've been laura, eat shit and live.
Ryan: Laura.
Laura: Eat shit and die. Ryan.
Ryan: Oh. What? No, I'm, um, trying to be nice. Oh, fuck.
Laura: Okay, we'll see you next time.
Ryan: You do you want to hear a joke?
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: What do you call a ghost sitting on the toilet?
Laura: I don't know.
Ryan: No, I said it wrong. Hold on.
Laura: I, um, like that joke.