Trivia / Sleepaway Camp

• Ability over Appearance: Judy was intended to be a blonde, to contrast against Angela's brown hair. But Karen Fields played the Alpha Bitch so well that the character became brunette.
• Acting in the Dark: In order to protect the thirteen-year-old Felissa Rose in the scene of Artie attempting to molest Angela, they first filmed the reaction shots of her backing away, and then Artie's coverage when she was off set. She didn't know what was happening in the scene until she saw the finished film. Likewise, she was kept away from any of the graphic death scenes when they were being shot; although she had an idea the scenes would be intense.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Karen Fields played Judy just because she found it fun to play an Alpha Bitch.
• Cast Incest: Felissa Rose and Jonathan Tiersten developed a romance during filming when they were playing cousins. They split up shortly after.
• Cast the Expert: The paramedics carrying away the injured Artie were locals. Their squad is seen written on their jackets.
• Colbert Bump: The film was always regarded as a Cult Classic, but it did get a minor boost in popularity after being featured on Robot Chicken. It was even lampshaded:
  Camper: Oh my God! Angela's the killer and she was really a boy!
  Robert Hiltzik: Oh my God! Somebody remembered this movie and wrote a comedy sketch about it!
• Corpsing: Felissa Rose kept cracking up during the scene of the boys harrassing her ("yo Angela, why you so fucked up?"), because she found John Dunn and Tom Van Dell hilarious.
• Costume Backlash:
  • Jonathan Tiersten really didn't like the large hat he had to wear at the social, since it kept falling off because it was so big. He also thought it looked ridiculous and tried to appeal to the wardrobe mistress, but was told it was the director's orders.
  • Felissa Rose, who was a Girly Girl that liked her makeup and accessories, was a little put out at Angela's more demure look - with only the two hair-clips as anything fancy.
• Creator Backlash:
  • The director later said he regretted having Angela kill the kids who threw sand on her. He wanted every victim in the movie to be an Asshole Victim and later decided that this was a bit Disproportionate Retribution.
  • Special effects creator Edward French regrets how fake the body cast of Kenny is; apparently John E Dunn was nervous when it was being made and they had to make do.
• Crosscast Role: Felissa Rose as Peter, raised as Angela.
• Dawson Casting: Mostly averted with the cast. Katherine Kamhi was borderline as Meg; she was nineteen.
• Enforced Method Acting: The man who stood in for Felissa Rose in the final scene had to be drunk before he could properly film it.
• Follow the Leader: While Sleepaway Camp does quickly evolve into its own entity, its summer camp setting, whodunnit structure and kills done via the murderer's POV drew lots of comparisons to Friday the 13th (1980). Both films even climax with a character being decapitated on the beach at night.
• Friendship on the Set: Felissa Rose describes all the kids on set hitting it off and being good friends. Karen Fields ironically enough was one of her best friends on the production.
• Funny Character, Boring Actor:
  • Inverted. Angela is The Quiet One who says very little, and doesn't emote much. Felissa Rose by contrast is a Genki Girl known for being very lively and bubbly at horror conventions. She also had a much bolder and more colorful sense of style than Angela's subdued look, and was rather put-out when she couldn't wear her usual makeup or accessories in character.
  • Played straight with Desiree Gould, who in interviews was the complete antithesis of the ridiculous over-the-top Aunt Martha.
• In Memoriam: The movie is dedicated to writer/director Robert Hiltzik's mother, whom he describes as a "doer".
• Irony as She Is Cast: Angela, as a biological boy, is flat-chested, with Judy repeatedly teasing her for it. Felissa Rose grew up to be, well, very much not.
• Never Work with Children or Animals: Billy's death scene (or the aftermath at least) had to be done on a completely isolated room to protect people from the live bees. And because it was so cold, the bees kept dying and had to be replaced.
• No Budget: Only made for $350,000.
• Real-Life Relative: A lot of the cast and crew's relatives appeared as the campers getting off the bus near the beginning of the film.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Frank the cop is wearing an obvious fake mustache in the scene where he returns to the camp. This is because Allen Breton had to shave it off in between filming days for another project.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Felissa Rose's mother protested about a couple of things that influenced the shooting process - and resulted in some additional Foreshadowing of the twist. She did not want her daughter to be performing the death scenes, as she was too young. So the male Jonathan Tiersten acted as her double and stood in for her in most of the killing scenes. It's him wearing a wig in the scenes where Kenny and Judy are killed. His hands are used in most of the shots of only Angela's hands, again to hide the killer's identity.
  • Willy Kuskin, whose character is bullied, was a victim of bullying in real life, as a result, Frank Trent Saladino had to intervene when the other members took things too far.
• Romance on the Set:
  • Robert Hiltzik got engaged to Missy, the body double for Lisa Buckler (Leslie).
  • Katherine Kamhi (Meg) and Thomas E van Dell (Mike) dated during filming.
• Throw It In!: Ricky's rant to the boys throwing water balloons at Angela was something Jonathan Tiersten had improvised in his audition when Robert Hiltzik asked to "curse him out".
• Trans Character, Cis Actor: The killer is revealed as assigned male at birth but raised as a girl. In sequels, she identifies as a woman and has undergone sex reassignment surgery. She's played by cis actress Felissa Rose in the original and the fourth sequel. Cis actress Pamela Springsteen played her in the second and third sequels.
• Uncredited Role: The man who stood in for Felissa Rose in the ending has remained anonymous to this day. The actor was "a local college kid" who was paid "a couple hundred bucks" to play the role after parental complaints from Felissa Rose's mother about having her daughter wear a prosthetic penis for the scene. As a result, they had to make a mask of Felissa Rose's face for the actor to wear. For the scene; the actor had to be completely shaved, stand on a beach on a freezing cold night, wear the mask of a 13-year-old girl, and he had to be naked for the scene as well. He drank several beers to calm his nerves and when the time came to do the scene, the poor guy was overwhelmed with stage fright and he broke down crying. Edward French, Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tiersten, and Robert Hiltzik understand that it was an intense and bizarre scene for the actor to do, spoke about him with the utmost pity, and they still respect his desire to remain anonymous.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Desiree Gould initially wanted to leave the film, finding Aunt Martha's dialogue too bizarre to say with a straight face. The director responded "you're going to do this role if I have to mime the words for you". She later called the experience "fantastic".
  • Jane Krakowski almost played Judy, but had problems with the way she would die.
  • Jonathan Tiersten claims that Ricky's "mind over matter" speech, which ends with Mozart being tricked into doing a sit-up onto someone's naked ass, was much longer. He had nearly two pages of dialogue to memorise, but it was cut down.
  • Felissa Rose recalls the second kiss between Paul and Angela was written to have him feeling her chest and undoing her bra. She's glad it wasn't filmed, finding it an odd thing to have in there in view of the twist.
  • A shot of Judy after she's killed with the curling iron was cut by the censors for being far too graphic.
  • Ricky originally died when Mel beat him at the end. Only during shooting did Robert Hiltzik decide to film Ricky showing signs of survival.
  • Felissa Rose was originally going to do the end scene wearing a prosthetic penis. They eventually decided to achieve the shot with a boy wearing a cast of Felissa's face.

---