So one of the movies that didn’t make varsity for Episode 54 was my beloved Sleepaway Camp. It pained me, truly, not to include this movie because I do still genuinely love it. That said, if you’re wasting your time reading this blog, well on one hand, kisses/hugs. On the other, you’re probably aware of Angela’s Big Reveal.

No, that’s not a dick joke. It coulda been. But it’s not.

Almost everyone even remotely associated with the horror community knows by now. It’s wwwaaayyy over the top as well as straight up life-scarring. Ultimately, though, it’s also transphobic as all get-out.

For those unfamiliar, here’s what led to this state of affairs. See, Peter, Angela, and their father were involved in a boating accident that killed Peter and Dad.

Except it didn’t actually kill Peter. It killed his sister, Angela.

Peter ends up in the custody of Aunt Martha, one of those quirky  “crazy aunties” we see so often in horror. Martha quickly realizes that there’s already a boy in the house, her own son Ricky. This of course begs the question, “Who married and had sex with this woman?

Right. Well, Martha figgers that it makes perfect sense to raise Peter as a girl, specifically as Angela, his dead sister. Like ya do.

Okay. As part of my secret identity as a mild-mannered English professor, I teach both Introduction To Literature as well as Mythology. In both of those courses, we spend a bit of time with Greek tragedy. If you know anything about Freud, you know that Uncle Siggy thought Greek tragedy was pretty fucked up, and more than a little.

In that sense, Sleepaway Camp’s family dynamics are in good company. Through the lens of the present, however, this whole thing becomes a fucking mine field in terms of simultaneously demonizing alternate sexualities as well as mental illness.

I did hear one podcast, either Frigay The 13th or Gaylords Of Darkness, suggest that Sleepaway Camp can be looked at as pro-gay. So there’s that. Still, yeah, doesn’t make the cut, as it were.