Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor
| Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor | |
|---|---|
 Original 1992 poster | |
| Directed by | Jim Markovic |
| Produced by | Krishna Shah |
| Written by | Tom Clohessy |
| Starring |
Carrie Chambers Victor Campos John Lodico |
Production company |
Double Helix Films Rainbow Productions |
Release date |
2002 (Special feature) 2012 (Standalone DVD release) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor was the cancelled fourth entry in the Sleepaway Camp series. The film was canned during production in 1992. In 2012 the original test footage was mixed with archive footage from the previous three films, and was given its own on-demand DVD release. The film would have been the last of the series to follow the continuity of Sleepaway Camp II and III, as Return to Sleepaway Camp, released 16 years later, directly followed the first film ret-conning the other sequels that had no involvement from the original director Robert Hiltzik.
History
Filming began in October 1992 at Camp Tamarack in Oakland, New Jersey. However, Double Helix Films, the film's production company, went bankrupt during this time, causing the production to shut down. Roughly 34 minutes of footage was shot before shut down; a trailer was also made. In 2002 the footage from the first day of shooting was released as an exclusive fourth disc for the Best Buy Red Cross edition of the Region 1 Sleepaway Camp Survival Kit DVD box set. There were 2 versions of the Survival Kit released, with only the Best Buy edition including the fourth disc. Both versions are now long out of print, with the 4-disc edition being the rarest. In 2013 the official, feature film version was finally released by Retrosploitation via CreateSpace and Amazon. The final version was edited by filmmaker Dustin Ferguson and produced by John Klyza of SleepawayCampFilms.com.
Plot
Allison Kramer (Carrie Chambers), a survivor from the original Sleepaway Camp, is plagued by nightmares that revisit the gruesome camp site. Unable to recall the actual occurrences due to a forced mental block, she seeks the help of a psychiatrist in overcoming her insomnia.
After numerous visits and hypnosis, Allison's psychiatrist tells her that she is a survivor of a camp massacre which occurred over a decade ago. Her disbelief of the whole situation inclines the psychiatrist to advise her to return to the site for an afternoon, in hopes that if she were to see the scene of the crime, she would remember and overcome them.
Doubtful, Allison sets out for the camp she attended but never remembered. When she reaches her destination she finds the camp closed and abandoned, the land now Federal Property. She reminisces about the events that occurred in the original trilogy. Allison narrates over many of these scenes. Archive footage from the first three films are organized into themes, such as Angela being afraid of water. Allison looks for a ranger, Jack (John Lodicos), that her psychologist, Dr. Lewis, told her to meet up with. The ranger tries to have sex with her, but Allison decides things are going too far and runs away. The ranger chases her through the woods. Allison stops as she can run no longer. She is found by a hunter, Eugene (Victor Campos), who almost shoots her out of fear. Later on, she approaches the ranger with the hunter's gun and threatens to kill him if he doesn't stay away from her. She then returns to the hunter and shoots him. In the next scene, Allison is standing in the sun with a knife, which the sun is reflecting off of. The ranger approaches her, but she whirls around and the film freezes as she holds the knife near him. It then cuts to a cabin, where you see the hunter's and the ranger's decaying bodies (There is an error, the hunter's corpse looks like T.C.'s but it's not T.C.'s). The credits then roll over the image.[1]
It is implied in the opening crawl that Allison may actually be Angela, the killer from the three previous films, as it states that she "is a woman without identity," and asks "But who is Allison, really?" This may also be supported by the fact that she had flashbacks of certain scenes throughout the original trilogy that only Angela was present for or survived through.
Availability
In November 2010, Fangoria magazine made an official announcement of the film's "completion". The final version was announced to run just over 70 minutes and was released on DVD on March 23, 2012. It is available at CreateSpace and Amazon.[2]