Sleepaway Camp Star Still Hopes to Make Prequel

The '80s were full of a number of slashers that took place at summer camps, with 1983's Sleepaway Camp being a fan-favorite entry into the subgenre, thanks largely to its shocking twist ending. The film would go on to inspire four follow-up films, and while the series has stagnated for more than a decade, star of the debut film and 2008 sequel Return to Sleepaway Camp Felissa Rose is still holding out hope that she'll get to develop a prequel to the original movie that would explain how her Angela would go on to become a killer.

The original film saw Rose's Angela and her cousin Ricky going to camp together, only for various figures at the camp to start being violently killed. Reveals are made about Angela's upbringing that tie into the deaths, namely that she was biologically a boy but, after her father dies and is taken into the care of her Aunt Martha, she is seemingly forced to grow up as a girl.

"I really would like to do a prequel about Aunt Martha," Rose shared with Dread Central. "It's super important not only for myself to find the answers, but sort of on this path of where we are today. What were the living arrangements? What was happening in the house? What was the daily routine, the emotional life? I feel like if we knew the story in the home, we would know better where Angela's steps would be in walking through life, presenting as a boy."

Despite much of the film feeling like a traditional summer-camp slasher, the film's finale featured various reveals that has made it problematic, to say the least, in regards to LGBTQIA+ themes. Rose noted that, while some viewers interpret the finale to mean that being forced to be transgender is what turned Angela into a killer, the actor herself thinks her murderous ways weren't connected to her character's thoughts on gender.

"I absolutely don't feel like it's transphobic," Rose expressed. "I feel as though Angela was a typical adolescent trying to find her gender identification and sexual orientation and I thought that was extremely exciting for 1982. It was ahead of its time. You can see with her father and his lover as well as her relationship with Paul [her camp crush], who she was trying to understand her relationship with, I feel like it was an adolescent story of a young person coming of age, with all of the murders on the side."

Back in 2020, Rose offered similar comments about her desire to develop a prequel exploring Aunt Martha. At the time, she said "mark my words" to Bloody Disgusting that a new project would be announced in honor of the film's 40th anniversary, which is approaching this year.

Stay tuned for details on the possible future of the Sleepaway Camp franchise.

Would you like to see a prequel move forward? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!