Throughout the years, "rumors" of an ALTERNATE CUT of SLEEPAWAY CAMP have surfaced all over the internet. Now let's remember the key word here: "rumors," because that is exactly what they are.
Writer/Director Robert Hiltzik has told me on many occasions that there are no "missing scenes" anywhere out there. He says that he "made the movie per the script" and that is how he makes a movie. He also says that he doesn't film a bunch of stuff and then decide how to put it together during editing. Fans have always been intrigued by the notion of extra scenes. In fact, that was even a question asked at the SLEEPAWAY CAMP REUNION. Robert assured the crowd that there were no missing scenes floating around. And that's it, straight from the creator/writer/director.
Jonathan Tiersten recalled in his interview that the baseball scene was longer. However, it may have just seemed that way because that day was a LONG shoot. Or maybe there is a minor missing scene or 2 of unprocessed film out there somewhere... Ya just never know, SLEEPAWAY CAMP is full of mysteries.
If you compare the MEDIA ENTERTAINMENT videocassette of SLEEPAWAY CAMP (which was released in 1984) with the ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT DVD (released in 2000), you might notice that a few scenes have been slightly shortened.
One scene, in particular, is the "Dead Kenny" shot. In the MEDIA video, you can see the watersnake when it first comes out of Kenny's mouth, but on the DVD, the scene cuts to when the snake has already made its way out of Kenny's mouth.
A scene that is also missing is the shot where the boys jump off the dock and go skinny dipping!!
I asked ANCHOR BAY about these slight cuts, and they were not even aware that the movie had been snipped.
Truthfully, you have to be a die-hard SC fan used to the original MEDIA (or VIDEO TREASURES early 90's release) version in order to pick up on this. So what's the explaination? Well apparently, the version you see on the DVD is the version that ANCHOR BAY was supplied with by the distributor. And as you can tell by viewing the DVD, the film that ANCHOR BAY received for the DVD transfer was in MINT condition!! So do these slight cuts really bother you? Everyone has their own opinion...but in the end, the truth of the matter is that the transfer of SLEEPAWAY CAMP is so beautiful (a lot of low budget horror flicks made at this time don't even have transfers this good), I can't complain.
And for those of you wondering if director Robert Hiltzik picked up on those slight snips, the answer is Yes. And although he holds every second near and dear to his heart, he also was just pleased that the film was given such a great transfer and a rebirth on DVD.