After watching Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland, It's hard to imagine "Riff" to be anything but a tough talking, foul-mouthed gangster... But this was not the case when talking to Daryl Wilcher, the very friendly and well spoken man who portrayed the character. In the following interview, Daryl returns to a camp full of good memories, cold shoots, and shares insight about what it was like camping with our favorite slasher, Angela at a place called Sleepaway Camp!
Daryl Wilcher: Yeah, the film-makers put out a call to all the agents for the series...I
heard about it briefly when they were filming the second one and I was really surprised
when they had auditions for the third one because they were using like all the talent in
the area just about...and they said they were gonna start part 3 as soon as they
wrapped production on part 2 since they were shooting them back to back...so as
soon as part 2 was finished, they immediately began casting for part 3...
Jeff: How old were you when you worked on Sleepaway Camp 3?
Daryl: Somewhere in my late teens or early twenties...
Jeff: Did you shoot the movie at an actual camp?
Daryl: Yes. We went out to a location on the outskirts of Atlanta...about 30 or 40
miles outside of Atlanta...in the hills and mountaintops of Georgia. I guess the person
who scouts locations here found this site. The site was in one area but the different
locations were like scattered about this area so it kept shifting depending on which
scene we were shooting. It was a real campsite. I guess they wanted to get as far
away from the city as possible.
Jeff: Tell me your inspiration for RIFF.
Daryl: Well, I just tried to make him as thuggish and foul as I could since he was
supposed to be a bad guy. Actually, I lived during some of my teens and my childhood
for a little while in Detroit, Michigan and there were some tough areas there so just
from my school experiences and people who I knew in my neighborhood, I based him
a little bit on them. I think the character was supposed to be from Detroit so I was like
OKAY this works because I could actualy model him from some people I went to
school with [when I was in Detroit]. I just tried to make him as menacing and tough as
I could. It was kinda like a caricature but it was fun.
Jeff: Did you do a lot of ad-libbing with the character?
Daryl: Well I guess we did. You didn't really have to adhere to the script. Like they
said, This isn't Shakespeare (laughs) so we were fine tuning it and changing things.
From what I remember, when I was looking through the script [at Riff's character] I was
like wow, this guy just spouts obscenities all throughout the whole thing! So I was like,
This is gonna be EASY (laughs). I mean how hard can it be to remember to insert
M.F. here and FUCK THIS there. My friends to this day tease me about that fight
scene where I jump up and I'm like, "Suck my d*ck, Spic!" They love that! They're like,
that's the pinnacle of your acting career (laughs).
Jeff Hayes: How did you get involved with Sleepaway Camp 3? Did you just go in for
an audition when the movie came into town?
Jeff: That was a fun scene.
Daryl: We had a lot of fun with that because it was the first time that I had actually done anything resembling a stunt or choreographed fight scene. So we had like little arm pads and elbow pads under our clothing so we wouldn't get hurt. And Mark Oliver ("Tony") he was a really cool guy to work with, I remember when we did the first take and we were on this table that was rigged to fall over when we were fighting on it...the stunt co-ordinator coached us through and said DO THIS, DO THAT, do exactly as I say so you dont get hurt...so we were like OK...and when we finally did it, we threw ourselves into it physically and had a great time going through the motions and we crashed onto the table and they yelled CUT! And both Mark and I jumped up at the same time and said at the same time to each other, "ARE YOU KIDDING??!!" (laughs).
Jeff: What was it like being on the set of Sleepaway Camp 3?
Daryl: When we shot it, it was like in the fall or beginning of winter; I remember it was just freezing! Since it was a low budget film there wern't a lot of honeywagons or little campers or mobile homes or anything that is usually made available to talent so we were like all hanging out around these little heaters, shivering waiting until the next shot came up...
Jeff: Did you like to stick around and watch the movie being made even when you wern't in it?
Daryl: I tried to. I tried to watch as much as I could. A lot of times if you're on call and you're out there all day, you may show up at like 7 or 8 in the morning and they might not get to your scene until like 1in the afternoon. You didn't have much choice but to stick around and watch what was going on or atleast try to prepare yourself for whatever scene was coming up. If It was really really cold, usually I'd just stay in...I would try to stay as close to heat as possible. But If I got an opportunity to watch something to see what was going on I would...I hung around a lot with Bill "SPLAT" Johnson [the special make-up effects guy]. He was really cool, a really really talented guy, and when he was putting together special effects, whenever they were pulling something out, I wanted to see what it was or how it looked. At one point I saw these charred skeletons...somebody got burned up...they just had all these props laying around...all these decapitated bodies and what not (laughs) and I was always like, Where's this from? Is this gonna be in our scene? So, that was fun.
Jeff: It seems like a lot of the gore and make-up effects were cut out of part 3 when comparing it to part 2. Was a lot of that stuff cut out?
Daryl: When we were doing some of the effects where the characters were getting killed off...when we were on the set and we were initially doing them, some of them seemed kind of crude, kind of ridiculous the way they staged them...but when they screened the dailies the next day, the rough cut of the stuff...some of the stuff looked so realistic, so violent, that they had to tone it down or cut some of it out.
Jeff: One thing that always bothered me about Sleepaway 3 was toward the end where Angela had the remaining campers play a "Trust Game" in which they had to go into all the cabins to find "Marcia." This was a great idea and great scene but when they entered the cabins, they were very darkly lit, almost to the point where you couldn't see the dead bodies piled up inside each cabin...yet in part 2, all the dead bodies in "Angela's Cabin" at the end were very well lit so you could see them in all their gruesome glory. Do you have any idea why it was shot like that?
Daryl: That's a good question...I don't really know if that was intentional...if he was trying to heighten the horror effect by keeping everything in the shadows...or maybe it was just to try and hide the shoddy speical effects (laughs), I don't know, but what I do remember about that last scene is that the crew was rushing through it, it was sort of like a roadrunner cartoon the way they set it up and shot it...they were trying to meet the deadline...they had to stay on budget and if they didn't dismiss the talent by a certain hour then they were gonna run into overtime and they really couldn't afford to do that. SO all I really remember is that they were just rushing and everybody was like, OK everybody get in here, do this, lay down, please dont move cuz we really can't afford second takes...and the special effects guy was running back and forth with this portable fog machine and they were fogging the place up...and it was really freezing cold and they were just like We gotta go. All they were yelling was, We gotta get this finished before the time runs out. They were really just in a race with the clock. That might have had something to do with why it was filmed that way, but I don't know.
Jeff: What was Pam Springsteen like?
Daryl: Pam was really a nice lady. She was real low-key. Really, Really, really petite, a really tiny lady and that surprised me. It was funny because I didn't make the realization that she was Bruce Springsteen's siter until half way through the movie when somebody had mentioned it. She was just really really nice. In fact, she took pictures with me...a lot of times you go there and take a polaroid camera or something to record the moment and remember people...so I have like a little mini photo album of the experience...I took photographs with her and all the other people.
Jeff: What was director Michael Simpson like?
Daryl: He was cool with me, he was a great guy. He was really professional, really
driven. Like I said, a lot of people were just standing around chattering because it was
so cold out there...and I remember him standing there, and he was cold too but he
was like, OK, let's make a movie! And then he rushed out into the cold air and
everyone was like, OH man, this guy is really pumped. He has a lot of enthusiasm.
Jeff: So what was the atmosphere like on the set? Did everyone have a good time?
Daryl: Yeah, it was pretty cool. Everybody was happy, of course, to be working...there
wasn't a lot of pressure, for me anyway, as far as performance and getting in-depth
into the character because RIFF wasn't really that complex of a character (laughs). I
got half way through the film before I made the realization that a lot of the characters
had been named after West Side Story [like RIFF, SnoBoy...]
Jeff: And some of them were named after the Brady Bunch kids.
Daryl: (laughs)...Yeah, there were all sorts of little in-jokes...cuz we were missing
them, there's a lot of stuff that we were missing and we didn't find out until later on or
when we actually sat down and watched the finished movie. I would watch it with my
friends and we would just crack up...I was like, OH, I never noticed this happened, or
when did that happen?
Jeff: Do you remember any scenes gettng cut or changed?
Daryl: In the scene where I hit the Southern girl (Cindy) in the face with the bowl of
oatmeal...I was supposed to spit on her, that's what the script said...and I told them
that I didn't want to do that...ya know, I'm not gonna spit on this girl...and she was like
No, it's fine!! And I was like No, no I don't wanna do that...and then the director, when
he was looking through the script, he changed his mind...he was like This looked like
a good idea when it was written but now it's different...so he was like Just take the
oatmeal and hit her in the face with it...so I was like, OK, I can do that.
Jeff: How about any scenes that got cut that you know of?
Daryl: Well, there was a closed set...the set with the nudity, when the girls were in
changing...and a lot of kids were under age so they couldn't be on the set...it was a
closed set anyway because they wanted the actresses to feel comfortable with that...I
don't know how much of that actually made it into the film...and then there's the effects
shots that I mentioned earlier...
Jeff: SO tell me what you are doing these days with acting and what you do...
Daryl: I'm not really into the preformance end of it anymore...I mean if an opportunity
came along I would accept it. I've always been very artistic as far as my
strengths...Now I'm more working on behind-the-scenes. I work as a Video-Tech now
for stuff like music videos and corporate films and live concert shows...that sort of
thing. I work on projects with a video production company that is owned by a close
friend of mine...so I sort of work freelance through him...but as far as performance I
haven't done anything really in a long time...I've done television. I've played bad guys
before; I usually play bad guys or the boy next door...I don't know what the connection
is (laughs). I did an America's Most Wanted and I played this guy who killed his wife.
Jeff: (laughs) they probably saw you as RIFF in Sleepaway Camp 3 and said WOW,
This is the guy we need for this part!!
Daryl: (laughs) I seem to get typecast for these types of roles...a lot of these
crime-drama re-enactment type shows like America's Most Wanted and Unsolved
Mysteries...But for the most part I'm working behind the scenes now. In the video
production company I work for with my friend, I work in the compacity of a
Video Tech...running cameras and that thing too...but I also utilize my skills as a video
storyboard artist...I love cartoons, animation, and I'll draw storyboards when he
requires that. I like model work too, I've built little scale models for sets and what
not...I don't know if you're at all familiar with the black comedy tour that was going around the
country called Kings of Comedy, but I worked on that, my friend produced and directed
it...and they had a special set that they would use for the comedians to come out and
perform on, sort of like a revolving set, and I built the prototype for the model that he
used when he was putting together his presentation to create this set...Little things
like that, anything I can do where I can work sort of independently in the preproduction
phases of art design and what not for music video, video, movies, commercials...I
dabble with a little of that.
Jeff: Do you prefer performing or staying behind the scenes?
Daryl: I love performing...I get a rush from it...the whole thing about creating a
character...it's much more fulfilling...but the realism of the business, a lot of times the
opportunities aren't there and geography plays a big part, depending on where you're
located, I mean Atlanta certainly isn't the motion picture capital of the country, so the
opportunities can be scarce.
Jeff: So looking back at making Sleepaway Camp 3, what was it like for you?
Daryl: I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun doing it. At that point it was the longest that
I had worked on a feature length production...and I didn't have a lot of experience when
I did Sleepaway...so it was a really pleasant and anxiety free type of introduction for
me being a novice into the industry. It was a major character and I had a good deal of
dialogue...well a lot of the others did, I had a good deal of obscenities (laughs). It was
a great experience.
We would like to extend a very special thanks to Daryl Wilcher for going back to
Sleepaway Camp for us and sharing all there teRIFFic memories! Maybe we'll all get
the pleasure of seeing Daryl play another new Sleepaway character one day!