By Jeff Hayes and John Klyza
I
contacted Michael A. Simpson, the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker
who helmed Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers and Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage
Wasteland, to discuss these horror classics. I interviewed him in late
May 2000 through an exchange of e-mails from his home in Los Angeles where
he's partnered with his wife, Judy Cairo, in a successful movie and television
development and production company.
Jeff Hayes: When did you first get involved in the entertainment industry, and what did you do?
Michael Simpson: I graduated from the University of Georgia where I studied film and acting. A piece of trivia for you. Wayne Knight, from Seinfeld and Third Rock, was a student in the drama department at the time. Talk about a guy with huge talent. After spending several years in Atlanta as a commercial and documentary director, my first break came when I helped to develop two television series for Turner Broadcasting.
Jeff: What were those series?
Michael:Portrait of America was the first. The series was first developed in house at Turner. Turner canceled the series after they'd spent several million of Ted's hard earned dollars and hadn't managed to end up with anything they could air. He decided to give it one more try but wanted the company to go out of house to find someone to create it. Bill Mills, who later was the director of photography on several of my features including the Sleepaway Camp sequels, was working for Turner Broadcasting at the time. He called me and got me to come in and talk with the Executive Producer of the series. I ended up as a producer and director of Portrait of Georgia which was the one-hour episode which became the template for the 60-episode series. When Portrait of Georgia was televised, it won Emmys and as well as Turner Broadcasting's first Peabody, which some people call "the Pulitzer of broadcast journalism".
After that success, I also helped to create and direct two seasons of another Turner Broadcasting series, World of Audubon. During the time of this television work, I was business partners with William VanDerKloot who's a talented commercial and documentary director in Atlanta.
Jeff:
You
were also a feature director before you helmed the Sleepaway Camp
sequels, right?
Michael: Yes. My first feature was a movie called Impure Thoughts which was a small art film that played at Sundance and got a theatrical release. It starred Brad Dourif who horror fans will know from the Chucky series of movies.
Jeff: You got very good reviews for Impure Thoughts. Ed Blank of The Pittsburgh Press called it "one of the funniest, gutsiest, most thoughtful and lifelike movies of the '80s" when it was released theatrically. You also did another movie, a comedy.
Michael:
Yes. A very dark comedy, Funland, about Bruce Burger, an eccentric
hamburger franchise clown who's working the opening of an amusement park
where a local radio personality is trying to break the world's record for
roller coaster endurance. It was the first movie written by Bonnie and
Terry Turner. They went on to great success in Hollywood with the Wayne's
World movies and then the TV series Third Rock and That 70's
Show. We wrote Funland together. Bonnie and Terry are some of
the most talented people I have ever worked with. Fall down funny. I love
them. Prior to the Sleepaway Camp sequels, I'd also written and
produced
Dead Aim, a police thriller starring Corbin Bernsen, Lynn
Whitfield, Isaac Hayes and Ed Marinaro.
Jeff: You were still living in Atlanta at the time?
Michael: Yes. All those movies were shot in the Atlanta area.
Jeff: Is that why the Sleepaway Camp sequels were shot in Georgia?
Michael: Yes. At the time, Georgia was a very cost effective location for movie making. Unfortunately, that's changed over the years.
Jeff:> How did you get involved as the director and producer of the Sleepaway Camp sequels?
Michael: I got involved through Double Helix Films. Double Helix optioned the sequel rights from Robert Hiltzik, who all the camper fans know is the creator of the original Sleepaway Camp. Jerry Silva, who was one of the producers of the first Sleepaway Camp, was the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Double Helix. Jerry knew Robert and negotiated the deal. So, happy campers, Jerry came up with the idea of doing the sequels. The fans have him to thank.
Mike
chats with an executive from Double
Helix
films about his vision for the sequels
Jeff: And Double Helix asked you to direct the sequels?
Michael: Yes. They had previously asked me to serve on the board of directors of their company which was in international distribution. I was the only creative person on the board. The other folks were suits. Guys with ties.
Jeff:> What attracted you to the projects?
Michael: The main thing other than a paycheck was a chance to try to stretch the horror genre a bit and not do just another "dead teenager" movie. I have a pretty dark sense of humor. Funland is a good example of that. I wanted to find a way to express dark humor in a so-called "slasher" movie. It's an idea you either love or hate. But for me, it was the only way to go. The teen horror genre was already in danger of becoming a parody of itself at the time so I figured, what the heck, call attention to it and have some bloody fun.
Jeff: Humor with pop culture references in horror movies were not too common at that time, although it's common today.
Michael: Yes. The SC sequels, in my opinion, really contributed to comedy loaded with pop culture references being in horror films. I think that's one of the reasons Kevin Williamson made reference to Angela in I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Jeff: Had you seen the original Sleepaway Camp before doing the sequels?
Michael: Yes. I watched the original Sleepaway Camp before I made my decision to work on the sequels.
Jeff: What did you think of it?
Michael: It certainly has an ending people are always shocked by. For me, the most interesting part of the original story was I thought it provided a good set-up for the transsexual aspects of Sleepaway 2 and 3.
Jeff:
A lot of fans have always wondered why Angela was the only character from
Sleepaway
to return in the sequels. Any idea why some of the others were not brought
back?
Michael: The writer, Fritz Gordon, wanted to take the sequels off in a different direction and I agreed with him. Anyway, I always felt that after the events of the original Sleepaway Camp, not too many of those characters would have wanted to come back to camp again. I mean, really, would you?
Jeff: In many cases with films, the writer is overlooked. Tell us a bit about the screenwriter of the sequels, Fritz Gordon.
Michael: The rumor is Fritz lives on an island these days. I don't know much more about him than that.
Jeff: The leap in terms of tone and character from Sleepaway Camp to Sleepaway Camp 2 was a large one. Successful as it turned out, what was the catalyst for the change?
Michael: A desire to do something different. At the time, the teen slasher genre was thematically exhausted. It needed something else to keep it going. Fritz Gordon has a warped sense of humor which he brought to writing the sequels. I thought one of his best ideas was to have Angela actually go under the knife and have a little snip, snip of her johnson. That's got to be one of the most unique twists in the Sleepaway franchise.
Jeff: Were there any elements of the first film you would have liked to play up? The Aunt Martha character comes to mind, an especially John Waters-esque creepy/funny character.
Michael: Aunt Martha was a great, creepy character in the original. However, I was pleased with what Fritz Gordon did with the sequel stories, especially SC2. Doing any sequel is a tricky experience. It's sort of like sleeping with another guy's wife or girlfriend. I know the sequels have a large number of fans while some people love the original but not the sequels. Some horror fans don't understand that the sequels are as much a parody of the horror genre itself as a continuation of the original Sleepaway Camp. On the other hand, many fans do get it and really like the sequels as a result. So, if you're a horror fan, you either love or hate SC2 and SC3. I think it comes down to the humor and whether you want some laughs with your body count.
Jeff:
Felissa Rose decided not to get involved at the time because she was in
her early years of college. So tell us, How did Pamela Springsteen become
Angela?
Michael: An agent I knew suggested Pamela for the role. When she read for me, she infused this wonderfully bent quality into the character that I was looking for. It just came to life right in front of me. I knew immediately she was the one I wanted to play Angela. I stopped casting after that and offered her the role the same day. Pamela is immensely talented. I really liked working with her.
Michael
with Pam on the first day of her FAST FOOD role.
Jeff: Were there other contenders for the role of Angela?
Michael: We did casting in Atlanta, New York, and Los Angeles. There were twenty or more other actresses I looked at before I read Pam. I remember Tracy Griffith originally tried out for the part of Angela in New York, but I felt she didn't have the right look. Of course, I ended up using her in SC3 for the role of Marcia which was her feature film debut. I liked Tracy's performance so much in SC3 that I used her as a starring lead for my next film, Fast Food.
Jeff: We've heard that Pamela has become a professional photographer.
Michael: Yes, Pamela is a professional still photographer in Los Angeles, much in demand. She did the stills for Price of a Broken Heart, a movie our company, Cairo/Simpson Entertainment, produced in '99 for Lifetime which my wife Judy executive produced. I had a chance to see Pam then and she was still her same sweet self. Her still photography is amazing. I have a print of hers she gave me as a gift back in the 80's. I still have it hanging in my home.
Jeff: Did Pamela give up acting? I hope not because her performance as Angela shows that she has a great talent for acting.
Michael: Regrettably, I don't believe Pamela pursues acting any longer. It's a shame. She had a very natural way with her work. A transsexual, psychopathic killer...boy, talk about going boldly where no one has gone before. There aren't too many actresses who could have played that part as well as she did. It would have been easy to be over-the-top and too broad or worse, too dark and somber. She found the perfect balance.
Jeff: Which of the two sequels did you enjoy filming most?
Michael: I had a great crew and cast on both movies so, overall, the production of both movies was fun. The last few days of production of SC3 were pretty tough. It turned very cold for Georgia in October and we were doing mostly night scenes so we were all bundled up trying to stay warm. The budget was wafer thin by that point also. Bob Phillips, the Unit Production Manager, did a great job of helping to keep the train on the track. I also had a great Director of Photography, Bill Mills, who knew how to shoot quickly. All that helped. The hardest part for me was that I was the only producer on the movies that actually knew how to produce one. Stan Wakefield and Jerry Silva, the guys from Double Helix, were producers and executive producers because their company was distributing the movie. But neither of them understood or could contribute in any meaningful way to the production process. So most of the line producing fell on my shoulders. That's tough on such a low budget movie. Bob Phillips was a big help. I couldn't have done them without his support.
Jeff: Which of the two sequels do you think came out the best?
Michael:SC2: Unhappy Campers works the best for me, both story wise and cinematically. The fans seem to respond to Unhappy Campers the best also. SC3: Teenage Wasteland was a bit rushed. We had very little preproduction time, essentially one weekend, so it did not turn out as well. Also, I don't think the script was as polished as Unhappy Campers was.