The man behind the original Sleepaway Camp remembers his slasher classic.

Den of Geek: How didSleepaway Campfirst come about for you?

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Robert Hiltzik:I was in graduate school at NYU.

Its a three year program.

I didnt want to be getting coffee for film producers.

So I figured horror films everyone likes horror films.

And if I could shoot it in one location Id save a lot of money.

And thats where the camp idea came from.

Thats a hell of a final project to show them.

I dont know if they ever saw it.

I didnt actually show it there.

When I was growing up thats when they had Saturday matinees.

And wed watch double features, you know.Robinson Crusoe on Marsand things like that.

Sometimes there were horror movies Dracula,Frankenstein, things like that.

I was a big James Bond fan and I really liked those movies.

So you filmed at the actual camp that you went to as a kid?

Things seemed much looser back then.

Its hard to imagine summer camps being okay with filming a pretty gory horror movie there these days.

Well, I dont know if he ever saw the script.

I think it was a business decision for the camp.

I was familiar with the camp so I knew the layout like the back of my hand.

So the path of least resistance, of course, was just use kids that are older.

I didnt want to go that route.

I thought it would play better if I had kids playing kids.

I wanted a good beginning to grab the audience right away and then hold onto them.

And then I filled in the middle from that point on.

So there had to be that issue even if its just below the surface it had to be presented.

Was there any particular inspiration for that?

Once we shot it, we were just looking for something new with the music and everything.

Even though you had been in film school, this was your first feature film.

No, you know, I wrote a 90 minute script and that script is what we shot.

We shot my script.

So effectively what I did was I pre-edited the film with the script.

This is what the elements are, this is what were going to do.

But I would say that we pretty much stayed on a straight line.

And water always takes a long time.

But we never went over another day.

In fact, for the rest of the shoot we were always only one day behind.

So we were pretty well organized.

We had a really terrific crew and they were really very supportive.

Youve got some kid coming in whos still in film school making a feature and they were really terrific.

They got it, they understood what I was trying to do and that made things much easier.

Do you have a single fondest memory of the shoot?

Well the bees (sequence) was always one of my favorites.

The cast, the crew we were family for the five weeks we were shooting.

The parents would basically allow me to care for their kids because they left.

They pretty much gave me their kids and didnt interfere.

Obviously the movie has become a cult favorite over 30 years are you gratified to see that happen?

You certainly couldnt have foreseen it at the time you were making the movie.

Ive said before when you make a film you never know how its going to be received.

And yet Im constantly surprised at the reaction its developed over the years.

So its gratifying but always surprising because you just never know.

Is there still a possible reboot in the works?

So I want to keep that.

Sleepaway Campis out now on Blu-ray.

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