Thompson's production company, AFA, has acquired the remake rights to the 1980s cult classic slasher film and has hired the original movie's writer and director, Robert Hiltzik, to helm the new version, Deadline reports.

The original 1983 film focuses on a teen summer camp, where campers and staff start being brutally murdered. It's most remembered for its third-act twist, when shy girl Angela is revealed as the killer. Only it turns out that Angela is actually Peter, a young boy who was forced to live as a girl by his sadistic aunt after his father and sister died.

The movie has been widely accused of employing transphobic tropes, with critics pointing to how it paints trans women as violent, portrays transness as a mental illness, and has an over-the-top, shocking reveal of a trans person's genitals.

While teasing that there will be a new central character in the remake, Hiltzik told Deadline, "Though I have been approached by several companies regarding the remake of Sleepaway Camp, only AFA has shared my vision and is excited to have me helm the film, therefore preserving the integrity of the original film for the fans, as well as introducing Sleepaway Camp to a whole new generation."

Can the "integrity of the original film" be preserved without having some version of gender confusion or fluidity?

Today, the film is most iconic for its shocking twist and arresting final shot, where Angela is revealed to be Peter as we see her standing naked with her mouth agape. Meanwhile, rhetoric about LGBTQ+ adults grooming children to be trans has never been more popular. Conservatives are more focused on the narrative that being trans is a mental illness or the result of a cult being forced on brainwashed youth than ever before. So what does Sleepaway Camp look like in 2025?

In recent years, the film has been reclaimed by queer and trans audiences. Many modern viewers see Angela as either a tragic victim or a parallel to the women in rape revenge movies like I Spit on Your Grave.

In 2020, trans critic Harmony Colangelo wrote that Angela can be seen as "a tragic example of how important gender expression is."

"In Angela's brain she is Peter, but people keep calling her by a name she doesn't want to be called and misgendering her," she argued. "That is the plot of all films about transitioning but because it takes place in reverse and is attached to a 'problematic' film like Sleepaway Camp, it is discounted on all counts."

Writing for Dread Central the year before, film critic BJ Colangelo (Harmony's wife) said that the film is "an incredible metaphor about how forcing gender roles onto someone that doesn't align with who they are is fucking dangerous." She argued that the horror in the film's iconic scene isn't that Angela is revealed to have a penis, but is in "recognizing how abused and mentally tortured this child has been for years."

These interpretations of the film open it up to a new direction, one that I think would be the most successful for a reimagining of the film: a conversion camp setting.

One way to build the franchise to suit a modern, more enlightened world would be to set the new film at a conversion camp, where a trans boy or nonbinary teen is forced by his aunt to live as a girl. At the conversion camp, he would face bullying, body shaming, alienation, and sexual harassment -- just like Angela did.

This version of Peter would know that he is a boy, but would still be forced to shower and bunk with the girls. He would be told he doesn't know who he is, and would be preyed upon by the adults at camp. It would be enough to drive someone crazy.

The 2022 film They/Them attempted to do something similar to this idea. Set at a conversion camp, it follows Jordan, a nonbinary teen sent there by their parents. As Jordan gets to know the other campers and the staff, several of them start getting murdered. Then, in the third act twist, it's revealed that one of the staff members is a former camper out to get revenge on the place and the people who did her wrong.

Unfortunately, the film had its trans characters take the high road and say that the killer encouraging the campers to join them is just as bad as the camp telling them to be cis and straight.

A reimagining of Sleepaway Camp could explore the same topics, but show that when you push someone too far, they just might break. This new version of the film could reveal the true horror of a life like Angela's: being forced to be a gender you are not.

Mey Rude is a staff writer for Out.