Camp Slaughter

Title: Camp Slaughter (aka Camp Daze) (2005)
Rating: 2.5/5
Genre: Horror
Starring: Anika C. McFall, Matt Dallas, Jon Fleming
Director: Alex Pucci
Duration: 94 mins

Hey what do ya know, ol’ Nick has another camp slasher movie to review. What a surprise! Well, actually, it IS a surprise…

Four Maine friends are traveling to Boston for an abortion appointment (!) when all of a sudden their car breaks down in the middle of the woods and it’s mysteriously nighttime. After a terrifying night in their SUV, they are woken up in the morning by Camp Hiawatha counselors. Apparently the four have broken down right outside the camp. Only these counselors are kind of strange… they wear short shorts, they think the SUV is an army tank, and they talk really funny (“Grody! Like, gag me with a spoon!”). Soon they notice that all the calendars say August 1981. To make matters worse, there is a killer on the loose slaughtering all the campers. And to make matters WORSE worse, when the morning comes everything starts over again, as if none of the carnage during the night before had ever happened. The four friends realize that they are in a cycle of terror that restarts every morning, where it is eternally August 26, 1981, and the counselors desperately need their help to escape this cursed camp.

I have absolutely no idea where to start with this one. Camp Slaughter is just all over the place; ranging from extremely creative to mindless rehash, from very interesting to utterly confusing, and from very gory deaths to cheap, off-camera deaths. And let’s not forget to mention the ambiguous homoerotic nature throughout most of the movie that, thankfully, never develops. While watching this movie, I felt myself transitioning from a “wow this is cool” mode to a “this could be so much better” mode and back again continuously. It reminded me of watching TV, switching back and forth between a good show and a bad show, but never deciding which to stay on. Without thinking to hard about it all, a good way to describe this film is a cross between Sleepaway Camp and Groundhog Day.

Let me go on about what works in this movie. First off, we have some effective humor inherent in this wacky premise that, for the most part, works rather well. Certainly time-traveling back to the “awesome 80’s” will bring along some chuckles here and there. Secondly, and most obviously, the story is imaginative, innovative, and fresh, offering a unique take on the retro-horror trend we’ve been seeing a lot of recently (Grindhouse, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, The House of the Devil, etc). Thirdly, there is a very high body count, thanks to the film’s premise, and some creative death scenes to boot. The best scene involves a massacre by bow and arrow done so effectively that it had me smiling. Lastly, if you're a person that appreciates the genre, Camp Slaughter ultimately leaves you with a feeling of satisfaction in that you don’t get to see a movie quite like this very often.

And on to the bad… First off here, we have blatant “homage” to films like Sleepaway Camp and Friday the 13th. This would usually be okay if they were subtle, but when the lead girl, Jen, says every five minutes “haven’t you seen any Jason movies,” it gets very annoying. We also have a lead character named Angela. Again, a blatant quasi-tribute to a legendary camp slasher film. Also, the acting by some of the cast is a bit excessive at times. Now for those playing the counselors, this is acceptable since they represent a caricature of the dopey teenagers of classic slasher movies. But there are some that take it too far, and our four heroes from the present aren’t too likeable either. The final “con” for this movie, as I mentioned before, is the strange homoerotic vibe that’s constant until about the 70 minute mark. You never know if this is supposed to be intentional with all the ripped male characters taking their shirts off and acting a little too friendly to each other, or if they just couldn’t convince any of their female cast members to disrobe on camera during the make-out scenes. At any rate, it is pretty unconventional, which might work for it or against it, depending on your orientation.

All of this in consideration, I still find it hard to give it an accurate score, so I’ll just leave it with a neutral grade of 2.5. There's lots of fun to be had with this little shocker, but there are also lots of drawbacks. As with any movie about time travel, there are tons of plot holes that may be dissatisfying. Overall I enjoyed it, but not enough to go recommending it to anyone who is merely a casual horror fan.