By Ben Bussey
When the trailer for Camp Dread came online a month or so back, I thought it looked like complete and total shit, been-there done-that microbudget slasher fare offering up absolutely nothing new – but even so, showing potential to be a bit of a laugh.
Guess what? I was right about the first part.
As I’m sure I’ve said before and will no doubt say again, there are few things less endearing than a horror movie which is nowhere near as smart, funny or unconventional as it thinks it is. As much as it might be pitched as an homage to the golden age of the 80s slasher, Camp Dread in fact harks right back to the shit-eating-grin days of the 90s, wherein filmmakers and actors felt the name of the game was flaunting their self-awareness and smirking about how above it all they were. Perhaps Camp Dread is intended to radiate love for the genre; perhaps that’s what writer-director Harrison Smith and co felt they were doing. But it’s put together in such a lifeless, witless, uninventive fashion that it seems to radiate nothing but contempt for horror audiences, horror cinema, and indeed cinema full stop.
The plot, so much as I can be bothered to rehash it, is as follows: Eric Roberts shows up playing, as usual, Eric Roberts, which means he’s a sleazy, manipulative, untrustworthy [insert chosen profession here]. In this instance, [insert chosen profession here] turns out to be a one-time hotshot film director, responsible for a slasher series called Summer Camp back in the 80s, and now struggling to get involved in the inevitable reboot (ooh, sort-of topical). And, as is always the case for Eric Roberts, he’s got a nefarious and thoroughly implausible scheme to relaunch himself to fortune and glory: he’s assembled a ragtag bunch of troubled teens, all of whom were bound for either rehab or jail, and brought them to a disused summer camp covered in strategically placed DV cameras to participate in what he tells them is a reality TV show. However, things are not quite they seem. Is the intention, in fact, to in some way use the footage as the basis for a new Summer Camp? Or is there a deeper, darker motive than this? Why do people keep disappearing? Is someone bumping them off? And why does Danielle Harris get second billing when hers is a two-scene cameo role amounting to maybe five minutes tops, and the real female lead is Felissa Rose of Sleepaway Camp (see what they did there)? More to the point, does anyone give a flying fuck?
Okay – so it could be worse. Camp Dread isn’t a found footage film, which it quite easily could have been given the premise. But this reality TV horror angle… come on, Wrong Turn 2 was seven years ago now, and frankly the idea wasn’t that new or surprising even then. But while Joe Lynch’s backwoods slasher sequel certainly had its failings, it remembered at least to deliver certain key attributes: cool kills that happened on camera, decent nude scenes, and – not for nothing – volume, energy, and at least a dash of genuine unpredictability which more than made up for its formulaic nature and fairly low production value. Camp Dread doesn’t come close to any of this. It’s tedium writ large from start to finish, with a core ensemble of college-age kids who start out loathsome and unrelatable and don’t change. Worst crime of all, their death scenes are feeble in the extreme, most either occurring off-camera or boasting very poor make-up FX; guess all the budget went on messrs Roberts, Rose and Harris. And the one attempt at a sex scene is a fumbling half-cocked mess (heheh) with painfully obvious use of stunt boobs.
As I have also said before and will doubtless have cause to say again – there’s fun shit, and then there’s shit shit. Camp Dread is every inch the latter, and not worth wasting a milisecond of your time on.
Oh, and not that it makes too much difference given the quality of this particular clagnut in the buttock crevice of horror cinema history, but about that cover art below? They all stay in cabins, and to the best of my recollection we don’t see a single tent in the movie. Scratch up another victory for marketing people who really care about selling these movies correctly.
Camp Dread is available now on Region 2 DVD and is released to Region 2 DVD on 23 June 2014, from Image Entertainment.