VOD Review:: Summer Camp (2016)

"Crystal Lake, this ain't."

Don't let the above blurb give you the wrong impression; Summer Camp isn't a bad movie. It's a movie with a great premise and an exciting twist that was poorly written in places, and it's a bit too jumbled and confused throughout, but it's not "bad."



It's just with a title like Summer Camp, the first thing that comes to mind are visions of Friday the 13th, The Burning, or Sleepaway Camp, and this movie is not quite on their level. 



*If you don't want the movie spoiled for you, do not read any further.

Summer Camp is the story of three young twenty-something Americans who are hired to work at a remote Summer Camp in Spain, to teach the local children English. In the opening scene we're told via news report that they went missing, and local authorities believe that they will never be seen again. The rest of the movie takes past in a flashback of the day before the camp is set to open, where we get to see just what happened to them. 

YEP, THESE ARE THE MISSING THREE.

Before the kids arrive at the camp, our unlucky trio, along with a local Spanish dude, decide to get to know one another by doing trust exercises that involve them blindfolding and chasing each other through the woods. There's plenty of other things to do around the creepy old camp (as it's pretty run down), but they never really get to that stuff, because before they can, some sort of rage-inducing virus takes a hold of them, causing them to savagely turn on each other.



A desperate and challenging attempt at survival ensues. 

THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE FRIENDS!

I won't spoil he twists that the plot undergoes in this section, as the movie really does do the whole Infected thing in a very different way, so why ruin it. I will ruin it all below though, so be warned.

THE SYMPATHETIC ONE.

Summer Camp was an energetic and intense movie, if a somewhat underwritten one.



The premise of the movie, which involves people becoming infected, but only for a short time, was a pretty genius stroke; sure, go ahead and kill your friend to stay alive, after all, they're infected monsters who want to tear you apart with their bare hands. Remember though, that shit will wear off in a while, and then they'll be dead for nothing, and you'll be a murderer.



If nothing else, this movie put a great spin on an old, overused trope.

THAT IS THE FACE OF REGRET.

The main problem that we had with Summer Camp is that as fresh of an idea as it is, it's too quick-cut for its own good. I'm all for quick pacing, and some intense action, but this movie could have used a bit of restraint in both of those areas. Someone get infected, goes wild with rage, chases the others around trying to cave their heads in, then they calm down, then the infection kicks in on someone else, and the whole thing repeats. That's to be expected, as Summer Camp is the baby of Alberto Marini and Jaume Balaguero, both of whom brought us the [REC] series, but this one doesn't ever reach the level of terror that those films, at least most of them, achieved.



A lot of the movie is very dark too, so it's not easy to see what's going on in some scenes.... which is made worse by the shaky cam, which is ever present in this one, and even shakier than it is in most movies.



All of that would be easy enough to put up with if we actually cared about the characters. The beginning of the movie is supposed to be an introduction to them, but served only annoy and confound. The actors did as good of a job here as they could have, given the material they had to work with, but it was rough-going early on, dialogue and acting-wise. Once things kicked into gear though, Maiara Walsh's character was basically the only one we ended up really liking. We love us some Jocelin Donahue, but man was her character ever a selfish bitch.



It was annoying at times, fun at times, and pretty intense throughout, but in a really uneven way. The scene at the end was great though, and we would have loved to see more of the movie be about that.

50 SHADES OF FOREST GREEN.

There are some gory bits throughout this one involving blood and some mysterious black goo, but the movie is so dark and shaky that we don't get to see a lot of it on-screen. 

THAT DOG SAW IT THOUGH. HE SAW EVERYTHING.

Nope.

SIGH...

Overall, Summer Camp is a clever movie that puts an interesting twist on the standard Infected storyline, but it suffers from some mediocre writing (especially early on), and visuals that are confused, really dark, and very shaky.



It's a half-and-half kind of movie for us, and one that you might want to check out if you don't need your fright flicks to be perfect. We're just picky.



C



Summer Camp is available on VOD, and in limited theaters, now.

The ever-lovely Jocelin Donahue and her pal Maiara Walsh.