Camp Fear (1991)

Dreadfully Boring

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

An archeology professor (Vincent Van Patten) takes four female students (including Betsy Russell, Van Patten's wife at the time) up to Mystic Mountain for a weekend of fun surveying. What they don't expect is to run afoul of some rowdy bikers (with Nels Van Patten, Vincent's bro, in their ranks), who try to rape them. Oh, and there is some 7' mutant Druid priest (Tiny Ron) wandering around looking for sacrifices for some millennium celebration ritual. Ah, jeez, this is some rough stuff here folks. I'll never understand how filmmakers can pull together enough money for a low budget horror flick and then make something so routine and dull. Does it stem from cynicism ("Eh, the public will watch anything") or just plain ineptness? About the only impressive things in this picture are huge Tiny Ron as the monster and George "Buck" Flower as a wino. The producers obviously knew it was lacking as they hired Fred Olen Ray to shoot a new opening where 7 sorority sisters (including Monique Gabrielle and porn star Savannah) walk around topless for about 5 minutes. It isn't enough to save the film. Perhaps it is worth seeing for laughs, mostly provided by the terrible performance by Playboy Playmate Peggy McIntaggart (aka Peggy Sands) as one of the students. And, no, she doesn't get naked. This was originally shot as H.P. LOVECRAFT'S THE HOWLER, but I'm guessing the producers thought even the most naive horror fan wouldn't be too pleased with that as it has no Lovecraft mentions and now howling.

This movie starts out the way every movie should start out, with a bunch of hot babes in a dorm walking around in their undies and/or topless. A couple of them take showers. I'm liking it so far! Unfortunately, we then meet or main characters. They're just not particularly likable. Usually in these movies, the actresses aren't really acting, they give very "natural" performances, and they're quite sympathetic, fun, and likable. Not here. They don't have much of any personality and I didn't care for them much.Some of the girls go on a camping trip for school. On the way they stop at a backwoods gas station and meet a biker gang. The biker gang should really have been left out of the movie - it was cheesy before, but now it's just plain stupid. The head biker looks like a middle aged guy dressed up as John Bon Jovi for Halloween. The girls go out to the woods and later the biker gang follows them.I don't really know what the heck happens after that. There's a bunch of stuff about the world ending because it's the end of the millennium, then some of the bikers get killed by a mysterious Indian dude who keeps disappearing. Somebody gets eaten by a cheesy Lock Ness Monster thing as he's swimming across a lake. Some guy in silly makeup is apparently a Druid, and he needs to sacrifice some of the girls in order to forestall the end of the world. Or maybe cause the end of the world, I'm afraid I wasn't paying much attention. First he dresses the girls up in animal skin lingerie.It could have been a really fun cheesy movie, but the biker gang kind of ruined the atmosphere and the plot was so scatterbrained that it didn't even live up to my grade Z schlock expectations. They really should have eliminated half the plot elements and just focused on one or two things. Instead it's all over the place. Overall, if you're looking for late '80 schlock, I imagine you could do worse. If you tried really hard. There's plenty of nudity at the beginning, but the characters are kind of crummy and the plot is too nonsensical to be even the least bit satisfying.

Why you ask does this man claim to have the truth behind the existence of the almighty? Well its deductive logic my friends, you see I know God exists because Satan does, how else would my poor eyes have been soiled on such a horrendous film? Yes there is no doubt about it, on a cold Friday in the year 2006 Satan possessed me and forced me to watch this film. He what? You wonder; the devil makes little girls spit up vomit and climb ceilings, why would he waste his time in making you watch this film? My only conclusion to that query is that Satan believes watching Camp Fear is the worst form of mortal punishment, not gouging out your eyes or making you speak in tongues, instead making you sit mindlessly through one and half hours of the most awful film making ever. Can this film be as terrible as he says? Yes my friend watching this film is the equivalent of getting kicked in the sack about fifty million times, maybe more. But maybe I am being too harsh, this film does have a few moments in it, the beginning for example, starts in a sorority house with a lot of topless girls; now never being in a sorority I am unsure if girls really do this, but hey one can always pray. Now after the five minutes of boobs and butt cheeks has ended we are presented with a scene on campus at an all girls college; the girls themselves (about eight in all) are in an archaeological class, where they discuss virgin sacrifices and ancient mounds. Flash forward the professor of the class (who happens to be the only male at this girls college apparently) takes a handful of his nubile students, plus girlfriend, to a remote lake in the mountains, their quests, to find ancient Indian artifacts; yeah right professor, we know what angle your pitching. Now this is where the movie gets going, the group of five, four girls, one guy stops at a gas station to get some directions, but lo and behold a biker gang pulls up and harasses the girls, only to eventually leave them alone and go their separate ways. Moving on they get to a "campsite" consisting of four logs and some trees and then things start to go horribly wrong. First the prof. and his girlfriend go wandering away to have some alone time when one of the girls takes it upon herself to find them, only to be captured by some unknown force. Continuing on the other two girls begin searching for the missing girl when the bikers, plus one drunk guy, come looking for them, their plan, to rape the girls and do horrible things to them. The movie goes on with something about a druid needing four virgins for a sacrifice to save the world from some kind of water monster before the year two thousand; but their is a hitch to this plan Mr. Druid, one of the girls is devirginized right before us, so away goes that plan. Now since I said there would be spoilers I'll go ahead and ruin the end of the movie for you, the four girls get taken, drugged with some green goo and then are ready to be sacrificed, after one of them is killed the two remaining bikers and the prof. come to save them; they stand upon a ledge where the not lead biker says, "I think I can make it down there!" only to leap down and break his leg. The prof. runs at the guy and gets subdued only leaving the once rape-minded-now-heroic biker left to fend off the 6'3" giant druid. First he makes a pathetic attempt with a stick then pulls a knife, the knife reflects some lazer beam within a gold snakes mouth and lights the druid on fire instantaneously. Afterwords they carry the wounded away via emergency stick stretchers and ponder if everything is really over, only to have the lake bubble showing the monster within it still lives. In a nutshell that is the film and this is my review, which unfortunately will go unread by most eyes since this is only the fifth posted review for a film that has been out for fifteen years. Thankfully Satan can only get to some of us and not all. The Judge would like to make one heartfelt apology to the poor girl at Circuit City I am going to let borrow this movie; "I'm sorry Sheila, please don't hate me for letting you watch this."

If this movie was made two years earlier it could have been a lot better. But unfortunately, it was made in the decade that had no idea about how a horror movie was supposed to look or act. When I first heard about this movie, people on IMDb were classifying it as the sequel to Cheerleader Camp. Oh how wrong they were. Yes, Betsy Russell was in it but Uma Thurman sure wasn't. I'd really like to find the person who started that whole sequel rumor. I'm sure a lot of us would though. I'm not gonna give anything away because frankly I don't remember how this movie even ends! I'm just gonna tell you to watch a real camp horror movie... The Burning starring Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens, Holly Hunter & the geek from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. A word to the wise - Just because a horror movie has the word camp in the title, doesn't mean its gonna be worth watching. Oh, and another thing, ANY HORROR FLICK MADE IN THE EARLY TO MID 90's WAS EVER CONSIDERED EVEN REMOTELY GOOD!