Review of Camp (2003) by L S — 16 Jun 2007

I just added a new movie to my top 3 most hated films of all time. Joining Lost in Translation and Dirty Dancing is the 2003 Stagedoor inspired flick "CAMP".

Or as I'd like to call it, AWFUL.

Being familiar with Stagedoor Manor, the camp which "CAMP" was based on, and having attended a similar institution as a child, I turned on this movie fully expecting a nice homage to a place where young people can be themselves and explore their personalities and interests. But instead I was completely blindsided by the horrendous script and exceedingly poor execution of this terrible excuse for an indie flick.

This film contains the most stilted and awkward dialog I've ever heard in a feature film. And I don't mean awkward in a fun, teenager way, I mean awkward in the way that some conversations just didn't make sense.

In other cases, character traits or flaws were mentioned in one scene never to be seen or heard about again; these traits and flaws had zero impact on the behavior of the characters and came completely out of left field.

Many key "plot points," in the film are not actually depicted, they are mentioned as necessary throughout to fill in the audience in a kind of "oh by the way" or "did you hear?" fashion. Instead, the script focuses on amateur and frankly boring musical covers by the less than impressive "campers." Also hindered by these overly-long and terribly-choreographed "show" scenes was the character development for the majority of the main characters. With the possible exception of Michael (Robin de Jesus), the campers and their theater teachers begin and end the film having experienced no personal changes, having undergone no transforming journey. Oh wait; one character does changes, however it wasn't over time brought on by understanding and acceptance, or simple cause and effect: it occurred in a matter of seconds, to suit the purpose of this hackneyed screenplay.

Probably the most horrible thing about the film was that there was no supervision of the handful of campers. In fact the only adults at the camp seemed to be two staff members, three instructors, and five musicians, none of whom ever appear as the campers run around all night, take off their clothes, make out, and have sex. And while I know, having attended and been a counselor at a camp like this, there are many real campers who have gotten away with such things and more, these particular campers seem carefree and careless about what they do; they don't have to sneak around or take any caution in their activities. In fact there are no consequences for anybody, whether they be drunkard counselors or campers trying, literally, to murder one another. Besides the obvious reasons this might be a problem, the no-holds-barred attitude of the campers kills any tension or intrigue in the campers revels.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know how this film got made at all. I know the place and I know it could make a great story if someone were to try it from a different angle, but this script didn't seem like it even made it to a second draft.

It's true what they say; you can't make a good film from a bad script, and in this case, the script was fucking atrocious. I looked around online after I read about it on IMDB and found that it had a budget of $1.8M. Oh, the better things I could make with a million dollars ...