The Monster of Camp Sunshine or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nature

I bought this film as a double feature dvd and thought it would be good for a few laughs. I put it on while friends were over ( thinking we would skip through it) and we were amazed by the clever opening credits that looked kind of like something from Terry Gilliam. The opening scene is quite surreal. It opens in a cool New York apartment shared by 2 60's swingers. One of them a Nurse and the other a fashion model who also serves as our narrator. They are in bunk beds smoking and using the coolest hanging ashtrays you'll ever see. The model tells of the dangerous fates they did not know that were ahead of them and the music in the scene is dark and creepy and amazingly playing on the models record player. The nurse asks the model to change the record, and she puts on some kind of marching music. I cannot give this scene justice, you must see it for yourself. What really surprised us was the ending. The Battle for Camp Sunshine is a true epic on film making.The epic military scenes and touching ending make this a classic horror-nudist-war movie almost anyone could enjoy. The nudity could hardly offend anyone, there is very little of it. The look of the actors and the excellent cinematography make this great viewing if you are in the mood for something like this. And you must be if you are reading this comment. I say go see it!

This movie is one of those movies that should have been better. The basic plot has two room mates going off to a nudist camp for the weekends. One is a nurse at a research lab where an accident produces a nasty mix of chemicals that turns rats mean. The creator knowing its a bad thing, but through a series of contrivances the stuff ends up in a stream by the camp where it turns the caretaker in to an ax wielding maniac. The film turns surreal as a stock footage army arrives to kill the monster and it ends with everyone getting naked and wandering off to live happily ever after.

The pacing of this film is really slow. Had it not been, and had it not turned stupid once the monster appears this could have been a good nudist thriller. The people are mostly real and the plotting isn't that bad, its just the sort of thing that they tried to... I don't know what and messed it all up.

I do have to say that the photography and in the New York City scenes in particular is glorious black and white. This is a wonderful record of the city circa 1964. There is a sequence involving a photo shoot on a rooftop that is stunning and I'm tempted to print out one of the frames when and if I get a DVD ROM in my computer.

I thought this would be just another nudie-cutie with a lot of stock footage to fill in between the nude scenes...I was wrong. This film, at times, looks as if it were a film directed by Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, Brian DePalma, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Russ Meyer and Guy Maddin. I know this sounds crazy, but just watch it and you'll see what I mean.

Incredibly stupid plot, beautifully done. The black and white cinematography is great considering the total lack of funds to make a "Hollywood" film.

A nurse and fashion model, sharing an apartment, rail against lab testing on mice, like the air headed bimbos they are. After the rats attach the nurse, they take a trip to a nudist camp (the women, not the rats), only to be terrorized by a fat retarded janitor. Unlike the better "Best that Killed Women", this one is totally inept and taking forever for ANYthing to happen, a true chore to sit through. One good note neither the Director, nor the cast made ANYthing EVER again. So at least there's some kind of happy ending to be had after all.

My Grade: F

DVD Extras: On a double-Bill with "The Beast that Killed Women"; 9 Shorts ( Bring 'em back nude, Expose of the Nudist Racket, Nude Ranch, Beauty and the Beast, Back to Nature, Nudist Fashion show, and 3 intermissions) ; Gallery of Exploitation art; Vintage Drive-in intermission; Trailers for "The Beast that Killed Women", "Eves on Skis", "Goldilocks and the Three Bares", "Nudes on Tiger Reef", "Nudist Life", and "Pussycat Paradise"

Easter Egg: Highlight Jesse James Drive-In for a bonus Trailer for "Girls Come Too"

Eye Candy: It's mostly set at a nudist camp..duh, so loads of breasts and buns, only bushes are trees tho

This qualifies as "so bad, its good". The 1960s doco sound track, the strategically placed items of girl and boy bits ... so seminal, Blake Edwards must have been influenced by it for A Shot in the Dark!

Hilarious... 75 minutes well spent.