Camp Daze

The synopsis for Camp Daze sounded like a lot of fun: four vacationing teenagers somehow end up in a supernatural summer camp that is trapped in time (circa 1981), where they attempt to help the not-so-happy holiday-makers who are forced to endlessly re-live the night they were slaughtered by a mysterious maniac.

And so I eagerly settled down to watch the film, hoping for a brainless slasher flick, with a time travel twist, shot in an 80s style, featuring summer camp fun and games, a touch of nudity, a psycho killer in the woods, and plenty of gore. Sure enough, Camp Daze delivered all of these things—although it wasn't EXACTLY what I had been expecting.

The summer camp activities included the usual sporting events, a campfire sing-song, a spot of amateur dramatics, and frolicking by the lake, as well as the obligatory bit of 'not-on-the-camp-schedule' slap-and-tickle and pot smoking. But why did so many of these moments feature the young men in very short shorts and stripped to the waist?

The one sex scene at least had a hot babe getting it one with her beau (before being killed, of course). But why was the camera focusing on the bloke's abs rather than the girls chest (which for some reason remained covered)?

Eventually, the penny dropped: this was a slasher film made with a particular audience in mind and I wasn't going to see any naked screaming girls running for their lives, or taking unnecessary showers. The clues had been there from the start: the film was produced by Screamkings (a play on the term 'scream queen') and even the title had the word 'camp' in it (doh! I must get my gaydar fixed).

Accepting the fact that this film was likely to feature even more buff bare-chested boys than a Victor Salva movie, I watched the rest of this homo-erotic horror hoping that it would at least deliver in the gore department.

Fat chance! Whilst there is a lot of enthusiastic killing (including some silly, but inventive demises which earn the film a higher rating from me than it probably really deserves), they aren't nearly as convincing as they are funny. The actors ham up their death scenes something rotten, fake blood is liberally splashed about and there are a few rather hokey effects that could never be described as 'special'.

In fact, with dreadful acting all round, an awful script, annoying characters (the black girl who was swearing as if she was in a Tarantino film was especially grating), and a running time of 110 minutes (sheesh!), this film has very little to recommend it. If pushed to say something really positive about it, I will admit that the music is good, but seeing as the score has apparently been ripped off from several other movies, this doesn't really mean that much.

I will say that unlike most comments, I liked the look of this movie. The time warp thing should have been used more. After it was introduced, they never really done anything else with it.The gore was pretty lame. Every kill was almost the same. Maybe a little cherry pie filling coming out of the mouth. The score was pretty nice. The composer did a great job with the 80's themed music and the use of strings, which really captured the sound of the 80's slasher. I agree with the other comments with the over use of close ups. It's like they had a camera mounted Mic and were trying to stay in close enough range for the best audio. I think these filmmakers have some talent, I think they just need to concentrate more on good audio, and developing a solid plot.

OK, so I'm bias. I had the opportunity to work on this film and mostly I can say it was a great deal of fun and a lot of long days. I realize it was not a greatly made movie, but I'd like to see someone do better on such a low budget with such a tight shooting schedule. This movie was shot in Maine over the course of about a week and a half. Every person on crew got about 4-6 hours of sleep due to the extended shooting schedule. Of the equipment it was not the best, lots of clamp lamps, simple rigs, etc. But the cameras and sound equipment were better than most used in independent production. The people involved were a blast!!! Some of the most fun I have ever had was working on this movie. The death scenes were a blast to see setup, I even got to be in one, as one of the stoners (the blonde one)who gets impaled which shotgunning a joint. Most of the crew, at least it's true when it came to me, got paid very little to nothing. And for me, having virtually no film experience it was a great learning experience. I would like to get into acting/filming and anything at all that you can have on a reel is better than nothing. Oh, and Camp Slaughter (Camp Daze) won Best Feature at the Indy Film Festival, so some of the horrible opinions of this movie that can be found here should be ignored by anyone interested in checking this film out.

this movie should just be placed in comedy actually I watched this movie because i like horror films this was far from it most of the actors did a really really REALLY bad job in the film luckily there were a couple good ones this movie would've been a great film if it had more fighting scenes rather than boom your dead and a lot less cussing and well less blood oh and no close ups of the weapons the used that was one of the worst things about this movie is all of the weapon close ups i say overall the commercial for this movie was better than the actual thing!!!!!!!!! if you want to laugh at extremely bad acting and cheesy killing watch this if you like horror Don't EVER SEE THIS MOVIE!!!!!!

a friend rented this one looking for a cheesy horror movie, but soon found out it was a worthless piece of s*#t that should never have been conceptualized, nor filmed and sold. This schmorgasbord of terrible acting, terrible lines, terrible effects, terrible directing, and especially the terrible cinematography are a very good reminder that money can put out any lame waste of film. Even after all of that, you are disappointed by the lack of creativity that the writer/director had when he ripped off both "Groundhog Day" and "Friday the 13th" set in the 80s. The only worth that this DVD has is either being a coaster or a punchline while drinking with some friends.

***Also, it helps to mention that SOMEHOW there are 37 people who voted it as a PERFECT 10!! Seems to me that the actors and director all voted it as a 10 to throw people off the stench of their proverbial dirty diaper.*** DO NOT WASTE YOUR LIFE WATCHING THIS. I FEEL ROBBED OF MY TIME.