Camp Fear

Oh my. Started out with such great potential - a bunch of cute sorority girls walking around practically naked, check. Then off to a bar where the 80's cheese gets turned up a notch, check. Off to a woodsy state park the next morning, check. A bunch of girls and their professor, rowdy bikers, a General store guy, and that dood from They Live acting as the local drunk - makes for a nice body count, check (and speaking of body count, notice the strong resemblance on the DVD cover to the foreign horror flick - Body Count! aka Camping del Terrore). A whacky Indian in the woods doing some sort of ritual, hmmm, OK I'll let it slide, check. And then, oh brother, all downhill from there. Terrible. The Lochness monster head in the pond had me cracking up though.

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.

Thus far, this one seems to have received almost unanimously scathing reviews here on IMDb but I don't understand all the hate: although the film is undeniably cheap, poorly written and technically shoddy, it sure as hell entertains, offering up delightfully daft B-movie 'cheeze' by the bucket-load.

The first five minutes alone qualify Camp Fear as satisfyingly trashy fun, the film opening in a sorority house where every dorm girl is a big breasted babe and it seems mandatory to wander around either naked from the waist up or in sexy underwear. The film starts proper when four such college hotties—anthropology students with impressive IQs and bodies to match—decide to take a camping trip with their professor to study ancient Indian relics at a remote backwoods location.

Unfortunately for our swotty sexpots and their lucky teacher, not only do they have to contend with horny drunken bikers who want to party with the girls, but they must try and avoid being sacrificed to an ancient god by a giant Indian druid (played by ex-basketball player Tiny Ron) who believes that their deaths will ensure the survival of the human race for another millennium.

Betsy 'Tomboy' Russell as Professor Hamilton's girlfriend Jamie; George 'Buck' Flower playing yet another wino; a massive papier mache crocodile monster; a rare non-porn performance from tragic XXX legend Savannah; a hilarious lambada dance routine to a crap pop song; an over-use of smoke and coloured lighting; our four sexy students being forced to wear revealing animal skin outfits; buxom blonde student Tiffany having her throat cut (resulting in a gush of bright red paint): for the right kind of viewer, Camp Fear should prove to be more fun than many give it credit for (especially if you play my Camp Fear drinking game: take a shot every time Buck Flower talks about 'demons and devils'!!!).

5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

A handful of nubile young college sorority sisters decide to go camping with a professor. A giant druid want to sacrifice them to prevent the apocalypse come the year 2000, they also have to contend with bikers, an Indian and a loch ness monster type thing. Worth watching for only 3 reasons, George 'Buck' Flower (a sadly unsung B-movie staple) is on hand as a hobo and the other 2 belong to the stunning Savannah (in one of only 3 non-porn roles she had). Both have very small roles. Too bad everything else in the movie is horrendously bad.

My Grade: D-

Retromedia DVD Extras: Original Trailer

Eye Candy: 4 pairs of breasts, 2 asses

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!