Summer Camp

It starts off in familiar territory: a small group of young counselors in a remote camp. However, just by reading the movie's summary, you'll already know it's not going to follow the same trajectory as others with this same set-up. The premise borrows heavily from a sub-genre of horror movies such as "28 Days Later" and "The Crazies," where people suddenly suffer from a plague of unknown origin that causes murderous rage (again, part of the brief summary here on IMDb). What it adds is an interesting twist in that the people who are inflicted by this "rage" suddenly snap out of it, and are clueless to what happened while in its grip.

The positive is that multiple people could suddenly go off at any moment; it's not just one person who's suddenly gone insane and the rest get picked off one by one. This adds some tension, but unfortunately the filmmakers seem to only touch on some of the implications of this condition that could elevate the premise from "scary" to "horrific." For instance, the characters all come to realize that they all are infected, and they all cycle in and out of this madness. If the screenplay had been fleshed out enough so that the characters could dwell on the facts that, not only do they not want to kill a friend even in self-defense (especially knowing they'll eventually come back to normal), but there's also now a fear that they themselves might be killed in self defense when they're suddenly in the grip of unstoppable rage.

Instead, the movie careens from one person going crazy (sometimes multiples at the same time) to another, to another, etc. and it becomes tedious. There's no time for character development (although at times the movie adds in nuggets of characters' back-stories which are obviously added for the viewer to feel something for them, but are too sparse to register as anything other than awkward and misplaced), and the constant growling/snarling/attacking starting about 1/3 into the film never ratchets up any tension. By going from 0 to 100 so early and then consistently staying there becomes monotonous and actually reduces the fear factor since it's basically doing the same thing repeatedly.

In addition, it relies way to heavily on the camera shake technique. Not the "found footage" type, but the kind that's meant to convey action, confusion, and chaos (and yes, probably shift attention away from budgetary constraints). That can work well in small doses, but again, when the action starts so early and doesn't stop for an extended period of time, it greatly reduces its effectiveness. The viewer is bombarded with quick-cuts and constant camera-shake which becomes annoying and and pretty much defeats the whole purpose.

I applaud them for an interesting premise, and both the acting and the effects ranged from passable to good. I just think fleshing out the premise and expanding on its implications would have pushed it beyond just another zombie-like "rage plague" movie that many horror fans have seen enough times already.

It seems like just another slasher stereotype: a group of young attractive camp Counselors, alone in the woods trying to get to know each other before the kids come. This time around however, a strange outbreak turns anyone exposed into a raging murderer for a small period of time. It eventually wears off, but do to the nature of how it spreads, anyone at anytime can become the slasher and as easily not become the slasher.

It makes for a very suspenseful film not knowing who was going to be the slasher or the victim at any given time, and it was very impressive that they kept this up with so limited resources for 83mins.

It's starts off slow and very corny. The movie is filled with a lot of OMG and WTF moments that are very slasher campy, but as the mystery of the outbreak begins to unravel the camp turns form bad to really good. Summer Camp seems to go for one big punch line instead of a few good kills, which turned into a smart tactic that makes this cleaver film work.

It's the type of Horror film all slasher fans should check out.

Four young Americans travel to Europe to work as counselors for a summer camp there but an unseen terror stalks and strikes this group . They are the four followings : Diego Boneta (known for ¨Rock of ages¨) as Will , Jocelin Donahue as Christy , Maiara Walsh as Michelle , and Andrés Velencoso (who replaced Álex González who had to be substituted due to scheduling problems) as Antonio . Before the children arrive at a European summer camp , however , the rage-inducing outbreak begins in the animals , specifically in a raging dog . The group soon discovers that an inexplicable virus is causing fits of rage in both , animal and human alike . One by one are bitten and extending the doomed virus , as the group has to escape from the terrifying plague . Resulting in the biting Andres Velencoso/Antonio who starts the killing outbreak . As the counselors desperately attempting to getaway the illness . However, the camp is in the wilderness , being really under siege and far from the civilization.

This splatter/gory film deals with some American counselors who must deal with the outbreak of a rage-inducing illness , a demonic disease spread rapidly from animal to person , displaying horrifying scenes , screams , action , suspense , a twisted finale and resulting to be pretty entertaining . The thrilling and suspenseful premise turns out to be the following : how are they going to get to safety to getaway from the raging people infected by a creepy plague , having their cars wrecked , phones out , fully isolated and completely besieged by starving killers , Zombie-alike . The horror moments are compactly made , fast moving and well-paced . This ¨Summer camp¨ takes parts of ¨Rec¨ saga , ¨28 days later¨ , ¨28 weeks later¨ and ¨Walking dead¨ series . In Spain was premiered in 2016 -two years after being shot- only in a few theaters in dubbed version , getting a limited success . Most of the film was shot on actual Cataluña wilderness and an old building , though some of the sets had to be recreated at the studio in order to allow space to film and do stunts.

Atmospheric though dark cinematography in ¨Rec¨ style and including a shaky camera by Pablo Rosso. Thrilling and heart-pounding musical score by Arnau Bataller . Decently produced by Jaume Balagueró and his work partners , producers Julio Fernández and Carlos Fernández , the fine artificers of such a big hit as ¨REC¨ , ¨REC 2 , ¨REC 3 Genesis¨ , and ¨Rec 4: Apocalypse (2014)¨ . The motion picture was professionally written and directed by Albert Marini . He is known for his work as head of development , script consultant , story editor , development executive in ¨Julio Fernandez's Fantastic Factory¨, ¨Filmax¨ and specially on a quite a few successes as ¨Dagon¨, ¨Arachnid¨ ,¨Bullying¨ , ¨Kovak box¨, ¨The abandoned¨, ¨Gisaku¨, ¨Fragiles¨ ¨Darkness¨, ¨Beyond Re-animator¨, ¨Nocturna¨ , ¨Sleep tight¨, ¨El Camino¨, the smash hit ¨REC¨, among others .

Summer Camp: The title suggests a slasher film, even the build up points to this with a mysterious knife wielding stranger in the woods and odd new age travellers in the area. Three Americans are hired as counsellors to work with the director at a Spanish camp in an old building. Problems abound as animals come down with a strange illness, turning savage.

Soon humans are also affected and turn violent after vomiting up a dark liquid. This is a fast zombie style illness involving biting and feral behaviour. Some impressive action scenes as the violent ones hunt the uninfected through the building and the forest. Perhaps a little drawn out and the attacks/violence becomes a tad repetitive. Nevertheless it is an effective directorial debut by Alberto Marini who also co-wrote the screenplay. 7/10.

Wow, I've watched bad films before and not enjoyed them because of things like story, acting, plot etc, but 'Summer Camp' gave me a new reason to really consider turning it off from any time after the twenty minute mark.

I'm a general fan of horror and/or B-movies, so I've watched (and enjoyed) a tonne of cliched films where a handful of teenagers get stalked by - insert monster or serial killer of your choice here - and liked them for what they were. So when the summary of this movie was basically, four camp councillors get infected with a deadly disease while in a Spanish summer camp, I was pretty sure I'd be getting some form of zombie outbreak film.

And I got basically just that - only with two major differences/problems. The first was that the film was just too damn dark to ever see what was going on. Seriously, I actually tried adjusting my TV's contrast and brightness in the hope of actually working out what was going on. The second - and even worse - problem was that the camera constantly shakes whenever something - supposedly scary - happens. This, combined with the fact that the film is shot in near darkness means I couldn't tell what was happening at any time.

One example was two people driving in a car. One attacks the other. The car crashes. I assumed both were still in the vehicle, but it turned out one had got out (or jumped out?) and I hadn't been able to see this happen on screen.

In short, this film just doesn't work because you need night vision goggles to even stand a chance of getting anything out of it. I don't know how you overcome the 'shaky-cam' - maybe just be used to being on a ship on choppy water? There are a million better zombie/infection stories out there that you can actually see what's going on.