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.

You need to see around 10 minutes of this movie to realize it's everything you've seen before 1000 times. All the moves, the reactions, the plot, the actors and so on.

But look what happens if you pass 25 minutes: it gets better! It gets somewhat different, and you start to actually enjoy it. To connect with the characters a little, to feel the tension around, even to start to wonder. Rarely have I seen something that starts out from bottom and ends up nicely indeed.

I will recommend it as I do consider it better than many such productions. It was a pleasant surprise and I'm glad I found this one. You just have to make it through the first 25-30 minutes. But it will all be worth it.

Cheers!

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.

How many more of these ridiculous "shaky camera" thriller and horror movies must we endure...??? Exactly when in Movie making classes were these people taught that shaking the camera all over the place somehow enhances your movie..Well guess what, It doesn't !! It makes it look silly, cheap, nauseating and at the very least nearly impossible for some to even follow what you are even attempting to show on screen...

Personally,, I'm going to start to boycott any movie that their trailer or info shows this pathetic attempt to cover up the fact that they can NOT coordinate even a basic action scene without this ugly practice..

Anyway the story was became all too familiar even with a twist like ending..just mundane, nothing that has not been seen before in zombie horror,,but, again,the filming technique stopped me from following it at close as I do most films..

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.