Camp Daze

I attended the Boston screening of Camp Daze. I have recently joined the dark side with other horror genre fans over the past few years. This movie not only surpassed my expectations in terms of gore and blood, it adds humor (with shocking dialogue) to a clever and entertaining story. Jen's delivery of vulgar comments and the exaggerated 80's apparel (especially Ivan's short shorts and belly shirt) will make your mouths drop in shock and laughter. Despite its modern feel, Camp Daze pays its dues to 80s slasher film with its own unique twists and deaths. Even the soundtrack suits the movie's 80s feel of suspense.

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.

Too many reviews on the IMDb claim the film (more often now video) they just saw is the worst film ever made. If there is any justice left this video ( and not for one moment will you not believe it is anything other than a shot on video) will garner new worst film ever reviews. But hey the first people to write reviews of it loved it. Well fortunately most films get watched by more people than made them,though the only reason to sit through this is if you helped make it.

There's almost no point to talking about what's bad about it. Everything is.

But what do slasher fans expect? Let's run it down.

Nudity===no none there other than some shirtless men in tight short shorts--wonder what that's all about?

Gore? Mostly the dribble candy looking blood over an actors skin. Oh, one early kill has the dead woman blinking. More stranglings than slashings and the killer usually arrows instead of a knife. It's pretty much all of the, "Oh I'm pretending I'm being killed" variety. Like you'd see from a bunch of nine-year-olds playing Cowboys and Indians in their back yard with some food coloring for blood.

Music? Well the only decent thing in the movie is the music score, that claims and might actually have some real instruments used. Unfortunately much of the music is god awful pseudo 80's songs that are bad and don't sound like 80's either.

Acting? Well you don't expect acting in a slasher film but I mean really.

The 80's? Well that era for slasher films this one tries for, but the wardrobe isn't consistent, the valley girl is really a few years too early to be in the film and has too many ear rings. The shot on video nature makes it all look cheaper than even the cheapest slasher films of that era. There's no suspense or nastiness here, the set ups for the kills are pretty weak and or silly.

Comedy? Well no you don't expect that in a slasher film, but don't worry unless you think bad actors reciting lines you'll recognize from better movies is funny, you won't have comedy getting in the way of the film. The black chick character says she just ate so much her t**t is going to explode. I guess that counts for something?

Unique killer gimmick? Do sort of loose fitting yellow work gloves terrify you? Well they won't after you see this movie so don't be afraid to keep your eyes open. Even if you are afraid of sort of loose fitting yellow work gloves watching this movie will cure you.

Something like taking their cheapo video camera and badly recorded sound away from these people so they never make another "movie" again.

The central idea (sort of a time travel thing) is really badly done so they can't take credit for that.

All kidding aside this is trash made by people who don't know how to make a movie and don't care about the movie they made. Annoying video hissing sound pops in and out with the camera edits, just like it does in your own home movies. Wow, that's great. Greenish video skin tones that don't match the shots around them, just like it does in your own home movies. Wow, how do they do that? Brightly illuminated by bright white light night scenes, just like when you take your light on top of your video camera and turn it on. Wow, why watch these people do this when you can already make a movie will all the excitement and skill that these people are vomiting up all over you. Talent aside, these are basic basic technical requirements that no one who made or released this film gave a damn about. Why, because they think slash fans are too stupid to care.

Hire the composer of the score, send the rest of the people involved in this film onto the Titanic with third class tickets and glory in the thought of them freezing painfully to death on a moonless night long long ago, and try to forget you ever saw this thing. Oh and while you imagine them freezing to death imagine the juries at the film festivals that this film touts on its box being set on fire as their eyes are eaten out by fire ants.

And please note I never said it was the worst film I'd ever seen, but I hope other reviews do. Not that you should believe them usually, because not every low budget shot on video film is this bad.

I would rather watch fat render then ever see this movie again. The plot seems like Back to the future meets Friday the thirteenth. The audio quality is awful and the is far to many close ups of the actors, the reasoning for this is (in my opinion) the production company did not have and microphone booms to hold above the actors while they conversed and there for had to shoot straight on with their sweet camcorder close ups. You can actually hear the audio pieced together. This movie is not only and insult to your eyes but also your ears. Things i would recommend over this movie would be: 1. getting kicked in the balls over and over again for the full 93 minutes, 2. Having all you finger and toe nails removed, 3. And simply just not watching this movie. Do everyone a favor, if you rent or own this movie (God i hope you don't own this movie)take a key and scratch the disk until it bleeds. The gore effects looked like something a 9 year old could come up with in the back yard. Please don't watch this movie

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.