By Richard Winters
My Rating: 6 out of 10
4-Word Review: Somebody’s killing the campers.
In 1975 two children are out on a lake with their father when the boat they’re in capsizes. As they are swimming in the water another boat that is being recklessly driven rams into them killing both the father and one of the children. Fast forward to 1982 one of the surviving children, Angela (Felissa Rose), is now living with her eccentric Aunt Martha (Desiree Gold) and Martha’s son Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten). Because Angela is very shy Martha has decided to send her off with Ricky to summer camp so that she can learn to socialize better. Once there Angela’s quiet nature causes her to be bullied by the other kids, which soon leads to all sorts of violent deaths amongst both the campers and counselors. The camp owner, Mel (Mike Kellin), wants to keep the deaths out of the press and insists they’re all just been accidents, but while he does this he becomes convinced that it’s Ricky who’s behind it and resolves to teach the kid a very brutal and violent lesson.
Initially this was a low budget film made near the end of the golden age of slasher flicks that was not intended to do all that well as most studios had considered this type of horror film to have gone out of style. The critics at the time savaged it, but since then it has gained a strong cult following and considered even ground breaking for its gay subtext and gender identity roles. Writer/director Robert Hiltzik shot it at a camp in upstate New York that he used to attend when he was growing up. The camp atmosphere is very authentic and I was impressed with how many kids they were able to bring on to make it seem like a genuine camp day with tons of kids running around everywhere and all of them age appropriate to the role versus having older kids over the age of 18 trying to look younger than they are, which is what you get in most other teen flicks. The only caveat is that it was filmed in September/October of ’82 and seeing some of the trees in the background changing colors does not help give off much of a summer time feel.
The film is noted amongst slasher aficionados for its grisly deaths. When I first saw this movie back in the 90’s I hadn’t seen as many slasher movie so I wasn’t aware of how the killings here are much different than what you usually see. In most other films of this nature the victim dies usually by a quick slash of a knife, or strangulation, which isn’t either creative or memorable, but here you get all sorts of novel deaths. Two of the best is when an overweight man (Owen Hughes) has his entire body doused with scalding water and the throbbing blisters on his skin look realistic. He also doesn’t die, which is unusual because usually the victim passes away without that much of a struggle. The death by bee hive in which the victim has his face covered by hundreds of stinging bees is equally vivid and well played-out.
The acting is impressive too as not only do you get to see Christopher Collet in his film debut, and witness his bare behind in a brief bit, but also Felissa Rose, whose quiet stare is quite penetrating and becomes the film’s most lasting impression. She apparently got the part because during the audition they were asked not to convey any lines, but to simply stare off in space while pretending to eat some candy. Prolific character actor Mike Kellin, this was his last film and he was already dying of lung cancer when he did this, is fun particularly his incredibly unfashionable choice of clothes that bring out the worst styles of the 70’s and are reminiscent of a what a middle aged suburban dad of that era might wear when attending a neighborhood backyard BBQ.
Spoiler Alert!
On the negative end I didn’t find Angela, who we learn at the very end is really a boy, to be able to realistically pull-off the murders that she does. I don’t believe she (he) would’ve had the strength to pull out the chair from underneath a heavy-set man, nor dunk the head of a bigger boy under the water, or be able to force a knife through a metal wall of a shower stall. The argument that she’s really a boy doesn’t work as her (his) body type is quite small no matter the sex and the arms are scrawny. The film does well in coming up with novel deaths, but they should’ve worked harder at thinking up killings that a small fame teen could accomplish and still be in the realm of reality, which I don’t feel these are.
With that said it’s still a cool ending. I enjoyed the weird facial expression that Angela gives off once she’s caught and the camera freezes on it while morphing into a green backdrop. The final song that gets played is creepy too, so all in all the film succeeds though it will require some suspension of belief in order to be fully enjoyable.
My Rating: 6 out of 10
Released: November 18, 1983
Runtime: 1 Hour 24 Minutes
Rated R
Director: Robert Hiltzik
Studio: United Film Distributors
Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Freeve, Pluto, Tubi, Amazon Video,
Scopophilia 