Camp Hell (15)

This is out in UK cinemas tomorrow (2nd Dec.) It's a poor film but I had fun panning it!

Camp Hell (15) (This review on FilmJuice.com)

If you liked the trailer for Camp Hell, don’t bother to watch the film. Falsely advertised as a fast paced supernatural horror, the story in fact moves at a snail’s pace, and most of the spooky finale is in the trailer anyway (not to mention nearly all of Jesse Eisenberg’s screen time!).

Tommy is a young lad sent to a pseudo-Christian camp where the youth are taught the dangers of sins such as premarital sex and, wait for it... rock music. He is haunted by a demon via nightmares, and when he fails to resist the advances of the alluring Melissa, his sin gives the demon cause to wreak havoc on the camp.

Now there are of course some fanatics in the world following twisted offshoots of Christianity, as there are of many other religions, and perhaps one day a film will be made that accurately and fairly portrays their pitfalls and hypocrisies. But Camp Hell is not it. The Christians here are a confusing mishmash of stereotyped Catholicism, evidenced by the camp being run by a priest, not to mention the characters making the sign of the cross every two minutes... and radical charismatics, whose main crime seems to be irritating people with their cheery songs and perpetual smiles. Writer director George VanBuskirk clearly wasn’t aiming for realism on any level, which is pretty disgraceful when his film claims to portray some of the inner workings of a popular world religion.

One thing the film does have going for it is the controlled and credible performance of Will Denton as Tommy. He very nearly lifts the quality of the production out of the gutter, where it would certainly belong if weren’t also for the accomplished cinematography. Valentina de Angelis however is horrendous as Melissa. To be fair it doesn’t help that her character is there purely as sin inducing eye candy for poor Tommy, but she simply couldn’t be less convincing if her face was made of plastic. Perhaps she has a future as a model.

The music is inappropriate and distracting, so much so that any atmosphere that might have been created is instantly evaporated whenever the score kicks in. The most frustrating thing about Camp Hell though is its ending; not that it doesn’t come soon enough (that too...) but that the conclusion is so bizarrely disconnected from all that has gone before, that any message or intention VanBuskirk may have had is completely lost.

Aside from a couple of entertaining (but irrelevant) half clever references to popular classics like Jurassic Park and Star Wars, Camp Hell is a distinctly lifeless film; boring, pointless and offensive. Save your time and money. Life really is far too short.