Nonureva
Really Surprised!
CrawlerChunky
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Hayden Kane
There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
Páiric O'Corráin
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.
a_baron
A small group of American teens or near teens stuck in the woods threatened by monsters or things that go bump in the night. Where have we seen this before? Twelve hours later, when you have completed your list...this one is not about monsters or zombies, although the zombie connection is not that dissimilar. The group have flown to Spain where they are to teach young kids English at a summer camp miles from the nearest town, only the kids haven't arrived yet, so they are currently amusing themselves. No, not like that, shame on you for even thinking it; there is no sex at all in this film, and not much else bar people running around in the dark screaming. One of our heroes is bitten by a rabid dog, and goes crazy. Or was it really the dog? We are given the answer near the end of the film, the dog bite was actually a coincidence. What has really been happening is somebody has been mixing mushrooms with water, as you would do. This has led to an outbreak of stachybotrys, better known as black mould, something that is actually mentioned in the "Bible". In the real world this condition can cause a wide variety of medical problems, especially in the young. Fortunately the effects are temporary, in this film at any rate, which begs the question how many of them will survive till the end? Unfortunately, to find that out, you too will have to survive to the end, which is barely an even money proposition.
thesar-2
Holy crap, talk about judging a book by its title.I went into this movie 100% cold. I knew nothing about it other than the title and I thought I knew it all. I hadn't watched a trailer, read a blurb or even seen a poster. What I thought I read into the name was going to be a cheap, independent take on the killer stalking camp counselors subgenre, à la Friday the 13th…a personal favorite of mine: the slasher flick.Before I go further, it's best you do the same as me. SEE IT before you read anything about it. Go in as cold as I did. Heck, I just now stopped this review and watched the official trailer. Boy! did that ruin a ton of surprises and twists. Not everything, but you know what kind of movie this is and it was fun to learn on your own from the beginning.Suffice to say, I hesitate to NOT give this a perfect rating. It was absolutely one of the most effective, scary, original, tight and inventive horror movies I've seen in probably a good couple of years. I loved the rules it came up with, the acting was believable and the pacing and continuous flow was near perfect. It didn't settle on just one direction; it kept reinventing itself.It gives some damn good red herrings in the opening, which I loved and it does enough foreshadowing to enjoy the inevitable scenes, even if they're predictable. I was shocked about both my experience going in cold and expecting so little as I was when I enjoyed the movie itself. I do like a lot of horror films and 50/50 independent films, but every once in a while an independent horror flick just blows me and my expectations out of the water. Definitely see this movie.***Final thoughts: If you're reading this on IMDb, most likely you've seen at very least the poster. Shame. Even that gives too much away. Luckily, I found the perfect, nondescript, albeit official poster to share with my review on Facebook. Hopefully, you'll take my warning (don't read/see anything about this before viewing it whole) and just see it. And have fun. It's Summer Camp, after all. Right?
Coventry
Remember the eighties? Remember when horror movies set in summer camps featured gruesomely deformed and masked killers – or their deranged mothers – that slaughtered dozens of scantily clad and hormone-overloaded teenagers? Oh, how I miss those days… I don't want to sound too much like a dinosaur, but good slasher movies practically aren't made anymore nowadays and apparently now even the throwback/tribute movies don't even properly qualify as slashers anymore! Based on its title, film poster and brief plot description, I went to the premiere of "Summer Camp" at the Brussels' International Fantastic Film Festival and I was fully energized to watch a homage to 80s slasher flicks, but what I got was actually a zombie/virus- infected people flick instead! Due to the massive oversupply of bad and derivative zombie movies during the past decade and a half, I try to avoid them as much as possible so I'm pretty irked that I got lured to the theater thinking it was a slasher! "Summer Camp" is an American-Spanish co-production and you may take that very literally since it stars American students that spend their summer vacation in Northern Spain to work as English language counselors. With only one day left before the children arrive the conditions are far from optimal: there are tensions between the four camp leaders, the tap water is still cut off, there's a massive amount of pollen in the air, a bunch of freaks set up an improvised drug laboratory in the woods nearby and one of the camp's pet dogs had to put down because of rabies… Then suddenly, the teenagers alternately get struck by a murderous rage that causes their mouth to froth and their eyes to turn black, but – and here's the big surprise – the rage/infection is only temporary and the effects wear off leaving the victim without any recollection of what happened! Seriously, instead of a slasher throwback we get a film in which zombie infection turns out to be some kind of bad drug trip?!? In spite of being written, produced and directed by a couple of supposedly talented Spanish horror experts, Alberto Marini and Jaume Balagueró, "Summer Camp" comes across as very amateurish. There isn't any character development (one of the girls has personal problems but they never get clarified), the timings are all wrong (all horrendous stuff takes place before the children arrive at camp) and of all the possible clichés there's hinted at in the script (pollen, rabies, water, mushrooms…) they chose the most dreadful one as cause of the infection. I can easily imagine that, during the development process of the film, the main idea that every character in the story gets his/her turn to be the murdering maniac as well as the terrified victim must have sounded very refreshing and original, but outcome is merely just idiotic and far-fetched. The gore and make-up effects are quite disappointing as well, and the only thing I'm remotely enthusiast about is the acting job of the young protagonists, particularly the naturally beautiful actresses Maiara Walsh and Jocelin Donahue.