A likeable 80’s slasher pastiche that’s not broad enough to be an outright horror spoof but has an affectionately jaunty tone similar to the low-budget CAMP SLAUGHTER from a few years ago. It’s nicely acted and easy to watch, though the narrative peters out with an excess of red herrings and repetitive confrontations in the final half hour (an element that, admittedly, can be attributed to any number of pure slasher movies of the kind it apes).
The template is largely FRIDAY THE 13TH though plot licks and individual scenes are borrowed from other obvious benchmarks like HALLOWEEN. Camp Lumis Lake – modeled on Camp Crystal – has a history of murders and Bad Stuff and the mock-JAWS/F13TH prologue sets the tone with all the obvious elements : coitus interruptus, a prowling subjective camera, bare boobs.
Subsequently, a bunch of hot, privileged cheerleaders – plus a fat one that’s the subject of mocking laughter and a “skanky” ex-juvey white-trash one with a Goth look – are spending the week at “Spirit Camp” with some supervision from the splendidly named Mrs Haddonfield and an extremely camp counselor who will NOT be turned. Murders inevitably begin in a one-by-one fashion, and everyone from a well-timed escaped maniac to a pantie-sniffing sheriff, is a suspect.
SPIRIT CAMP has fun with deliberately silly fake scares involving racoons, snakes, Jake the (Glowering) Groundskeeper, the inevitable Crazy Ralph-like old-timer (“You’re all gonna die!”). The girls are pretty and some of them look awesome in bikinis / topless, while their dumb banter is good for some laughs : especially the moment in which one of them, referring to the campfire, ponders aloud “Do you think we can get tanned from this?”.
It’s light on actual gore, though the kill scenes are played mostly straight in the style and fashion you would expect from an average slasher pic circa 1981. There are some modest twists on expectations, including the trashy ex-con as an unusual final girl and a riff on the usual sex-and-death set up in which a girl is offed while pleasuring herself with a vibrator. Ultimately, the surviving girls club together defiantly to confront the killer in a manner similar to SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, which isn’t a bad choice to pay affectionate tribute to.
-Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
