Hello Mudduh

 

Summer means a lot of things, including me using it as a reason to watch any horror movie set in a sleepaway camp.

Quick Plot: Our backstory comes via a creepily enthusiastic local news anchor reporting about the anniversary of the massacre at Camp Twilight. Seriously, she's REALLY excited about it.

Some years earlier (if I'm understanding this movie's timeline?), a young couple disappeared while skinny dipping. The next night, another pair (bitter middle aged moms who hate their families) were enjoying some much needed beers in the same spot when a figure in black drops by to murder them.

The keystone rangers are fumbling through some clues, but not quickly enough to stop the next visitors: a batch of failing high school students forced to attend a weekend trip at the same cursed location under the watch of principal Warner and enthusiastic teacher Miss Bloom (producer and co-writer Felissa Rose, who obviously knows a thing or two about sleepaway camps). 

The teens grumble and grope while their numbers begin to dwindle. Who could it be prowling the campgrounds in a sweatsuit that looks like it had to have the logo ripped off right before shooting?

Woof, Camp Twilight is not good. The acting makes RuPaul's Drag Race sketches feel positively Shakespearean, while the violence is so quickly staged that we barely register a character's in danger, let alone already stabbed to death. And the reveal...oh my, the reveal.

I actually won't spoil Camp Twilight, because honestly, while you might see the ending coming, it's probably the only real interesting thing the film has going for it. But let me discuss, without naming names, the coda.

After the massacre ends, the film goes on for another five minutes with audio newscasters telling us more developments in the case as the camera watches a car drive on a coastal highway. Over the course of these five minutes, we learn that our killer escaped, a survivor was institutionalized, our killer was spotted, our survivor was released from custody and then arrested (seriously, that one happens in one report), and that our killer was spotted again. I understand any low budget film cutting corners, but by god, there has got to be a better way.

High Points

Felissa Rose seems like a very cheerful and lovely person

Low Points

She's in a very bad movie

Lessons Learned

Just because you're a good enough athlete to have a full athletic scholarship doesn't mean you're able to outrun a slasher walking briskly

The best place to keep your convenience store gun is right in an open cubby

Florida detectives are not only bad at their jobs: they're also terrible at hemming pants

Rent/Buy/Buy

I'm sure there's a small contingent of horror completists who feel compelled to watch every slasher. That's really the only type of person who should watch Camp Twilight. It's on Amazon Prime if you're that kind of weirdo, or, I guess, if you're a parent to one of the actors? 

Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas

Having now sat through three film equivalents of reindeer poop, i think I’ve figured something out:

Christmas horror is the new zombie movie.

Somehow both subgenres seem to attract the least talent when it comes to cinema. Flip through Instant Watch for dozens of examples of Romero ripoffs or, with a little more work, compare the ratio of of good to atrocious yuletide horror. For every Christmas Evil, there are three times as many titles like Feeders 2: Slay Bells, Santa Claws, and today’s ever so painful (yet not without its charms) Deadly Little Christmas.

Quick Plot: 15 years ago-

Yes, you read that right. The movie technically starts in the past, rather than beginning, then flashies forward 15 years later. I’m already confused.

Anyway, a dark-haired family is enjoying Christmas morning as the three rugrats wrestle in wrapping paper, mom Felicia Rose (Sleepaway Camp) snaps photos, and dad (as Santa Claus) sneaks off to the bedroom to get naked with the housekeeper, quickly being stabbed to death in a scene my DVD decided to skip. Thankfully, the film later gives us a 5 minute flashback of the very first five minutes, which is quite thoughtful.

In a scene that offends John Carpenter’s Halloween far more painfully than anything Rob Zombie ever did, middle child (whose name I can't remember, so eh) slowly walks outside, a bloodied knife in his little hands. Fifteen years go by with Middle Child Whose Name I Can't Remember living in a mental asylum, escaping on a fateful Christmas night as his now-grown sisters Taylor and Noelle are rehearsing a community theater production.

Stop everything for this plotline, please. Sure, there’s a masked madman on the loose, but really, we need to talk about this play, especially since every character onscreen says the word ‘play’ or ‘director’ at least three times in every scene. Taylor is directing a PLAY, a PLAY about Easter being performed on Christmas Eve, being DIRECTED by her this PLAY is. 

How does a young woman DIRECT a PLAY, you might ask yourself. Taylor’s method is quite Scorcessian. It involves advising her cast to run lines and do their best, sometimes to do their best and then run their lines. For the PLAY. 

The PLAY she DIRECTED.

Before we get to the actual performance of The PLAY Taylor DIRECTED and many actors RAN LINES for, we need to meet a few more characters. Two actors who smoke weed (or really, in their words, weeeeeeeeeeed cough cough cough) are murdered by that pesky madman (who would dare to be in conflict with Taylor’s PLAY). That doesn’t seem to have any effect on the PLAY though, which goes about as planned despite missing two of its actors. Taylor is that good of a DIRECTOR.

Also, there’s the greatest police detective in cinema history, a man who can barely look another person in the eye or complete a full sentence. Instead of a business card, he writes his number on looseleaf. Instead of solving crimes, he lets emotional mothers search for escaped homicidal mental patients on their own so that he can watch Taylor’s PLAY. Which is actually quite nice of him since he’s one of eight people in the audience. Also, he dresses like a waiter, which I imagine might be the actor’s night job which he was headed to after filming his two scenes.

Despite a missing mother and brother, Taylor and Noelle put on a PLAY about the Last Supper, which, did you know, involved folding chairs? And graduation robes. And three people.

 After the PLAY, other stuff happens but were we supposed to care? There’s a twist that my cats saw coming and a hilarious showdown with one of the easiest to defeat villains of all time.

I just realized that I’ve been writing for a few pages now. What am I doing? In all that time, I never once RAN MY LINES. Reindeer poop for me.

High Points

Well...with their dark hair, at least the female actresses in the film look like they could potentially be related

Low Points

Clearly the whole movie, but to not be petty, here’s an example of why this movie is awful (yet still not Santa Claws awful): when the two ill-fated actors smoke their pot, they make incredibly crass comments about how they’d like to have sex with Taylor. While I don’t disbelieve that a pair of 18 year olds would talk the way they do, their conversation is just ugly. Not funny, not sexy, not with any point whatsoever. 

Lessons Learned

Family is supposed to protect family

The main rights of passage in turning into an adult include having sex, doing drugs, and directing a play

After killing a villain that has destroyed your family, take comfort in knowing there will be no more bloodshed (also, run your lines)

Rent/Bury/Buy

Deadly Little Christmas is a deadly little awful movie, but as you might guess, I had some fun watching it. The set design gets as advanced as a lamp on a snack table (I have the same one in my apartment, so hollah that) and the performances seemed to have been given without the actors ever once RUNNING LINES with each other beforehand. Sadly there’s not nearly a strong enough xmas element to make this any kind of seasonal tradition, but hey...there is community theater. You can’t find that in any town!

Oh wait. You can. But Taylor didn’t DIRECT it.

Yup, I guess I sort of loved this movie.

Kumbay-Killer, Retro Style

Return To Sleepaway Camp is made for one audience and one audience only: nostalgic and forgiving fans of the 1983 original. Like that odd little horror and its cheerfully bad sequels, this 2008 entry has no real scares or intentionally witty humor. This is a cheap and affectionate homage to an infamous--if not especially good--low budget semi-classic of yore.


Quick Plot: Welcome to Camp Manadake, a summer getaway for incredibly obnoxious teenagers and run by mostly child-hating counselors. Our (cough cough) protagonist is husky frog-friending Alan, an understandably outcasted camper who is basically the boy that wouldn’t take a shower from Wet Hot American Summer, all awkwardly grown up. Poor Alan huffs his way through seemingly unsupervised days of croquet as slowly---verrrrrrrry slowly---some of his tormentors are killed through Saw-lite methods of murder. Camp director Vincent Pastore (his acting improving only an appetizer’s portion of antipasto since Black Roses) and junior partner Paul DeAngelo (whose thespian powers have been frozen in the 80s) fret about lost camp tuition and the possible return of Angela Baker, the transgendered murderess who wields a mean curling iron and even meaner guitar.

This is a movie that brewed in production purgatory for some time, and while it’s nice to have a genuine throwback horror, Return To Sleepaway Camp is also a reminder as to why some films die quick deaths (unlike the cast members, who suffer prolonged and elaborate torture that take too long to get to and even longer to end). From the nasty characters to the juvenile jokes, there’s simply too much to dislike in RtSC to really enjoy it. The spirit is admirable; the experience is not.


High Points
The nods to earlier films are gleefully deliberate (The Return of Ronnie’s Short Shorts!) and perhaps serendipitously accidental, like the police chief’s prosthetic nose and its resemblence to Part 1’s magic marker mustache

Because you don’t like one single character, rooting for all their deaths is quite easy


Low Points
Because you don’t like one single character, sitting through their dialogue is painful

Yes, it’s cute to have Isaac Hayes play a chef named Chef, but is that the end of the joke?


With few exceptions, every death takes about six times as long as it should. There’s no reason for this film to be 100+ minutes. But it is. And it feels like eternity.

Lessons Learned
Organized paintball has the potential to be amazinglly awesome. Can I watch that movie instead?


Rats chew fast


It’s really hard to get kicked out of camp nowadays

Rent/Bury/Buy
If you haven’t seen or never cared for the Sleepaway Camp franchise, avoid this film like a campfire sing-a-long. It’s simply not good. Loyal fans of Angela’s zany adventures will definitely want to check out the newest generation and many may find it to be fun. It’s goofy and stupid--just like Parts I-III. Enter at your own risk.


Despite my valiant efforts (okay, two rounds of Googling) I failed to find an adequate picture of DeAngelo's gams or 1983's artificial mustache. However, since Amityville II's review birthed quite the 'stache admiration society, I figured I'd include a nod to my personal favorite finely crafted whiskers of the 80s:

Keith almost makes me want to embrace a caterpillar. Almost.