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Summer Camp Nightmare
A group of campers revolt against their strict camp director and take over the camp for themselves.
Release : | 1987 |
Rating : | 5.3 |
Studio : | Concorde-New Horizons, Butterfly Productions, Crow Productions, |
Crew : | Art Direction, Production Design, |
Cast : | Chuck Connors Charlie Stratton Adam Carl Harold Pruett Rick Fitts |
Genre : | Drama Horror Thriller |
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Reviews
I love this movie so much
Memorable, crazy movie
Highly Overrated But Still Good
There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
Well, of course I found it in the Horror section. With a title like that, what do you expect? Of course the video store employee is gonna stick it right between Slumber Party Massacre and Twisted Nightmare. It's just common sense. Especially if you haven't seen it. But I suppose Summer Camp Nightmare can be interpreted as semi-Horror, yet, officially, it's more of a suspense-drama... or thriller? I don't know. Despite the fact that we're talking about a quality flick, with quality acting, and zero gore, I still prefer to think of it as B-Horror. Now that that's settled, our story is set in an all boys camp (awsome!!) Run by an uptight religious fanatic, who has a thing for butterflies. This new camp director (Chuck Connors) is determined to make sure that everyone is watched, at all times, and that no one even remotely enjoys themselves. So, you could imagine how disgruntled everyone would be, expecting keen summer fun, and instead, the dull Mr. Butterflies has different ideas. Franklin Reilly, the evil genius (every camp has one) has stood about as much boredom as he's gonna stand. It's time for a revolution. Being an evil genius, Franklin can easily manipulate others to do stuff. Stuff, such as turning on Mr. Butterflies, and the other authority figures, lock them up, and naturally, make Franklin their leader, with the promise of unlimited freedom. Runk the punk seems to think it's a swell idea. Now would probably be a good time to head over to the girls camp, and lock up their authority figures, and bring the girls over here, so, the keen summer fun can finally begin. Lets's just hope Franklin's power doesn't go to his head. Summer Camp Nightmare is either slightly inspired, or slightly ripped off from Lord Of The Flies, which is fine, because one is cheesy 80's fun, and the other is mediocre. I'd rather watch Summer Camp Nightmare any day of the week. Whether this movie is actually a thriller at a camp, like the book probably meant for it to be, or campy Horror, like the video store guy assumed it was, it's not that important, because Summer Camp Nightmare is interesting, entertaining, and offers not one dull moment, and I'm glad to have this movie in my B-Horror collection, whether it belongs there or not. 8/10
Summer Camp Nightmare is not a horror movie, as I'm sure many viewers have pointed out, despite video retailer's common mistake as grouping it as such. Instead, it is an adaptation of the William Butler novel, The Butterfly Revolution.The screenplay, co-written by Suburbia director, Penelope Spheeris, is a disappointing spin of the novel, and as a movie itself, wasn't all that great. But, having read a great book, you might expect too much of the movie in the first place, so my review may be more biased than most.The story of Summer Camp Nightmare begins at the start of the summer camp tenure at North Pines camp. North Pines is an all boys camp, and some might wonder why guys in their late teens would want to go to a summer camp, nevermind one with plenty of younger pre-teen kids. But you have a pretty big age range of boys and, as repeatedly mentioned, due to funding cuts, the camp is limited on camp counselors, flanked only by Ed Heinz, who seems like an easy going guy; a gym teacher look-a-like who does plenty of boozing; and the new, excessively strict head counselor, Mr. Warren (Chuck Connors), who does seem quite out of touch in his idea of appropriate behavior (reminds me of Wallace Shawn in 'Heaven Help Us' without the humor).After the boys get into a fair amount of trouble in their attempts to subvert Warren's ridiculous rules and have themselves some fun, the head of the guys, Frank Reiley (Charels Stratton), an eerily suspicious character, decides to wage a revolution and oust the camp counselors, both in the boys and girls camp in order to have some real fun. But, what may start as a harmless game, steers quickly out of control and into quite a deadly exchange of events. Although, you can't ever really get the feeling for how bad things have become as you could through the descriptions in the book, since things just seem to come and go so haphazardly. Several things change from the book, which is written in the form of a diary with Donald Poultry (here played by Adam Carl) providing first person narration. He gives in-depth description and you can not only get a better appreciation for the revolution (not in a good way, because obviously, it turns out to be quite disastrous, but in the sense that you can get a grasp on the events as they transpire and know why and exactly how things happen). Here, they just sort of happen. We don't know know why Frank behaves the way he does, and this is certainly true in the book as well. He is such a weird character, and probably devoid of explanation no matter how you try to illustrate it. And, in the movie, you never feel like people are getting very tired of the revolution. In fact, Donald is made such an insignificant character (and of course, portrayed as a computer hacking super-nerd though in his book he was much more intelligent but not so much a nerd), which was stupid because you get a healthy sense of outrage via his character. Chris may be the only one in the movie who doesn't really like the revolution, but you don't really get the feeling that he is the only guy who can stop it, nor that anyone else really disapproves all that much. And if you've read the book, you know that the revolution doesn't become so fascist at first (he slowly develops committees and such), that any who crosses him often winds up dead or in their 'prison', and that in the end, more people were open about their disappointment with the whole and their wanting to get out of it. And I wonder if they chose to change Manual Rivaz and Don Egriss's character in order not to appear racist.Well, give it a try.
Can a summer camp full of fun-loving kids be run without a proper counselor? Can the love of lawless behavior create a law of the land? Would you let the inmates run the asylum? A good lesson in replacing one leadership with a much devolved leadership is taught in this flick. It runs like an after-school special of the early 1980's and makes you wonder if anyone gave a damn about rules whoever comprised any. This makes you wish Jason Voorhees would make a cameo and show the show-offs a real reign of terror.It is hard to understand that the citizens of this revolution could keep the party going day in and day out, not pursuing much in the ways of other camp activities. Probably because the heads of state can't afford winding up with outside influences killing their fun by killing them. This is why the only three people able to thwart this campy tyranny wind up on the most wanted and despised lists. Reality would have seen this film cut shorter after a couple of weeks of overpartying and the poor attitude over the guys running the camp. The happy yet sad ending conveys a meaning of life or a comparison to history. It will be clear what not to do if a filmmaker considers pulling up a bland film from a good premise.
When I bought this movie, I thought the title meant that this movie would be scary. I won't tell you what it is about (for the ones who have not seen it yet), but if you really want to see this movie, go ahead and look at it because it is not that bad. My rating on a scale of 1 to 10 is a 6.