Dir: Brad Sykes
Cast: Jennifer Ritchkoff, Tim Young, Courtney Taylor,
Michael Taylor
Not Rated, Approx: 73 Minutes
Sling Shot DVD
to run."
preferable to a large number of horror films
being made at the same time...
from the box, but I mean this is really cheaply made. Camp Blood is a shot on video slasher with a very heavy
influence from Friday the 13th. So much so, that they even stole the title from the dialogue of the oft-imitated
slasher. As far as I'm concerned that shouldn't be a problem; I'm a huge Friday fan myself. There are other
problems that arise though when shooting on such a restricted budget, some of these Camp Blood overcomes,
some it does not.
(maybe 'kids' is pushing it) going into the woods and ignoring the warnings of some eccentric locals. I don't have a
problem with this specific storyline, it worked for me several times at Camp Crystal Lake, but the execution wavers on
the line of loving homage and smartass drivel.
limitations...
short and serves to pad the run time and body count and add some nudity to compete with its peers in the genre.
Here we run into the first major problem that plagues the movies throughout, there didn't appear to be enough
money to properly light a night scene so just about everything is shot during the day. It's really difficult to make a
scene scary in broad daylight. Although, I will say that this was probably a better move than trying to shoot at night
knowing it would look like grainy unwatchable shit. It's good to know your limitations and to try and move forward
despite them. Unfortunately though, the violent scenes in this movie just didn't work for me.
nudity, of course). From there, we meet the main body of the cast - four kids and a tough girl guide. The attempts to
make them distinguishable from each other are pretty tepid, one girl is slutty and one is more reserved, one guy is
nice and the other is completely obnoxious. Then we have our guide, a savvy 'tough girl' expert of the area. Now
they were obviously attempting to make a good old fashioned slasher, and cliched characters are a huge staple of
them. Unfortunately, Camp Blood misses the mark that was hit by best of the bunch like Friday the 13th, The
Burning, Hide and Go Shriek, My Bloody Valentine etc. The worst of the bunch is the obnoxious kid, Jay. His
constant swearing and hissy fits make him look like some retarded film student who wanted to be like Quentin
Tarantino.
there's some decent camera work, editing, and effects. We're obviously not watching work by Tom Savini here, but
these guys knew what to show and what not to show to keep from embarrassing themselves.
up with a concept and wrote a story around it in like five minutes. Most of it is so clumsy that it repeatedly stumbles
over and contradicts itself almost to the point of parody. I won't ruin the end for anyone who hasn't seen it but there
are such gaping plot holes in it that it seems like it might have been done intentionally. If that is the case, that's even
worse. It shows almost no understanding of the films they're trying so desperately to intimidate. Not that there's
much subtext to most slashers, but if this was supposed to be a joke then it just wasn't funny. To top it all off, there's
an epilogue that pays clumsy homage to a few other classics of the era.
world on fire or win any academy awards. It's easy to see that he loves a lot of the same movies as I do, and he did
his best to re capture the feel of them. In the end, the movie was okay, but still missed the mark I think he was aiming
for. I didn't consider it a waste of my time though, and it's still worlds better then Crinoline Head! That being said, I
can safely say that I will watch the sequel one day and probably whatever else Sykes turns out. So I guess you could
consider this review a warning/recommendation to other fans of 80s slashers.
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