USA, 2000
Review:
JA Kerswell
From perhaps the ironically named Sterling Entertainment, CAMP BLOOD is the low-fi, SOV throwback slasher that launched a slew of loose change sequels. Two young couples vacation near an abandoned campground only to run afoul of the local urban legend—someone in a dime-store clown mask carrying a machete. Barely a couple of notches above a home movie, it is slightly elevated by a couple of near-decent performances and some hokey but halfway effective gore gags.
The film opens with a couple of horny Ornithologists in the backwoods who get distracted from their pursuit of our feathered friends by some pants-on frottage and enthusiastic breast cupping. Only for the clown-masked killer to turn up and hack at them with a machete. This, however, is merely a prelude to the 20-minute meet-and-greet of our principal cast: Tricia (Jennifer Ritchkoff) (sensible haircut) and her boyfriend Steve (Michael Taylor) (preppy hair). Plus another couple Nicole (Blonde swishy hair and carrying too much make-up) and her asshole boyfriend Jay (Tim Young) (thinning hair and bad attitude).
Nicole is concerned about the disappearance near the old Camp Blackwood site—which the locals have nicknamed Camp Blood. Especially as that is where they are due to go camping. However, the rest of the group dismisses her worries, and they push ahead with plans. On the way, they run into local eccentric Crazy Ralph … sorry, Crazy Thatcher (Joseph Haggerty), who tells them about the clown lurking up in them there woods. Which elicits a: “Fuck you, Grandpa!” From Jay.
Finally making it to their destination after a few mishaps, they meet up with their no-nonsense guide, Harris (Courtney Taylor), who Jay is unimpressed is a woman. However, she whips them into shape, and they settle down to the requisite campfire tale, where she tells them the legend of the clown and how he had taken his cheating wife and her lover up to the woods and butchered them 20 years previously. She says that people still go missing there to this day. Spooked, the couples dismiss the legend, but come morning, they find the smouldering body of who they think must be Harris by the campfire. Soon, they discover that the clown is not merely a legend but someone in a cheap rubber mask intent on hunting them down. Grab that camcorder … !
CAMP BLOOD wears its influences on its sleeve. The title is a throwback to a working title for the original FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980), and the movie is obviously meant to be a tribute of sorts to all those early 80s backwoods slashers. Although there is clearly some satirical intent, it is noticeable that it keeps the self-referencing of SCREAM (1996) to a minimum, considering its close proximity to all the sequels/fellow travellers still coming out when this was made. The closest it gets is naming one character, Mary Lou Maloney—the vengeful demon debutante from HELLO MARY LOU: PROM NIGHT II (1987) and PROM NIGHT III: LAST KISS (1990). Incidentally, Courtney Taylor played that character in the 1990 second sequel and ended her career with a clunk with this appearance. Rather, the comedic and thriller elements seem to have more in common with later 80s slasher movies such as the SLEEPAWAY CAMP sequels. The film seemingly has no aspirations beyond that.
Production values are of the micro-budget kind. It is hard to believe that it was originally shot in 3D, but it was. The ugly, washed-out camcorder-esque 4:3 aspect ratio I saw the film in does it no favours, but it is unlikely it’ll ever look much better. It features Windows Movie Maker-style video transitions, which even looked naff back then. As I mentioned, it has the feel of a movie made by friends over a weekend. However, surprisingly, it isn’t all amateur hour. Some shots are nicely framed, and there are a few halfway-decent—albeit still decidedly cheap and cheerful—suspense scenes, such as the chase across the boulders by the river. Ritchkoff gives more than perhaps the material deserves and strives for a Marilyn Burns-style intensity towards the end of the film—as the makers of CAMP BLOOD clearly aim to mimic the hysteria and kinetic energy of Tobe Hooper’s THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974) with its final showdown. Please don’t get me wrong. I am not comparing the two, but someone was clearly a fan.
Elsewhere, the film is merely sloppy and seems to have been thrown together without out much care or forethought. Despite taking place around an abandoned campground, there is no evidence of anything resembling camp buildings in the film—and you have to ask yourself why they would have abandoned it anyway after a couple with no connection to it were killed nearby 20 years earlier? And how come the couples didn’t smell their tour guide being burnt to death outside their tents? A few of the gore gags work well (such as a lingering machete to the head), but the majority of the time, it is very much the squirt-some-ketchup-and-pray-and-spray style of special effects. And it also has to have the fakest-looking dummy being run over in slasher movie history. It’s so bad that they show it twice!
Admittedly, someone breaking a piggy bank could have bankrolled a sequel, but CAMP BLOOD inexplicably became a breakout hit in the UK on video (answers of a postcard, please, as to why)—which saw a more openly satirical follow-up being shot the next year.
I was surprised CAMP BLOOD wasn’t terrible terrible, but it is a mystery why it gained such a following and an ever-increasing number of micro-budgeted sequels. One was enough for me.
BODY COUNT 10:
Female 4 / Male 7
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CAMP BLOOD trailer