Camp Dread

Camp Dread (2014)

Director: Harrison Smith

Writer: Harrison Smith

Stars: Eric Roberts, Felicia Rose, Danielle Harris, Kyle Patrick Brennan

My Two-Cents:
Ya know, I was actually looking forward to this one. I mean, how could I not? It was billed as an homage to 80's summer camp horrors, complete with Felicia Rose of "Sleepaway Camp" fame, the always delicious Danielle Harris, and the go to 80's villain actor, Eric Roberts. How on earth could this be bad? How indeed my sicko's. How indeed...

In the 1980's, Summer camp and horror movies went together like big butts and yoga pants. It just worked. Get a bunch horny teenagers, drop them in a camp with barely any adult supervision, and set a maniac loose on them. Voila! Instant fun times!
I have fond memories of flicks like "Sleepaway Camp", "The Burning", and "Cheerleader Camp" to name a few. Not to mention the "Friday the 13th" flicks. So I went into this flick hoping it would recapture some of the old bloody magic of the films previously mentioned. Not only didn't it come even remotely close to the aforementioned films, but it even managed to piss me off!

Let me give you the run down before I begin dissecting this fucking mess.
Julian Barrett (Eric Roberts) was the man in the 80's, having directed the very successful "Summer camp" horror trilogy. But then the 80's ended, horror declined, and so did Barretts status in Hollywood.
Fast forward two decades, and JB has a plan to recapture his old success. He's going to do a reality show based at a summer camp, where teenage contestants will compete as an unknown killer stalks and eliminates them one by one till there is only one left standing. The winner collects a million bucks.
To do this, he recruits a bunch of misfit teens, each in trouble with the law, to be contestants and brings in the star of his 80's trilogy who is now a trained counselor, Rachel Steele (Felicia Rose), to be camp counselor.
Everything seems groovy until teens start dropping for realz. There's a real killer on the loose and the contestants are now playing for more than money, they're playing for their lives.
Sounds good right? Yeah, I thought so too.

Let's start with the acting. It's a real mixed bag here. Eric Roberts gives a good performance as is to be expected from the man. As an actor I feel he doesn't get enough credit. It's a damn shame he is reduced to shite like this. At least he gave us Emma Roberts.
Beloved Scream Queen Felicia Rose puts in a decent performance. Always fun to see her doing her thing. For some reason IMDB has her listed low on the list of actors in the film. That's fucked up because not only does she have a decent sized role that's important to the plot, but she's also a horror icon. Where's the respect at? Fuck you IMDB!
Danielle Harris does a good job too as usual.....for all of the 3 minutes she's in the fucking film. No, I'm not bullshitting you. Despite her name getting top billing beside Roberts, her face plastered on the poster, and being all over the fucking trailer, she is only briefly in this flick, and her character really has no bearing on anything. Isn't that fucking great? Don't you love when studios play you? They knew Harris is a large draw with the horror crowd and they probably figured this flick could use all the help it could fucking get, but didn't want to spend the dough to give her a large role, so they gave her a small role, a fucking cameo really. Then they billed her as if she was a lead, knowing it would get us horror fans to buy the fucking movie!

You misleading muther fuckers! May you all be raped by rabid carebears!
Ya know, I might have forgiven that (Probably not) if the friggin film was actually any good, but it wasn't, so it's a double insult! Fucking scumbag producers!!
Anyway, the other actors were ok, nothing to write home about. None of their characters are likable....at all. They are all pieces of shit who deserve to die if only to remove them from humanities gene pool. So basically they're like any of the cast from "The Real World".

As far as the catsup goes, there really isn't anything impressive here. We've seen it before and we've seen it done better. One scene in particular though, gets the award for most interesting method of killing someone, though it wasn't worth wasting two hours of my life to see.

There is very little skin on display here my pervs, a titty shot or two. This is interesting considering that this is supposed to be a homage to 80's camp slashers which as everyone who watched them knows, features a fair amount of nudity. It's part of the fucking experience!
We are teased by the promise of lesbian action, but that shit never comes to fruition. Fuckers!

Look, I wasn't looking for a masterpiece, most of the movies this turd is supposed to pay homage to were far from masterpieces themselves, but the difference between them and this flick is that they were actually fucking fun! This film is just a let down and a bore. Shit takes too damn long to get going, the story is just dumb and makes no sense, and I felt nothing for the characters. When the ending came I was sitting there scratching my head wondering if there was more. Was that supposed to be clever? Honestly, it felt like the writers didn't know how to fucking end the damn thing and just came up with whatever!
This one really let me down. They had a good cast and a lot of promise and they blew it. I give it one blood soaked butcher knife. "Ernest goes to Camp" was more entertaining then this shiz. Unless your a diehard Roberts, Rose, or Harris fan, you'll want to avoid this one. Nuff said!
Somebody get me a heavy ass chain, a large stone, and a canoe stat! I need to go bury this mess at the bottom of Crystal Lake where it can do no harm ever again!