My older brother told me about this movie, since he saw it at summer camp back in 2013. I watched it for myself on YouTube recently, and... what can I say?!?!?!?! This movie is just horrendous! Admittedly, there are several bad movies that are guilty pleasures of mine (especially The Cat in the Hat and several Happy Madison movies), but this movie was just as bad as Zoom!
The third and final installment in the Fred trilogy (I have not watched the first two, and I'm happy I didn't), the movie centers around Fred Figglehorn (played by Lucas Cruikshank), a 16-year-old boy with a sped-up chipmunk voice that actually grates really quickly, who clearly doesn't know his head from his... well, you know. Fred has just begun his summer vacation and hopes to attend a very cushy, plush and popular summer camp called Camp Superior, but because his deadbeat mother, Hilda (Siobhan Fallon Hogan) cheaped out, he ends up stuck at a smelly, crummy, OSHA-violating summer camp, appropriately called Camp Iwannapeepee. Fred learns that every year, Superior and Iwannapeepee have competed in summer camp games, and Superior has won, and... wait, haven't we seen all this before? Come on! Daddy Day Camp wasn't quite this bad!
The acting is pure garbage. Lucas Cruikshank is supremely grating as Fred. Practically every scene he's in, he resorts to mugging desperately while talking straight to the viewers, and that chipmunk voice (which was funny for like one second) ain't helping. Even Siobhan Fallon Hogan, a good actress who's given really nice performances in Holes, Daddy Day Care and the live-action Charlotte's Web, seems to have forgotten all she knows about acting as Hilda! In fact, nobody seems to be even trying with their roles. It doesn't help that nobody is likeable. Fred is an complete moron, and not in the endearing way like Harry and Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber, in the irritating way. And the friends that he meets at Camp are just cardboard cutouts.
The visuals don't help either. This movie is edited in a messy, incompetent and choppy manner that just SCREAMS "no-budget", and the simplistic, lackluster camera work and garish lighting don't make it any better. The special effects are just as bad, with some horrible and dated CGI in several places.
Oh, yes, and we mustn't forget the humor. The humor in this movie is more juvenile, pandering and insulting than in any other movie I've seen in my life. In my opinion, the only bit that actually got something of a chuckle out of me besides the camp name was the firework scene. The rest of the time, it's just irritating slapstick, the camp staff being complete idiots, and plenty of gross-out humor, especially Fred eating "nono berries", hallucinating, and then barfing, with some even landing on the camera.
Oh, and of course, the music. Roddy Bottum's score is mind-numbingly dull and mindless, and the musical numbers are completely out-of-place, and even intrusive to the narrative flow. They're also neither well-written, nor memorable.
When all's said and done, Fred 3: Camp Fred is probably the worst movie I've ever seen in my life. I really wish I didn't have to say this, because I hate to criticize movies, but this is all true. Don't watch!!!
