Review, `Zombie Campout' By John Forkner
Camp: [noun:] 1. A place where a group of people is temporarily lodged in makeshift shelters. 2. Artificiality of manner or style, appreciated for its humor, triteness, or vulgarity. (American Heritage Dictionary)
I'm going to come right out and say it: While `Zombie Campout' may not redefine low-budget zombie horror, it's the stuff cult classics are made of.
The plot is paper-thin. Four friends go on a campout looking for a little action, when radioactive meteorites crash into a nearby cemetery, causing the corpses to come to life. These `things' (you can't say `zombie' in a zombie movie) make short work of the other campers, adding them to their perpetually marching, moaning horde of the undead. Can Bunny, Tammy, Trevor, and Steve escape this zombie campout and still have time to make out?
Zombie horror has been a staple of filmmakers for decades. From the pop-culture phenomenon, `Evil Dead' (and its two subsequent sequels) to the recent `Resident Evil' and upcoming `28 Days Later', zombie films have enjoyed a considerable following. But none of these is sacred when a spoof like `Zombie Campout' comes along, cramming in every zombie/horror movie cliché it can think of and lampooning them into oblivion.
Writer, producer, director Joshua D. Smith has his work cut out for him; and while it's not hard to appreciate his vision as a director, his real talent lies as a writer. The script is brimming with cheesy dialogue and clever gags, many of which are mercifully subtle (one of the funniest involving two blonde babes tying their hair back with trashy 70's porno music playing in the background), and include a handful of self-effacing asides (as yet another blonde babe observes, `This is like something out of a bad zombie movie'). Perhaps most praiseworthy is Smith's understanding and masterful use of the element of surprise. Just when I was starting to sink into my chair, another gag I wasn't anticipating was thrown at me, keeping me on my toes and into the film; something most recent big-budget comedies have real trouble pulling off. Bravo.
The acting is a bit of a mixed bag and in a campy movie such as this, where stilted dialogue and under-energized performances abound, it can sometimes be difficult to tell what's supposed to be good and what's supposed to be bad. While the entire cast seems a bit reluctant to jump on the collective `act scared' bandwagon, it's ultimately Steve (John M. Davis) and Trevor (Jeremy Schwab) who are the only ones who convincingly pull off `fear' (to be fair, the two lesbian campers have the only truly frightening moment in the film and pull it off nicely). But where the film really bogs down is in Director Smith's tendency to trap his heroes in cars and cabins surrounded by zombies and have the `What do we do now?' discussion. Everything screeches to a halt and the pacing is thrown, thanks, in no small part, to the ladies who, with zombies closing in on all sides, somehow manage to remain completely nonchalant. What happened to the urgency?
Aside from this tricky issue of acting scared in a horror movie, the four leads are fine. Jeremy Schwab's transformation from the ever-smiling `smart kid' to protective "stud" boyfriend feels perfectly natural. And when John M. Davis lets go and commits to his part, his face lights up and.is it just me, or does he bear a slight resemblance to `Evil Dead's' Bruce Campbell? The lovely Misty Orman, as Bunny, brings some nice energy to the screen, particularly in her kick-butt action sequence where she takes on a horde of the undead. Tiffany Black plays the uncomfortable Tammy (whose last boyfriend was a `total poophead') nicely, but those late-night shootings must've taken their toll on her because she seems a tad sedated. Other standouts are Deborah Png as the shotgun-toting, Vietnamese-spouting camper, and Larry Purtell as the Park Ranger whose so-bad-they're-good line readings are worth the price of admission.
The picture, though filmed in widescreen with digital video, is rather grainy and low quality, but with a low-budget film, that's to be expected and it really doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the movie as a whole. The editing is a tad choppy at points and there is a bizarre little intermission stuck in about halfway through the movie when nothing is happening. Why not put it at a cliffhanger moment?
Special effects are used throughout, many of the caliber that would make Ed Wood proud. Never mind that the CGI clip of falling meteorites shows them landing off the coast of Mexico when we've established that the story takes place in Texas. It sure looks cool and that's clearly all that matters. There's also a great use of explosives when two rednecks attempt to blast a mob of zombies away with pistols, shotguns, uzis, and finally.well.I won't give it away. The zombie effects range from simple black shadows around the eyes to detachable limbs and rotting faces that squirt blood. The film even pokes fun at its own limited effects when zombies attack a fisherman and begin to pull off his arms and legs, only to discover that all of his limbs are prosthetic.
With the characters often referring to the script for advice, takes to the camera, shots of guys reading super-macho magazine `Trucks and Boobs', and an army of bikini-clad blonde babes, `Zombie Campout' knows exactly what it is and never lets the audience forget it. The combination of off-beat humor, campy dialogue and performances, and B-movie quality special effects make this film quite a nice surprise and a gory treat for fans of zombie horror and anyone else with a sense of humor, living or dead.
