It’s a Scary Camping Trip

1994’s Camp Fear clearly had no illusions of being…well, good.  Seriously, any movie that opens with about ten minutes of “college” girls walking around topless is pretty much admitting it is hopeless.

The plot of Camp Fear is that some coed are going on a camping trip to the mountains near the campus.  Apparently, there are all sorts of legends about the old place.  Along the way, they brush off some bikers and find a lake monster.  Turns out the mountains are mystical and there is a neanderthal druid type who is mute.

He starts kidnapping the girls, because he is planning to sacrifice them to bring about THE END OF THE WORLD.  Really.  That’s his goal.  Why?  Because that is what Druids do, people.

It works like this, he dresses the ladies in animal skins so they look like they belong in a cheap sword and sorcery film.  Then he feeds the four victims to the monster and BAM! The world ends.

One of the bikers tries to get it on with the girls-whether they want to or not-but ends up being eaten by the lake monster.  Then the girls’ professor enlists the help of the bikers to save the girls.  Another one of the bikers gets eaten by the lake monster.  They find the druid as he is preparing the sacrificial ceremony.  Instead of intervening, they sit back and watch as he kills one of the girls.  Real heroes.  When the one less expendable girl is put on the altar, they spring into action.

In a lackluster fight, they succeed in setting the druid on fire.  With him dead, they leave the cave, worried that the end of the world is about to happen.  But then they see the clothes of another biker next to the lake and realize the monster got his four victims.  Wait-the whole point was the four victims were needed to bring about the end of the world-not avert it it.  Oh, plot inconsistencies, you are so silly!

Luckily, they know everything will be alright because standing at the top of a mountain ridge is a mystical indian.  Always look for the mystical indian.

It’s worth noting that the cast members with the most notable careers in television and film are Betsy Russel (who ended up playing Jigsaw’s wife in the Saw Films), Buck Flowers (who had a career comprised of playing town drunks and hobos) and Tiny Ron (who played the druid).  Several of the “co-eds” are played by 90’s Scream Queens, but their roles are so minor it’s hard to count their appearances as notable.