Sunday, October 9, 2011

Camp Hell

(2011) *

See that picture of Jesse Eisenberg on the cover? Take a good look, because that's more than you'll see of him throughout the movie. This is a film about a young man (NOT played by Eisenberg), whose parents are super Catholic (not as in super powers, just fanatical). In their zeal, they decide to send him off to Catholic camp, which includes such rules as: No talking to girls, no elements from youth culture, you must wear pants at all times, oh, and as religious leaders, we will regularly talk to you about masturbation.

Now, with all the priest/masturabtion talk, I was thinking that I may have rented the dramatic type of horror film where it's really just all about molestation. But no, none of that. It wasn't even portrayed as creepy, just gross to see teenage boys agonize over masturbation.

So, this movie really is about the devil or demons trying to tempt the boys. But, in a 1 hour 35 minute movie, nothing demonic happens until the 1:20 part. And, unlike The House of the Devil, don't think that they were just trying to build atmosphere the whole time. No, for the first 80 minutes, we're basically just watching the boys at camp.

Eisenberg seems to have been edited in as an after thought. Before the camp starts, there's a scene of a priest counseling Eisenberg at a hospital because of his unhealthy obsession with demons. Weird.