Something Big, Mute And Stupid: Camp Slaughter (2004)

Camp Slaughter (Sweden, 2004)

Rating: 1/2

Starring: Christian Magdu, Karin Bertling, Michael Mansson

(Why didn't I heed Bengt Wallman's review of this movie back at Hysteria Lives? Oh, dear gods, why?)

Not to be confused with the awful yet trying, low-budget time-loop slasher Camp Slaughter of 2005 (AKA Camp Daze), this is a Swedish teen horror flick that aims to be a tribute to old school backwoods slashers and the resulting product is definitely a textbook example of teens going to the woods and dying horrible deaths at the hands of a large (and dumb) man-monster. 

A problematic example, but an example nonetheless.

As the plot puts it, deep in the woods of a Scandinavian countryside resides a family with one too many screws loose in their heads, all of them living inside a crumbling manor with little to no contact and interaction outside. The matriarch of the house is particularly the nastiest of the bunch as she berates her braindead husband for not giving her a daughter and orders her adult son around to fetch her food at the ring of a servant's bell. She also birthed another son many years ago, who she ordered to be kept inside an earth cellar nearby, fed with rabbits, forced to wear a dress and have his head hidden in a potato sack.

This boy, unsurprisingly, grew up very mentally impaired and eventually escapes his captivity as a huge murderous mute, right around the same time a loud group of teens settle in at a nearby cabin. (Not a camp as the title suggests) Some so-so killer stalking and skulking the happen. The kids talk about beer, weed and the usual premarital sex before commencing on said indulgence of beer, weed and sex. Nightfall comes and our dress-wearing sack-masked loon finally attacks, out to hunt them down coz he simply has the madness. 

I would like to point out that all of this is done in very highly accented English, with the movie's casts poorly delivering the language in a manner similar to reading straight from their scripts. Double this with inept acting and a slug-worthy direction that paced the film to a lobotomized writhe, Camp Slaughter (2004) is just an unbearable experience to sit through with dwarfed touches of guffaw-inducing badness. Any endeavor to do genuine scares are laughable and the massacre the movie's slowly building up to is mostly littered with questionable visual effects of both practical and digital kind, not too mention lacking any sense of creativity or effective tension on the murders, too.

Also take into consideration that hardly anyone from the characters are likable and the sack-masked killer crossdresser is just lame here despite the plot's venture into working in some Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)-inspired crazed family mess (which was only used for the first and last few minutes of the entire movie), there's honestly not a lot to like about Camp Slaughter (2004). It took me a while to find and see this movie in due time, and seeing the completely rotten cheese that it is, I can see why it's so damn obscure. Word to the wise: Skip this one! 

And maybe punt kick every copy of this movie off a cliff while you're at it.

Bodycount:

1 female had her neck snapped

1 male stabbed and dismembered with a pair of garden shears

1 male axed on the chest

1 female killed in car collision

1 female knifed to death

1 female bound and buried alive

Total: 6

The Crass Convert of Sister Sarah: Helgerån (1988)

Helgerån (Sacrilege) (Sweden, 1988)
Rating: **1/2
Starring: Robbin Banx, Amy Brentano, Dan Erickson

So here's something of a rarity for you lot; a late 80s slasher that's one part religious drama, hailing all the way from Sweden, an hour and fifty-five minutes long (?!) and directed by sexploitation genre innovator Joseph W. Sarno. Classy~

It starts with a couple in bed at a cottage somewhere in the mountains, no doubt well rested from a night of copulating. The woman, wanting to freshen up a little, steps out to a nearby river, only to hear something following her into the woods. Thinking its her boyfriend, she yells at it to quit screwing around, but what she didn't expect is to be responded with a sharp sickle through her neck, decapitating her before the killer lifts her head for a title card!

The scene then shifts to a dark and stormy night, as members of a Christian community hold a mass and get an unexpected visitor in the form of a rain-drenched woman named Sarah, claiming to be the daughter of one of their late members. This momentarily puts the head ministers of the commune on edge as her family was considered personae non gratae due to them committing acts against their devotion, but seeing Sarah's eagerness to be a part of their cause and save her sister, Gudrun, who they believe is possessed by evil, they let her stay and be taught the ways of Christ as any good Christian cult would.

In the midst of this, George, a journalist, is sent to infiltrate the cult for some juicy articles, but ends up being toured around by Sarah and the two blossom into a relationship that's closely kept an eye by their church. As a way for Sarah to do her part for the community, she and some adults are to hold a retreat in the mountains for a small gaggle of children, the very same mountains where a sickle-wielding maniac is lopping off heads.

And lop heads they do, but only after the movie lumbered about fifty or so minutes from the first rolling head on the dirt we've seen in the opening. By that time, the film eventually recalls its slasher half, complete with sect members getting frisky with one another while cheating on their spouses, and Sarah starting to show a bit of unhinging as she starts blabbering about her sister and being summoned into the woods to pray for her safety. You can smell the red herrings from here on, played up to high cheese as evil twins and lesbian longings are thrown in to the crazy plot. (And seeing the movie still has another approximate hour to go at that mark, the writers really took all their time to milk it.)

There's a strong focus on Christian dramatics in the entirety of Helgerån (1988), as TV soap-quality banter barely veers away from Sarah's possible need of professional help and how that clashes with the commune's belief of spiritual salvation. The bloody violence, tongue-in-cheek acting and exploitative suggestiveness, though, are still present to knock it back to cheesy slasher territories, but the result is nowhere that great with low count kills lacking creativity (all beheadings, albeit some do try to be exciting by decapitating victims by the mouth, or having their hands cleaved off, too) and the story is at a lost for a more exciting finale. (Or any resolution, to be frank)

Still, the film's pairing of over-the-top try-hard religious plotting with cluttered tone and acting is just too unintentionally entertaining to dismiss this film completely, so I wouldn't say this is a total fluke. Its may lack quality production-wise from lighting and editing to special effects, I do find some of its concepts and set-pieces to be interesting enough to encourage a bit more patience from me to power through until the end, down to the cheesy final lines.

Not everyone would get it, nor appreciate it, so I can't really recommend this willy nilly, but if you think you can withstand nearly two hours of cheese for some beheadings and convent boobs, then brave on, fool. Brave on.

Bodycount:
1 female decapitated with a sickle
1 male decapitated with a sickle
1 female had her head and hands sliced off with a sickle
1 male decapitated with a sickle
1 female decapitated by the mouth with a sickle
1 female head found impaled on a stake
Total: 6

The Swede Hunts: Drowning Ghost (2004)

Drowning Ghost (Strandvaskaren) (Sweden, 2004)
Rating: **1/2
Starring: Rebecka Hemse, Jesper Salén, Jenny Ulving

A nearly harmless saunter down familiar paths, Drowning Ghost (2004) is as standard as standard can be when it comes to being an early 2000 teen slasher, with the only variety offered is that it takes place in Sweden. And it's in Swedish. (Because it is made in Sweden. You see where I am going with this, right?)

A century ago, a vengeful local farmer murdered three students at the Hellestad boarding school before drowning himself in the nearby lake. Now as the school's legend has it, the farmer's ghost (the titular "drowning ghost" or Strandvaskaren) returns once every year on the day of his death to wander the school's halls and a grim tradition among the students is to have a party in the barn where the farmer once lived at the same day. Now if that's not troubling enough for you, an intern at the school named Rebecka also took her life a year ago, by jumping off from the school's tower in front of a gathered group of students. 

Forward to the present, Sara is one of the people who witnessed Rebecka's death and is currently researching the history behind the "drowning ghost" for her composition, two things that most likely factor her as our lead girl and will soon be stumbling unto dead friends as a masked killer has started making short rounds hacking people within campus. Could this be the farmer's ghost in the flesh? Or someone who have something to do with Rebecka's suicide?

Despite the interesting lore behind the school's unusual celebration (which awfully reminds me of Urban Legend (1998)'s Stanley Hall massacre frat party) and the movie's competent looking production value in terms of camera work and score, Drowning Ghost sadly fails to make a mystery anymore exciting than what it already is, missing out on plenty opportunities to build a more complex whodunit out of the two to three overlapping red herrings it features. Its overly simplified direction, numerous plot holes and lack of interesting characters definitely didn't help improve Ghost's recycled collection of 90s teen slasher cliches, though this isn't to say that the movie didn't have its fair share of surprises nor is it completely unwatchable.

For its worth, Drowning Ghost at least has a workable narrative run and a fine concept for its ghost story backdrop. The casts involved are okay if not a tad too serious with their performance and the featured killer looks alright with their simple sack masked get-up and fairly unexpected reveal. The murders, despite having a decent variety, could have used some more onscreen carnage or at least some blood splatter or two, but with the aim being focused more on whodunit thrills, I can somewhat understand the tameness.

Far from memorable, Drowning Ghost is simply just okay. Nothing groundbreaking or too offensive in the eyes, it's a foreign teen slasher made for sub-genre completists and/or forgiving horror fans who have the patience to sit through a predictable mystery.

Bodycount:
1 female falls to her death
1 male had his head bashed against the wall
1 male stabbed to death
1 male decapitated with a scythe
1 female found with her head impaled to a coat hook
1 male struck on the face with a garden fork
1 male knifed on the leg, killed with an axe
1 male stabbed on the gut with a pitchfork
1 female killed offscreen
1 male skeleton found
Total: 10