Is this a movie about that final summer you spent in California back when you graduated high school and before college and before seriously having to work for a living to pay rent? Back when you were young and could actually do something like take two months off of work and real responsibilities and just sleep in and stay up all night in the cool breeze and not really have to do much except go to the beach and drink nasty ass miller lite with that one guy and make eyes at a couple of the chicks who lived in that apartment complex your grandparents managed? There was Roxanne and Beth but the one who really got your gizzards frying was named Michelle and that year she had the convertible and she drove around all over the place and she taught you how to smoke cigarettes and you went to that Big Boy over by the dealership where her dad sold cars and Matt Leblanc was there and he was famous before Friends because of that ketchup commercial and you really wanted to make it with Michelle but you never got to any base there not even first because you never really tried too hard because that one chick you did it with that one time broke your fucking heart so what was the fucking point of setting yourself up to just get sad again you poor son of a bitch so just go sit on the beach or out by the apartment pool and moon over her and go home sad and mopey and start having to pay your mom rent because you lived with her and were about to turn 18?

Or is this about that final summer you had after graduating college before you had to go get a full time hard time job? You’d been in a relationship with that girl that you fucked up big time and your life got more and more shitty day by day for a number of years but you had that one final summer before that where things were still a little fun and there was that one time the starter went out on your old ford but you could pop the clutch and fire that thing up and that time you and Dave were trying to get that started on the expressway man we were kings or when we basically ran that bar or when I beat The Kid at pool or dropping acid during the Sunday morning rush or when The Bone Doctor was drunk and hiding in the bushes or when you drank too much fireball and schnapps and threw up in Henry Hudson’s and just moved the chair over it and stayed a few more hours or when you stuck that pool stick down your shirt into your pants and stole it and all of those fun things we did before I went and fucked all that shit up up and yes of course everything is better now and I turned my life around but that was really hard on me come on.

SPOILER: it’s not about either of those times but revolves around a group of youngish people at a camp who suddenly start getting killed off by a dude walking around in a skull mask and carrying an axe. And sometimes he drags the axe behind him which is some sort of horror gimmick I’ve NEVER understood but they do it in here a lot. They also do a LOT of flashback-ing with a LOT of shiny and swirly lens flares and exposure manipulating but hey it’s not too bad. I don’t know if it will be anyone’s favorite movie if you weren’t part of making it but hey who knows? I usually watch things a lot worse than this but I guess it will just depend on your perspective or whatnot.

Maybe even as a surprise bonus, our man Freddy shows up for a few minutes. Well, the actor, not the character:

I would like to say that I think this movie had a lot of what I would probably be able to do if I had the moxie and balls to actually go do something. I mean if I had the money there’d be tons of guns and explosions and three twin triplets dancing to Drink to the Dead by Clutch but that won’t happen so this would probably be more like what I could actually do.

With that, I liked this movie for the most part and I guess I’d consider myself a fan of the ‘slow pan’ or ‘slow zoom’ – yes, good stuff, but even like the times I’ll hear a song on the radio that I actually like and go and listen to it 30 times in a row because I finally heard something new and I fucking loved it, I don’t know if it’s too much of a good thing or what but then I get really burned out and there goes everything for shit’s sake why’d I do that again and there’s way too many slow swivels here to the point that I felt like that was getting real old and eventually I was all “sheesh again?” but ok ok ok good good ok yeah. *

Oh! What’s happening in here around all of the camera movements and consistent lens-flare flashbacks? This starts with some people telling stories around a campfire of who and who that killed everyone and cut off heads and pooped on their remains and all of that and then someone gets ——> murdered! “Someone call a doctor!!” someone shrieks. “Or a priest…” mumbles someone else sharpening their axe blade and popping mucilax to ensure proper bowel voiding later.

Cut to a few years later at summer camp and some kid’s been killed and there’s some hubbub over it and Freddy from RotLD is a cop and he looks older and tired and his hair is thinning and this girl is getting questioned and the flashbacks start in earnest and maybe I wasn’t super paying attention but I *think maybe she was supposed to be walking her little brother down some crowded sidewalk and the boy got kidnapped and she’s all fucked up about it but she hangs on to this ring he had that fell on the ground and that’s all that’s left of things – i think.

And – again – I am surely the problem here and I missed it – but somehow soon all of the “kids” in this camp are suddenly walking around in the night looking for someone and it’s of course super dark because it’s camp and some of them have flashlights and some of them don’t and there’s actually a big cast and I was getting, well not confused, but there’s a bunch of them and I wasn’t super sure of who they were actually looking for and they split off and some of them are by a bridge and some of them are in a bunkhouse or something and some of them are in a kitchen and then this guy from up in the poster at the top of this thing is slowly walking around and trying to get ’em with his axe and spoiler he kills some of them but not everyone – or was it everyone? I honestly don’t remember – no not all of them – and then there’s this big showdown and there’s actually some cool stuff they do in there around all of the slow camera movements and flashlight lens flares so we have to give them that but also:

But it’s not that bad if that’s what you feel like taking a chance on some time. Just to be totally honest with you I think Freddy – Thom Matthews – was the best thing about this whole thing and he was only in it for a few minutes, being very subdued. I liked the closing sequence with him if anything really stood out.

What else? Oh yeah – it reminded me of a another camp based movie that was along the same lines of ‘hey man it’s not too bad.” What was that called? I remember I had a bunch of fun writing that piece. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Shit. AH! It’s Bloody Summer Camp if you’re just in the mood for summer camp slashers. Of course you might not be and that makes perfect sense too but the day I’m writing this it’s hotter than fuck outside so there’s worse things to do with your time. Like going outside in this goddammed heat.

FILED UNDER: I DON’T KNOW IF THIS MOVIE IS THE TITS BUT HEY IT’S NOT TOO BAD AND BETTER THAN SAY EATING A PIECE OF A BROWNIE OFF OF THE FLOOR WHERE YOU WORK AND GETTING SICK

*The other week – well, 30 years ago I lived with these two guys and basically their girlfriends (the house where the guy combusted) and they thought they were super metal dudes and hard fucking badasses to the likes of Pantera and The Misfits and shit like that and the girls liked this band called Type O Negative which i really hated and the other week I heard a song by them I’d never heard before and I fucking loved it so I listened to it a hundred times and now it’s kind of oh whatever I guess it’s good mmm hmmm.