Where's Jason Voorhees when we need him for these extremely un-Happy Campers? I haven't seen such a sloppy, random, uneven, incoherent, pointless and down-right sad movie than the inaccurately titled Happy Campers in a long time. Barely did I laugh in this "comedy," barely could I root for a single lost soul, barely did this rise above the solid one star (out of five) it deserves – and that's due to the actors playing counselors at least attempted to make something of the horrid direction they were given by Waters.
And how the mighty had fallen; Waters wrote Heathers, probably his only great movie. Heathers, which would have a hard time being released as is today – with all the school shootings, killings since – was at least original, fun, dark and a very well made movie. Happy Campers is an all over the place mesh of random scenes and tiny skits/bad ideas just horribly spliced together.
It's hard to write a synopsis due to the wandering of the script, but I'll try: punk counselors of all stereotypes await for the kids to arrive for a very long summer camp in the opening, while making fun of the manual – ding, ding plot point! – and when the unfortunate kids are dropped off, "comedy" ensures with the one and only adult (yeah, right) starts barking out commands.
From there is hard to describe what I just watched. Let's see, one counselor likes another, but he's after another. One's gay and just loves to tell people and gets upset when others don't embrace him. One's just weird and another is good/bad/good with no real explanation. Oh, and then there's kids running amuck – duh, this is what happens when one adult's in charge and the rest of the group is as loony as the people who used to run Night Court. Even when the single adult is taken out of the picture for a really dumb accident, he had just about equal control as when he wasn't comatoast.
There is zero point to this movie, unless you like the late Renfro – which I do and that's why I watched it. But even his minimal attempts couldn't save this movie. SKIP CAMP.
And how the mighty had fallen; Waters wrote Heathers, probably his only great movie. Heathers, which would have a hard time being released as is today – with all the school shootings, killings since – was at least original, fun, dark and a very well made movie. Happy Campers is an all over the place mesh of random scenes and tiny skits/bad ideas just horribly spliced together.
It's hard to write a synopsis due to the wandering of the script, but I'll try: punk counselors of all stereotypes await for the kids to arrive for a very long summer camp in the opening, while making fun of the manual – ding, ding plot point! – and when the unfortunate kids are dropped off, "comedy" ensures with the one and only adult (yeah, right) starts barking out commands.
From there is hard to describe what I just watched. Let's see, one counselor likes another, but he's after another. One's gay and just loves to tell people and gets upset when others don't embrace him. One's just weird and another is good/bad/good with no real explanation. Oh, and then there's kids running amuck – duh, this is what happens when one adult's in charge and the rest of the group is as loony as the people who used to run Night Court. Even when the single adult is taken out of the picture for a really dumb accident, he had just about equal control as when he wasn't comatoast.
There is zero point to this movie, unless you like the late Renfro – which I do and that's why I watched it. But even his minimal attempts couldn't save this movie. SKIP CAMP.