Film Review: SUMMER CAMP (2015)

 SUMMER CAMP (2015) Spain/Mexico 1hr 21mins

Director: Alberto Marini

"It didn't have rabies ok? I don't know what it was but it was not rabies."- Will

"I was bitten by an infected dog...and Christy. So it's not transmitted by blood or saliva." - Will

Four American counsellors go to an English speaking summer camp in Spain to spend the holidays teaching kids. They get there before the children arrive to set up as the place still needs some work doing plus the water well on site does not seem to be running at all. Whilst waiting for the water to be fixed the group do a bit of a team building exercise in the woods. Antonio (Andres Velencoso), Will (Diego Boneta), Michelle (Maiara Walsh) and Christy (Jocelin Donahue) try a trust exercise in the woods which didn't quite go to plan as Christy and Michelle don't exactly gel. Plus they discover a family of gypsies have made camp in the woods nearby. On return from their disastrous exercise they find out that the water problem has been fixed and the animals for the petting zoo have arrived... but there is an issue. One of the dogs is acting aggressive, as if it was rabid, it needs to be put down. Will refuses to believe this and goes to check the dog himself as he is "practically a vet". He claims that the dog does not have rabies but the dog expires in front of them and appears to come back to life, turning on Will and bites his hand. After giving himself a tetanus shot Will watches Javier the caretaker take the now completely dead dog away before the kids arrive in the morning. That night the four counsellors decide to have a drink before the campers turn up. Will and Antonio go down to the cellar to select some wine, Antonio starts to have a seizure and vomits blood. He violently attacks Will and soon all hell breaks loose as the mysterious virus sweeps through the camp but where did it come from... what is it, and will they be able to contain it before the bus load of kids turns up?

Okay... so this is most definitely an infection movie more than zombies. Some might say that "infection" movie is even a bit of a tenuous link with this one given the eventual reveal but the infected in this do act quite like the infected in say THE CRAZIES (1973/2010) or good ol' 28 DAYS LATER (2002). The first time I watched SUMMER CAMP (which was a good few years ago now) I remembered really enjoying it and thought it was way more zombie than it is. Having rewatched it recently for the purposes of this review I have totally changed my mind! It is fast paced, gets into the story really quickly and the infected are pretty cool but on this revisit that is about all that I liked about it. As you can tell from my confused synopsis it is a bit all over the place, it has a random slasher style undertone going on that doesn't really come to much and the numerous speculations on the virus gets tiresome quickly.

The characters are primarily insipid and a bit flat. Will, played by Diego Boneta, has the most to do and the biggest personality yet also ends up having the most bad stuff happen to him. The dude gets bitten by a crazy dog, then a crazy person, has half his ear torn off, gets an electric drill to the foot and loses his glasses at least three times yet still I was not rooting for him. The two girls are polar opposites to eachother yet both quite unlikeable and Antonio is a bit creepy and hardly in it. Some of the other characters like the weird gypsy family are quite creepy though.

The most interesting thing about this movie, to me, is the virus itself. It culminates as a rage virus and the infection/turning rate is super fast. The person infected will start to seize almost immediately whilst coughing up black blood they then turn ultra violent. Soon after this they will collapse again, their eyes go cloudy and the violence continues. They do bite and tear at human flesh but they seem mostly out to just beat the B'Jesus out of their victims. The virus is not transmitted by bites or bodily fluids in fact there is a lot of speculation as to how the virus is contracted. Is it a rabies thing? Is it an airborne pathogen? Is it in the water? Is it a fungus? Is it a man made substance? All of these things are a possibility and one of these is the culprit but I don't want to spoil it completely for you. The annoying thing about this virus is that people do come back from it. I guess that from a budget saving point of view this works well as they can rinse the whole cast through the virus a few times and watch them come out the other end. This does make things confused at times as you lose track of who is or isn't infected. To me this it is not even a true "infection" movie if they go back to normal but there is still a body count as such. Anyone that isn't infected who gets attacked by the infected (and are not a main character) will die. Same if you are infected and end up getting killed in the ensuing frenzy. The brief turning sequences are pretty cool and seeing the unlikeable characters go through this several times over is quite amusing and they do look awesome. There is a fair amount of violence and blood but not a huge amount of inventive kills. There is an un-funny ongoing glaringly obvious gag (of sorts) involving impalement on a branch that gets boring very quickly. 

It's funny how a few years gap in between watches can change my mind so much. This is probably my least favourite infection movie so far. It does have it's moments, the set pieces are eerie,  the score is inoffensive and the ending certainly does ramp up the impending doom but it's too little too late for me. I score SUMMER CAMP (2015) 2 brains out of 5.

SUMMER CAMP (2015) (should you want to watch this) is available on Amazon Prime and Blu Ray and DVD.