Camp Utopia

I thought this one looked interesting as it had Stephen Pearcy in it as the killer cult leader. Turns out most of his screen time is during the opening credits when he wanders about his hippy commune with a silly smile on his face. After the credits he has about three lines, then kills the girl he is with and four others. After that he makes only one more 3 second appearance outside of flashbacks to the opening scene.

The rest of the movie is fairly blah to watch. There were no plot twists, no false clues, no building of suspense. The lighting was harsh in many scenes, too bright and washed things out. For a low budget the effects were OK, quite a bit of blood.

The premise is some campers go back to the sight of a hippie massacre 30 years later and run into some problems. They start dying. Actually they are being killed off, but do not realize it until there are only 2 left. I was surprised when the first one got it, but after that it was pretty apparent who would go next and who the killer was. Not a whole lot to recommend in this one, although hopefully the people making it had fun.

Having just seen Ratt in concert, I was interested in seeing Stephen Pearcy's "acting debut" in Camp Utopia. He's fine unfortunately this is a real waste of a rental due to the poor dialoge, bad acting, low quality film. This movie is the epitome of low budget in every respect.

[good things]

Aside from the very brief T n' A, the only good parts of the movie was the opening "Timothy Bach massacre" sequence, and the beheading in the tent. Ranger Rogers was funny, but stupid. I suppose he was suppose to be the "Crazy Ralph" and the "Officer Dorf" all in one. The story could have worked, the budget killed the movie, and quite possibly the direction. The actors weren't great, but they were tolerable.

[the bad]

Whoever (Robert Madero or Skippy McGriff?) wrote the script really needs to rethink their career. They took a neat idea and destroyed it with bad dialog and a stale plot. There were no "Red Herrings", false clues, suspense, plot twists, false scares, there was nothing that makes a great suspenseful slasher movie. The kills were very cheap and boring, the directing lacked, the camera angles did not work, and the killer was very obvious from minute one. Note to screen writer; If you are going to have a surprise killer, don't give her away in the first scene by talking about her "past" and how bad it was. DEAD GIVEAWAY.

[final thoughts]

Another independent slasher film with a miniscule budget. I really expected alot out of this movie, I really enjoyed certain scenes, but it wasn't a movie I could really get into. The killer (as I stated above) was very obvious, and they did nothing to make you think anyone else could have been doing the killings. I think the in the director's mind, he thought the pre-credits sequence of the "Timothy Bach massacre" would lead viewers to think he was the culprit, but most fans know that would rarely be the case. This movie is an obvious attempt to sell DVDs with the camp slasher moniker, T n' A, and cheap kills. Watching the movie you can tell the screen writers at least did their homework with the carbon copy "dumb" law enforcement, in this case it was Ranger Rogers. They inserted the campfire scene where the local legend it told. They even let it be known that there would be no contact with civilization. They didn't bring their cell phones! Watching this movie, I wasn't completely disgusted, I just really didn't get into it. Some low budget movies may be badly produced, but they still play well-- this didn't. The movie dragged, and was anti-climatic. The ending was predictable, and when the credits rolled I felt relief.