Film Review: Camping Trip tries and fails to subvert slasher-flick tropes
Camping Trip: 'a preposterous orgy of blood-letting'.
★★☆☆☆
(16s) opens at the end of the first Covid lockdown in the United States with two couples — Ace (Alex Gravenstein) and Polly (Caitlin Cameron), and Enzo (Leonardo Fuica) and Coco (Hannah Forest Briand) — celebrating their freedom by driving out to a remote lake to camp for the weekend.
Naturally, they find themselves stalked by a masked man, Doc (Ben Pelletier), although in this case the mask is worn for Covid reasons — but even if his intentions aren’t sinister to begin with, Doc wreaks havoc by double-crossing the lowlife criminals Orick (Michael D’Amico) and Billy (Jonathan Vanderzon) and unwittingly drawing the campers into the orbit of the dastardly pair.
Written by Leonardo Fuica, who co-directs with his brother Demian, is a blackly comic attempt to subvert the slasher-killer tropes by establishing the four campers as Covid-era society in a microcosm. It features a brooding original score, inventive cinematography from Demian Fuica Tibo L’Amy — and substandard acting performances from virtually everyone involved (Caitlin Cameron being the notable exception).
And, the plot, which opens in a very promising fashion, gradually descends into a preposterous orgy of blood-letting.
(internet release)
