Originally published in print, September 2021.
Illustration by Eve Smith.
Wet Hot American Summer (David Wain, 2001)
Following the counsellors of Camp Firewood on the last day of camp in 1981, Wet Hot American Summer is a parody of the teen sex comedies popular in the 1980s. The film features an ensemble cast of great actors and comedians, including Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, and Saturday Night Live alumni Molly Shannon and Amy Poehler. They all star as camp counsellors trying to make the best of their last day, which for most involves getting with another counsellor, while also preparing for the final day talent show. Wet Hot American Summer has a quirky brand of humour often found in similar absurdist spoofs, which might not please everyone, but has given the film a cult classic status. Counteracting some of the more surreal and dark scenes, there are still some sweet and innocent moments to be found in the interactions between the characters.
Camp Rock (Matthew Diamond, 2008)
What could be better than a boy playing guitar for you at summer camp? Maybe that boy being Joe Jonas. Jonas stars as arrogant teen idol Shane Gray, who is sent to Camp Rock to teach until he can correct his bad behaviour. While at camp, he falls in love with a mysterious voice, which unbeknownst to him belongs to camper and aspiring singer Mitchie Torres (Demi Lovato, in their breakthrough role). While Shane searches for ‘the girl with the voice’, Mitchie finds herself in trouble after lying to her fellow campers about her mom’s job to make herself seem cooler. When the truth is revealed, she becomes the laughing stock of the camp, jeopardising her friendships and dreams of becoming a singer. As expected from a Disney Channel Original Movie, the ending sees both Mitchie and Shane learning—through the power of song—that it’s always best to be your true self.
With Nick and Kevin Jonas also starring in smaller roles, it’s notable that Camp Rock’s stars are still successful recording artists over a decade later. While the plot is questionable at times, and the hairstyles even more so, the film’s soundtrack features fun bops from both Lovato and the Jonas Brothers. Camp Rock is a perfectly nostalgic, if not incredibly cheesy, film for those who grew up watching Disney Channel in the 2000s.
Friday the 13th (Sean S. Cunningham, 1980)
While summer camps have become a common setting for horror films, Friday the 13th was the original summer camp slasher, with its release in 1980 kicking off the subgenre as well as one of the biggest horror franchises of all time. It follows a group of camp counsellors who arrive at Camp Crystal Lake to reopen it over 20 years since its original closure, even though superstitious locals have warned them about the camp’s violent past. Going against all warnings, they start setting up for the summer, and begin to be murdered off one by one, in excessively gruesome ways, by an unseen killer. While the Friday the 13th franchise is probably best known for its antagonist, Jason Voorhees, he’s only seen very briefly in the original film as a child, not becoming a main antagonist until the sequels. Although this means that the first Friday the 13th is missing one of the franchise’s key elements, there is more focus on the camp counsellors and the mystery of who is trying to kill them.
SpaceCamp (Harry Winer, 1986)
An alternative to the usual cabin-in-the-woods summer camp, SpaceCamp sees a group of teenagers and a Star Wars obsessed kid named Max (played by an adorable ten-year-old Joaquin Phoenix) attend camp at the Kennedy Space Center, where they learn about NASA and mimic real astronaut training. Joining them at camp is a malfunctioning NASA-built robot named Jinx, who quickly becomes Max’s best friend. The group of campers are given the opportunity to sit in a space shuttle with their instructor, astronaut Andie Bergstrom (Kate Capshaw) during a routine test. However, Jinx hacks into the computers to give Max a chance to live out his dream of going to space, causing the space shuttle to launch with the campers inside. Now stuck in space in an ill-equipped shuttle, the group must use what they have learned at camp to figure out a way to get back to earth before they run out of oxygen.
Unfortunately, SpaceCamp was released only a few months after the Challenger space shuttle disaster, and while the film has a happy ending, the central theme of a dangerous space mission caused it to perform poorly at the box office. 35 years later, the film can now be looked back on as a fun space adventure made during an optimistic time for space travel, with the bonus on containing one of future Oscar winner Phoenix’s earliest performances.
Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown (Bill Melendez and Phil Roman, 1977)
It seems as though there’s a Peanuts television special for every occasion—from the beloved A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, to the lesser known specials for election day, a trip to the circus, and even Arbor Day. But summer camp is so important for the Peanuts characters, that it gets its own feature film. Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown sees Charlie Brown and his friends attend Camp Remote high up in the mountains. While struggling to adjust to life at camp, Charlie and the gang are challenged by a group of bullies to compete in the camp’s annual raft race, which they have won every year through cheating. Although the plot is simple, the cheerful and adventurous spirit is bound to put a smile on your face.
Fear Street Part 2: 1978 (Leigh Janiak, 2021)
Based on the book series by R. L. Stine, Fear Street Part 2: 1978 is the second in a trilogy of new Netflix horror films. The first film shows a group of friends in 1994 discovering that an evil spirit has been haunting their town for over 300 years, and ends with a lot of dead bodies and a call from a mysterious woman who says she survived the same killer once before. Part 2 brings us back to the summer of 1978 in Camp Nightwing, where we meet teenage outcast Ziggy (Sadie Sink) as she, along with her fellow campers and counsellors, attempt to survive a massacre and find a way to stop the curse.
The film has clear influences from the teen slasher flicks of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, particularly the aforementioned Friday the 13th, but also serves to expand on the mythology from the first film. The concept of releasing an entire horror film trilogy within the space of a month is interesting in itself, as the second and third films feel less like the awkwardly disconnected sequels that often arrive a few years after an original horror film, and more like an expansion of the already established story that you might find in episodes of a miniseries. The format also fits nicely with the plot, as each film explores a different era within the town’s history.
