Killer Campout

By Jamie Lisk • Jun 29th, 2006 • Category: Horror

Frank D’Agostino has had quite a storied career in the movies, which spans over a decade. Since 1996, he’s performed everything from producing to writing to working as an extras coordinator on a handful of films, including the Drew Barrymore vehicle Fever Pitch. In 2001, he even worked alongside one of my favorite directors, Jay Woelfel, as an A.D. on his films Ghost Lake and Demonicus.

However, it wasn’t until 2005 that Frank D’Agostino finally decided to take the ultimate plunge and direct his first film. Thus, I was quite excited when I received a copy of his obscure debut effort Killer Campout in the mail. After throwing it in the old DVD player, the first thing I noticed was that he was using his pseudonym—Victor Franko. Not a good sign, I thought. In hindsight, whatever professional concerns he had about attaching his real name to the project, which apparently cost around five hundred dollars, seems almost unjustified. This is a very good first effort, considering.

The plot revolves around a group of seven teenagers who decide to get away to the woods for a weekend camping trip. All sounds well except that the fairly isolated forest area where they intend to set up camp is near the spot where a couple of girls were murdered only a few weeks earlier – as exhibited in a harrowing opening sequence.

D’Agostino takes great care in the first twenty minutes, introducing the seven characters who will become obvious worm nourishment in the second forty minutes The first couple, Jason, played by bodybuilder Patrick Hickey, and his girlfriend Betty, played by Jessica Cabrera, aren’t so much interested in experiencing nature as they are in experiencing Brad and Cindy, the other guy/girl couple on board.

Anthony Goes, bearing an uncanny resemblance to mainstream actor Jeremy Sisto, plays Brad, the attentive boyfriend to the effervescent Cindy, played by Jillian Swanson (Cold Heart of Crystal Lake). Brad, who is shown fleeing his abusive father in an early scene, and Cindy, who chooses to bring along her mentally-challenged pal despite objections by her friends, are great together and work well as the film’s moral center. You can bet money that they’ll make it into the final act.

The third couple, characterizations obviously borrowed from Sleepaway Camp 2, are a pair of camo-clad apathetic stoner girls, Dilly and Dolly, played by Channa Yem and Jana Granville. These two, obviously created by D’Agostino with the intent of upping the body count tally, lack any real development or interest. Their sloppily-scripted discussions involve only a handful of forgettable topics including getting high, arson, and freaking out Cindy’s brother with overblown stories of a monster lurking in the woods. Lastly, James Granville (A Stranger Within) is totally over-the-top as the nerdy, mentally-disabled Ernie, who tags along on the trip at the urging of his friend Cindy. You can almost bet money that Ernie won’t make it even one minute into the second act.

Across the board the performances are great, and with the exception of Dolly and Dilly, the characters are rich and absorbing, from Jason’s trepidation at asking Brad and Cindy to swing, to Cindy’s loyalty to Ernie, it’s easy to suggest that D’Agostino spent a good deal of time developing his characters – something I wasn’t expecting when I sat down to watch the film.

After settling into the camp, the seven teens quickly see their numbers slowly whittled down one-by-one by a deranged backwoods killer—the proverbial boogeyman who never really emerges out of the closet (or in this case, out from behind the tree), long enough for us to get any sense of his reasoning or purpose. Clad in a pillow case liken to the one used by the maniac in the 1977 cult film The Town That Dreaded Sundown, he comes off as more caustic than frightening.

To the film’s credit, there’s a pair of interesting and totally unexpected twists that will surely leave the viewer with their mouth agape in stunned disbelief. I know that I was caught off-guard, and will probably never enter a tent without checking first.

Lyndsey Purchon (Harrison Macauley Is Going to Kill Me) does an absolutely amazing job of providing some realistic gore/make-up effects here, including one gruesome scene where a person has their head smashed to pieces by a large mallet. The soundtrack by Bill Lumb is also surprisingly good. Filtering out the two opening songs, which sound lifted from a swanky 70’s porn movie, the music is unsettling and really helps lend some atmosphere to the proceedings.

The film tends to lose traction by the sheer over-abundance of slow-motion shots, as evidenced in the pivotal final moments where numerous shots are loitered to twice their actual running length over and over again. After a while you get the sense that the editor was doing his utmost to pad out the running time, much to the detriment of the overall film.

Killer Campout is a rather harmless entry into the slasher genre, made good by some really high energy performances, realistic gore, and a great soundtrack. I recommend.

Three stars.

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