“You call it cookin’, I call it revoltin’.”

Justin’s rating: Can summer camp be boring? I’m afraid I learned that, yes, it can be.

Justin’s review: There are few locales that hit my nostalgia button as hard as summer camps do. As a kid, this always seemed like the perfect place for bonding, adventures, and pre-college hijinks, and I ate up any books, TV shows, and movies featuring camps. As an adult, I’m always on the prowl for more movies that can smack that button once more.

How about 1979’s Summer Camp, a Meatballs ripoff with a dash of Animal House “inspiration” to boot? That’s not necessarily a bad combination, but you’d probably not want it made on the ultra-cheap by a guy who mostly did pornographic films.

Camp Malibu is on its last legs, and as a Hail Mary last-ditch effort, the camp owner invites successful and wealthy former alumni (do summer camps have “alumni?”) for a free weekend getaway at their old stomping grounds. The plan is to butter them up, hit their nostalgia buttons, and see if some much-needed cash infusions and repairs might happen.

The idea of a camp reunion where old friends reconnect and forge new memories is pretty solid. In fact, it’s the idea behind one of my all-time favorite camp flicks, Indian Summer. That was a touching and charming outing loaded with great character writing. This? This is dozens of random, forgettable characters turning a campground into a hormonal free-for-all. Classy, this is not.

As I see it, there are four major problems with Summer Camp. The first is that there really aren’t any main characters with recognizable names and traits (that is, aside from the obvious Bluto homage). Thus, there aren’t any character arcs or development, and nobody takes the opportunity to refer to summer camps of yore and shared past histories.

Second, this flick is just badly made. The sound, the editing, the pacing, the [insert anything here and you won’t be wrong]. I’m honestly shocked that it made $1.4 million, which is way too high for a movie of this quality. It probably got that only because it offered a lot of legal nudity in a pre-internet era.

Third, this fails to evoke true summer camp vibes. There’s far more of a focus on characters hitting on each other and pulling dumb “pranks” than actually enjoying Camp Malibu as anything other than a meat market.

And finally, it’s simply, painfully, completely boring. Nothing happens of note, other than a lot of scattershot tomfoolery that fails to elicit any actual laughs. It’s a tedious movie that feels like exploitation, even if it’s the audience that’s being exploited.

I’m at a loss to offer any defense for this movie, nor should I have to stretch my imagination to do so. Summer Camp needs no further remembering, nor will it be invited to the next camp movie reunion.

Intermission!

• That was a very time-delayed reaction to “let’s save Camp Malibu!”
• Say what you will about this film, but this main theme is the grooviest, funkiest song to ever come out of the ’70s
• Why is that doctor making out with a centerfold picture?
• “You call it cookin’, I call it revoltin’.”
• The geologist has the weirdest mustache/sideburns combo
• Every Animal House clone has to include a fat slob who eats an awful lot
• The campfire song makes me want to smash that guy’s guitar
• Sleep in beds full of shaving cream and vasoline and dead fish
• So many tidy whities
• The panty raid seems like grounds for at least 10 lawsuits
• Hay tossing looks itchy
• What’s the whole point of this boys vs girls contest? What’s on the line here?