Camp Hell

source: Camp Hell

A psychological study of the horrors of fundamentalist indoctrination. It's a competent, well mounted, and professional looking film for a low-budget effort. The movie delivers some creepy moments and a scene or two that scares (in the Horror movie method). But it is not a slasher, gore, or monster movie. One gets the impression that the anti-religious elements are soft-peddled somewhat. Could the Writer/Director still be suffering from a real-life repression of his feelings ("based on true events" says the credits). The villainous brain-washers are portrayed as good-natured, sincere, folks doing God's work and don't have any real threat or diabolical intent. Isn't that the "horror" of it all? The harm and damage done by this type of closed-minded inculcation of young people. One gets the feeling that the reality is that these people, deep in their souls, know exactly what they are doing and are nothing more than evil, power-mad "monks" and it is disturbing that so many people fall for it. That is truly scary.

Camp Hell was worse than an after school special. I am shocked to find they spent $3 million on this film. I get the religious undertones of guilt and torment these teens go through in a church community but the title is really deceiving. The direction, pace and plot was also pure torture to observe. What made this movie even worse is the fact your waiting for something scary to happen based on the suspenseful trailer. However, it appears Lionsgate spent more time on the trailer than the actual movie. I rank Camp Hell as one of the worse horror films I've ever seen because it was: (1) really bad; and (2)it took itself so seriously.

I just saw this film and it blew me away. For some people, this film will be a disappointment. Why? Because people are expecting a conventional horror flick. They see "religion" and "demon" and think: "Oh, exorcism movie, not again." This film takes the religion theme to a whole new level. It's basically a social commentary on the dangers of how some people interpret religion. Religion itself has nothing wrong with it, it's how people interpret it that makes it such a touchy subject. The concept of "Saint vs. Sinner" is executed beautifully and it will make you think long after the credits have rolled. If it doesn't, then maybe films like this one simply aren't for you. I've seen many people on here talking about how this is not a horror. This is not true, but not false either. Horror is subjective. Some see blood-and-gore flicks as horror, some say horror is something psychological. Is this a horror film to me? Absolutely. Jump scares, dramatic music and tension doesn't equal horror in my book. That's evoking a natural human reaction known as shock. Jump scares aren't a valid horror device because it doesn't evoke fear. Fear is being afraid of what is to come, not screaming with your heart going 300 BPM because someone just jumped out of a closet to really loud musical effects. Camp Hell is a very interesting and beautifully executed psychological horror film that pushes the boundaries of what people perceive as horror. If this doesn't apply to you, you're watching the wrong genre of films. Harsh? No, simply an opinion. The horror community needs more films like this.

I have never seen such a travesty of horrible Christian hate clichés in ten movies put together, much less put all into one movie... Did this prejudice as hell director have a wild hair up his butt or was he given a propaganda type agenda to make it look like Christians were like white supremacist type psychotic Nazis? Like these morons that raised their poor kids by imposing totally regimented Catholic NOT EVEN REMOTELY BIBLICAL self propagated concentration camp antics brainwashing their kids to their own agendas. Makes Christians basically look like a Jim Jones poison kool-aid cult followers. Wow talk about reversal in roles..30 years ago they ostracized Christians hating Gays now it's like like the other way around totally... It's like you used to not admit you were Gay back then now you are afraid to admit you are Christian.... Scary movie indeed.... the evil spirits here were the movie producers for sure. Literally a nauseating movie much akin to when Mad Magazine makes horrid fun of first run movies. "Aaack!!" as Bill the Cat would say... GT

i rented this from redbox, and was pretty disappointed in it. i'm a fan of all types of horror movies, but in my opinion, mr. vanbuskirk could have done a lot more to give it some kind of menacing atmosphere...it's like i spent most of the movie waiting for the movie to start, honestly. there were several side stories, none of which were brought to conclusion, or developed enough to be anything more then an addition to a confusing movie. camp hell had some potential, but seems like the director was so intent on trying to fit everything he wanted to do in one movie that he ended up with too much stuff, too little time. i would skip this. at first i thought it was a new genre, Christian horror...after reading an interview with him apparently this was not the case, but it still didn't turn out very well.

This movie was not a horror movie. Jess Eisenberg was on the cover of this movie but had probably about a minute or two in the movie. If I see a picture of a famous actor on movie cover, I expect to see a whole lot more of him. The movie is not worth renting or buying. Don't waste your time renting it! Oh and to the gentlemen who said Lawsuit. This type of storyline has been done to death. Some kids going to some camp of some type and being chased, haunted or whatever by some madman, demon etcetera. Your Teaser trailers only show some guy running around in some fangs and blue make-up. Also, Even if you try to take them to court, You have no clue how long that script has been written and approved and copyrighted for a film format. Besides, They can use any storyline that they want as long as it doesn't follow the exact same format of a particular piece.

this is a movie where nothing happens seriously, you wait for something to happen but nope. its mostly a waste of time, do not rent this trust me it is very bad! there is one thing that happens, the movie ends. the only thing i liked about this movie was that how bad the camp was and how bad the priest was if you don't believe me give it a rent then you will!basically there is this kid that doesn't like Jesus or god so they send him to this camp where they try and help him believe then the kid starts having nightmares and and the priest there trying to help him is to religious and says these terrible things to him and doesn't want them to have any contact with the girls there. thats basically it.

First of all, if you do not believe in Christ/Satan and the whole ten yards of Bible, don't bother watching this because you will find it very uninteresting. Basically, this film reflects on today's religious groups of naming Christianity/Catholic, about how a lot of the religious leaders of those groups are leading the people on a wrong path other than what was truly meant for us by God. According to the Bible, today's Christians have entered the "New Covenant" where Christ sacrificed himself for us to cleanse us all and redeemed all our sins, and through His blood we were born again. From that point on we received God's grace, love, forgiveness and resurrection, with a new Life. So the key is "GRACE". But many of the religious leaders tend to emphasize on the "Fears & horrors of Sin" which only leads to guild, that does nothing but keep the people bound in the darkness of sins. This, gives power to the Devil. What the film is trying to show is that Satan feeds on those fears. Those same fears weaken all believers and render the prayers useless because through those fears the Devil have reached the inner spirits of the believers. The priest was allowed to be "taken" by Satan because he condemned the boy and thus have sinned in the eyes of the Lord, when he was supposed to show the same level of mercy as Jesus did. In the end the boy gave up the faith because he could no longer bear it. This tells us that the way today's religious leaders are doing will keep driving people away because the true teachings of Christ are long gone under religious rules and systems. We're supposed to be spiritually-free, and not under oppressions. This is somewhat a good film if you're a believer. I gave it a 7 because it could have been made better, with better scripting/direction.

Over here it's called camp hell, a perfect title, it was indeed hell to watch, or in the US it was released as camp hope, yes, i hoped it was over. What was this that I just watched, luckily I paid almost nothing for this piece of crap. I thought that you couldn't get worser than the Twilight franchise but it could be done. This is all about not having intercourse or don't *. And don't get me wrong, you won't see any of this. This is for me just a promo for fundamental Christians. Nothing else happens. No horror, no scary parts, no nudity, no nothing except 3 dead pigeons beheaded, man was I afraid. If you are a Christian in real life than you will surely * on this one but for the pagans, as they call it, don't visit camp hell.