Camp Blood (2000)

In my long, and varied, history of movie-watching (for fun, professionally, or for university), I've sat through a lot of rough movies, but Camp Blood is possibly the worst film I have ever seen.

Made with a budget of about $1, the script is bad, the acting is bad, the camera work (and film stock) is bad.

The colour is washed out for most of the movie's duration so the characters have yellowy, Simpson-like skin and sound quality fades in and out (depending on how bored the boom mike operator was, I guess).

Camp Blood is a sad attempt at a low-budget slasher that, thankfully, sinks in to that precious reality of "so bad it's bad". This is a film that deserves a fan-commentary track, MT3K-style.

There's an attempt at a backstory - a man wearing a clown mask in the woods who likes to kill people - but it doesn't really make any difference to the plot.

From the gratuitous nudity in the first five minutes (tricking you into thinking the film will be full of T&A... it isn't), through several mind-blowing moments of what-the-frakkery to the supposedly clever "twist" ending which is just risible, Camp Blood can only be enjoyed by those who truly revel in crap cinema - or are totally wasted.

I cannot stress how bad this film is.

It's bad. Really. Bad.

Then, back in 2018, Paul (who had watched the first Camp Blood with me on one of our regular "film nights") stumbled upon a sequel to Camp Blood on Prime Video (Ghost Of Camp Blood), that was released that year, which led me to investigate further and discover that there are, in fact, numerous sequels to this steaming pile of poodoo.

Currently, IMDB lists 13 titles in the franchise that began in 1999 (including the 30-minute Camp Blood: The Musical, which I don't think has anything to do with the the other movies whatsoever):

• Camp Blood 2 (2000)
• Within The Woods (2005)
• [Camp Blood: The Musical (2006)]
• Camp Blood First Slaughter (2014)
• Camp Blood 4 (2016)
• Camp Blood 5 (2016)
• Camp Blood 666 (2016)
• It Kills aka Camp Blood 7 (2017)
• Ghost of Camp Blood (2018)
• Camp Blood 8: Revelations (2019)
• Camp Blood 666 Part 2: Exorcism of The Clown (2023) 
• Camp Blood X: Animated (2023)
• Camp Blood 9: Bride of Blood (2024)
  
  

At the time, Wikipedia went someway to explaining what is going on here:

[Writer/director Brad] Sykes quickly followed up his 1999 release of Camp Blood with a sequel, Camp Blood 2, in October 2000. A third unofficial film, Within the Woods, was released five years after that, in 2005. Sykes wrote and directed both sequels and actress Jennifer Ritchkoff reprised her role as Tricia Young for Camp Blood 2, but did not return for the third film.

Four sequels were released beginning 2014 with Camp Blood: First Slaughter, which was written and directed by Mark Polonia, and is sometimes referred to as Camp Blood 3. Three more instalments were released, Camp Blood 4, Camp Blood 5, and Camp Blood 666, all of which were released in 2016. Like First Slaughter, these films do not take into account the third movie created by Brad Sykes in the Camp Blood series, Within the Woods.

Check that out: THREE of the sequels came out in the same year. They must be sooooo good!

And yet, because all the 'official' sequels were available to stream 'for free' to Prime members of Amazon, Paul and I were perversely - masochistically - tempted to tip our toes in the murky waters of these other movies.

Just to say we've seen (a selection of) them and survived...

But then again, life is short, and these are hours of our precious time that we'll never get back.

I applaud the filmmakers' enthusiasm, and by all means make these movies for your friends (I know I used to), but for the sake of global sanity don't foist them on the rest of us who are scratching around for decent horror flicks.

Fool me once, shame on me, try and fool me a dozen times, shame on everyone!