The October Zombie-Thon - Day 08: Zombie Campout

Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.08.2008

And to think, I almost forgot how much a zombie movie can suck.

ZOMBIE CAMPOUT (2002)



Written & Directed by: Joshua D. Smith
Country: USA

It couldn't last forever. I've been relatively lucky with this year's Zombie-Thon. Sure, it's only been a week, but so far the movies have been mostly enjoyable, with only a couple falling more into the "mediocre" department. And even then, at least a clunker like Mansion of the Living Dead had a healthy amount of boobage to keep me somewhat distracted from its lameness.

Well, it had to come to an end sometime. Nothing good lasts forever, and that's particularly true when it comes to the Zombie-Thon. You can't vow to watch this many zombie flicks and not expect the occasional stinker. I just never knew things would sink this low, this quickly.

And believe me, we're talking low. Zombie Campout is, without a doubt, the worst zombie movie I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing. I'd like to try to look on the bright side, but I can't think of a single positive thing to say about it – except, perhaps, that it has one of the more attractive female casts I've ever seen in a "shot on digital video" feature. In fact, while watching the flick I found myself daydreaming about jumping into the movie, Last Action Hero-style, and saving the two beautiful female leads from having to spend any more time enduring this drivel. A ridiculous fantasy, I admit…but a hell of a lot more entertaining than anything you're gonna get with Zombie Campout.

On the surface, its fairly generic tale of four camping friends forced to do battle with zombies created by a meteor shower probably doesn't make it seem all that different from the dozens of other homemade zombie movies released every year. So what exactly is it that elevates Zombie Campout from forgettable trash to an excruciating endurance test in unpleasantness? Oh, let me count the ways.

1 – It's fairly obvious that first-time "guy with a camera" (I refuse to refer to him as "filmmaker") Joshua D. Smith has no freakin' idea how to build a compelling narrative. His solution to this problem is to simply film everything. And so we are treated to every mind-numbing detail of the friends drive to the campgrounds. Mr. Smith, I have never made a movie, so I realize my advice comes with a grain of salt. Even still, I'm pretty sure that when your characters stop for snacks, you do not need to actually film a close-up of one character handing another a candy bar! Unless that candy bar is set to be a crucial plot-point (which would be kind of funny, but is unfortunately not the case here), we can probably live without that insert shot.

2 – I've often said that there are so many independent zombie movies because it's easy and fun to wrangle up a bunch of your friends and family and have them slap on zombie make-up. However, if you're planning to go this route, you might want to consider telling the friends playing the zombies not to visibly smile and laugh whenever they are onscreen. I'm not sure what these zombies found so humorous about killing and eating people, but I found myself wishing I was having half as much fun as they apparently were – although something tells me those smiles probably vanished pretty quickly once they actually saw what they had wasted their free-time filming.

3 – Self-reflexive humor is a poor substitute for original ideas. Over time, I've grown awfully tired of these low-budget horror films' constant game of "look how clever we are," usually accomplished by naming characters after famous horror directors and/or having the characters talk about what people in horror movies would do in their situation. Zombie Campout is no exception, periodically shoving lame, tired gags down our throats. Oh look, here's a character trying to convince his friends they are about to get killed by reading from the script onscreen. And hey, here's another character finding a Zombie Campout t-shirt in a store they've all holed up in. Truthfully, moments like these would probably be a little easier to swallow if they were a constant in the film, but they're so few and far between that they simply end up feeling like desperate (and oh-so-unsuccessful) attempts by Smith to write himself out of a scene that he has no idea how to finish.

4 – Look, not to sound like a perv or anything, but if you're gonna make a T&A movie, you better be ready to show some T&A. You can call me crass all you want, but it's obvious that this is one of the main reasons this movie exists, and yet it's frustratingly unwilling to go the full distance. Instead, we get scenes where the two female leads – who are supposed to be best friends – change into their swimsuits under their shirts, even though there's no one else around. Even worse is the scene where the friends end up driving next to a car with a topless woman at the wheel, and the entire sequence in filmed at a level which keeps the goods under the bottom of the frame. It would be one thing if the movie made no attempt to sell itself as a T&A piece, but since it does it only renders moments like these completely unforgivable. Nobody likes a tease, Zombie Campout, and that goes for shitty zombie movies, as well.

5 – The ending…oh, man, the ending. I normally make an effort to refrain from any major spoilers in these reviews, but forget that. This movie doesn't deserve any slack from me, and I can not let this dog turd of a "climax" go unmentioned. Throughout the entire film Smith allows every inane conversation between his characters to drag on way too long, and this reaches its apex in the final scene, when our heroes find themselves trapped in an SUV surrounded by zombies. They proceed to talk for what seems like an eternity (really only ten minutes, but in movie terms that's not much better) about how to escape. Eventually, after realizing that none of them know how to hotwire the vehicle, one of them simply finds the keys under the sun-visor. They start the SUV, and slowly drive away from the swarm of undead. And then…nope, that's it. The screen cuts to black – the end. Are you freaking kidding me?! That's barely exciting enough for an act break, let alone the final scene of the whole movie!

Look, I am very tolerant of shitty movies, but there is simply no excuse for something like Zombie Campout to exist. There is not one novel idea in the whole thing, and I really can not imagine what about this story gave anyone involved – including Smith himself – the energy and desire to spend time actually committing it to video. The bad movie lovers out there might read this review and be tempted to check this thing out for a night of MST3K-style mocking; but I warn you, nothing good can come of it. It's never bad in a "ha-ha" kind of way – more like a "what have I done to deserve this" kind of way. You know how some people are so stupid, even the other stupid people make fun of them? Zombie Campout is the cinematic equivalent of those people. This is the movie that Zombiegeddon and Hot Wax Zombies on Wheels make fun of. My only relief in this whole ordeal is that there is no possible way I will see a worse movie this month or perhaps even my lifetime.

To sum up, I didn't like it.

FINAL SCORE: 0 out of 4 Bubs (Avoid At All Costs!)