Another bunch of kids unwisely decide to spend their vacation playing lumberjack in an isolated forest area where a crazed retard dressed in animal skins shoves pointed things into intruders. As these films go, Camp Site Massacre is not too bad - Davis seems to have his mind on the Southern Comfort / Deliverance end of the genre as opposed to the Friday the 13th / The Burning atrocities. The kill count is surprisingly low, so the director falls back on unfashionable concepts like atmosphere and action to build up suspense. More is made of the forest than in most cheap 'don't go in the woods' films, with some striking natural settings and a good, shivery moment when the killer blends chameleon style into the gnarled base of an uprooted tree. The cast is above par for this kind of exploitation - Adrian Zmed from the T J Hooker TV series, Lewis Smith from Southern Comfort, Darryl Hannah from Blade Runner and, very peculiarly, English aristo Rachel Ward from Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. The best performance comes from John Freidrich as an acid-dropping, semi-psycho Vietnam veteran organising his holidaymaking friends into an amateur combat team to resist the backwoods fruitcake. It's well done, it's restrained, it's reasonably exciting, but withal, Camp Site Massacre is still just another teen jeopardy movie.
KIM NEWMAN

First Published In: City Limits no.93 (15 July 1983) p.20 (UK)

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