Camping Trip review
Frustratingly bad on multiple levels, Camping Trip is a thriller lacking much suspense, thrills or enjoyment.
The film’s big gimmick is it was shot during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eventually, this feels less like a means to tell an isolated, atmospheric thriller and more a convenient explanation for some of the film’s narrative shortcomings.
After months apart, two couples finally reunite for a getaway in the woods. The pandemic has hit both couples hard.
Ace (Alex Gravenstein, The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes) asks his BFF Enzo (co-director/screenwriter Leonardo Fuica) for a loan. Both keep their respective partners, Polly (Caitlin Cameron) and Coco (Hannah Forest Briand), in the dark about the dire state of their finances.
That’s a worry for another time as they’re all set to party in the woods. Fuica and his brother/co-director Demian Fuica aren’t in any particular rush to get to anything interesting.
Unless they think extended scenes of Enzo and Ace acting like goofballs is endearing. In comparison, Ace isn’t as annoying though he’s not exactly likable.
That’s more a result of Leonardo Fuica being such a lousy performer. With such a small cast, a weak link is hard to hide. Fuica gives himself the kind of prominent role that’s clear he’s working behind the camera.
Fuica comes off like he’s acting in a comedy instead of a thriller with his exaggerated line delivery and movements.
There’s a threat of something interesting when a mysterious man (Ben Pelletier) also arrives at the woods set to make a drop off with two rough dudes, Orick (Michael D’Amico) and Billy (Jonathan Vanderzon).
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This is the first major crack in the film’s unfavorable run-ins with logic. The area is still slowly emerging from a lockdown so an isolated drop off in the woods seems needlessly complicated. It’s not like there’s a crowd anywhere to catch this drop off or even care about it.
Planning his own double cross, the mystery man leaves his payoff in the group’s campgrounds. Despite seeing Orick and Billy’s handiwork, Enzo and company decide to have another party instead of immediately leaving with all this cold cash.
Naturally, Orick and Billy crash the party and insist on sticking at the campgrounds to wait on their “missing friend.” This is where the film is presumably supposed to get interesting, but by that point it’s exhausted any goodwill or hope of becoming interesting.
The Fuicas are big on disorienting direction. Whether from an excessive amount of arc shots, a copious number of sweeping drone angles and time lapse footage. It feels too often like their goal is to simply make viewers uncomfortable. And that’s before the out of nowhere orgy.
Just as irksome is the booming score, which is littered with clunky bass-heavy elements seemingly intended to create some forced tension. The best elements of the film are the cinematography during the campfire segments and the calming, peaceful wide shots of the lake.
Leonardo Fuica takes the script down an unnecessary path with some gratuitously violent sequences. One is played out in slow motion for maximum effect. It goes on too long to be effective. For the final act, Fucia abandons any logic for a supposedly shock, twist ending.
This doesn’t vibe with any of the meager character development Fuica established. Worse, it makes those early scenes all the more annoying considering the payoff.
By that point, Camping Trip should have long since been rained out. That’d be the only way to salvage this brutal and equally unsatisfying film.
Rating: 1 out of 10
Photo Credit: Gravitas Ventures
Check out Cabin in the Woods on 4K on Amazon.
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