NOTE: This review was written and published (in print!) in 1990, pre-IMDb, and when this movie had only been on VHS for a couple of years.
Cannibal Campout flick is one sick, shot-on-video puppy.
These four poorly defined a-hole characters ( they're supposed to be the good guys, but they're a-holes all the same) decide to head out to the deep forest to get some R&R ( oh, those high school pressures can just be a pain sometimes).
Naturally, they've been warned about a recent murder that took place in the area (and they hear it all over the radio), but do they listen? Of course not. And what's worse, the a-hole that warned them about the murder picks up another a-hole so they can play an a-hole joke on the unsuspecting a-hole lovers.
What none of 'em suspect (but we do) is that a family of psycho-defective cannibals lives in the forest. One chews scenery like a cow, one acts with all the ambition of dog feces, and the big, stupid one wears a pilot's helmet to hide his hideously deformed face (shades of Halloween, Friday the 13th and Chainsaw Massacre, perhaps?)
Once the killing starts, the loonies pull out all the stops. Nothing is sacred. They take one dude's glasses off, then ram a knife through his brain. They make a pregnant chick eat out of her dead friend's sliced open stomach, then they stab her and rip out the fetus to determine its sex. Now that is quite possibly the sickest thing ever captured on film, or, in this case, a camcorder.
The only nudity comes courtesy of a black & white flashback sequence, but at least they didn't forget to include it altogether, meaning they do have some respect for B-movie conventions.
Once again, the villains walk away alive, leaving us with only a semi-humourous twist ending. Cannibal Campout comes so close to having the pregnant girl escape, only to snuff her out at the very last minute. This is where the flick loses points for originality. There's no one to root for, no heroic escape, no set-up for a sequel.
The college actors in this tape seem more interested in how they look swathed in fake blood and punctured with sharp instruments than in how well they can act. Ironically, some of them, notably the pregnant girl, are not bad actors.
For that matter, even the production values show effective use of a limited medium (the video camera), but what's the point if you're gonna poison your story with a bummer of an ending.
Well, at least they had the guts and gall to go through with that fetus gag. Despite its perversity, Cannibal Campout's no-budget ingenuity earns it much goodwill.
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