For some filmmakers a sub-genre is simply a tool, used to explore something much deeper in the human condition, using these well worn themes and characters as a shorthand to plunge the depths of what drives us as humans.
Avalon Fast’s CAMP, which just screened at Fantastic Fest is one of those films.
The film is the story of Emily (Zola Grimmer), a young woman defined and haunted by tragedy and grief. To help deal and process with some pretty heavy hits we witness in the early moments of the film, her father suggests she get away from it all and spend her summer working as a counselor at Christian Camp for troubled children. While on the surface the film has Emily encountering a coven of witches at the camp, who derive their power from inflicting trauma on others, this film has so much more to offer – peering just from below the surface.
The first thing that had me thinking there was something much more to this film was how our protagonist tackles her trauma onscreen, which was through a deeply moving and emotional performance by Zola Grimmer. She immediately grabs the audience with her rather nonchalant, yet shocking truth offered up, in a drunken game of truth or dare. It was a delivery that was so nuanced and loaded, that I couldn’t look away for the rest of the film. It really sets the tone that this is going to be a much different film than you’re probably expecting — if you simply read the blurb in the festival guide. There’s an emotional intensity that Zola maintains throughout the film that felt so raw and real, it’s nearly impossible for me to even comprehend this is her first film.
The second part is given the surreal nature of the film, some very distinct dialog choices, the Christian symbolism, along with its on the nose Craft-like premise – I feel like Emily’s story is something much more bleak than we’re led to believe. I think baked into this more conventional witch narrative that is going on through Emily’s perspective, is one woman’s journey through purgatory. Given her lack of faith and her relation to the events that caused to take her own life — she is tested in this scenario based on possibly her favorite film, because what does she know of heaven? It’s a take that really started to come into focus the moment she arrived at the camp – just called “Camp” – just waking up at the gates. Her test here is the young girl Eden she is charged with who she immediately shares an emotional connection with, because she sees a reflection of herself.
Visually CAMP is a collage of styles and mediums, going from HD, to VHS to animation at certain points, yet never losing the viewer. It’s how the film leverages that surreal visual poem aesthetic at certain points to further emphasize or highlight a particular action, dialog or moment that felt purposeful to the film’s deeper reading. It’s an indie film for sure, but director Avalon Fast is intentionally using every tool at her disposal to tell this story in such a way that it just coalesces into something much more than the sum of its pieces. It’s a nightmare wrapped in a dream, that’s shown in the cinema.
CAMP is a breathtakingly surreal indie oddity that works either way – as a Craft-inspired witch film or something much deeper and introspective with its moving meditation on faith and loss – and that’s what’s so great about it. There’s layers upon layers to dialog, symbolism, mediums and narrative that’s just there. For those just looking to simply pass the time, or those in need of something more, something to help, it’s there waiting for them. CAMP is the kind of sub-genre I spend my days combing through films hoping to find, something personal, taken seriously and can appease both the casual genre fans and those looking for something more.
